Wherein the Great Procrastinator gets her comeuppance

I type this in the dark in my room at the Hotel. And by Hotel I mean Hospital.

Thursday of this past week I had the second ambulance ride of my life when I actually called 911 on myself and had them come and take me away. Not because I'm losing my mind, but because I'd lost an incredible amount of blood thanks to my inability to sit down and schedule surgery.

Long time readers know that the uterine fibroid I carry within my awesome body has reared its ugly head in the past, but this was like no other head rearing. No, sir. A  couple light months of it doing its thing combined with the blood thinners I am on for the clot in my knee resulted in me nearly bleeding to death.

Actually, I'm not sure I was bleeding to death. I was probably going to survive the day and in fact if I had NOT called 911 I would have been at work today just pretending that Thursday was a bad day and I was glad I stayed home because WHEW! If that happened in my OFFICE! wow.

Probably.

But...Something in my head said "I think that we're in trouble, and this is reaching unmanageable levels and you had maybe honestly seriously consider calling for help."

I called Doug instead. I said "If I were to need an ambulance what would you say about..."

Doug's reply was "hang up the phone and call the ambulance and I'm on my way home. Goodbye. Do it. Now."

So I did.

The rest of those last few moments at home Thursday afternoon are a blur of my daughter trying to get three dogs upstairs to lock them in my room, a grumpy lady cop, a helpful lady EMT, several male officers, firemen, ambulance drivers all in my living room, me trying to walk outside barefoot and them insisting I sit down and put shoes on ("but, it's a waste of time and I just want to ambulance...")

I know I passed out in the ambulance.

The ambulance guy asked me a million times what day it was and I told him "Fucking Thursday alright already, Jesus, stop ASKING me that look at your CELL PHONE" before passing out.

I apologized to him for swearing at him.

The hours that followed in the ER were painful, bloody, and vomity. I actually was vomiting for the first time in forever because of pain. IVs, drugs, towels, nurses holding me and putting cold compresses on the back of my neck, my husband arriving... these things all blended together.

At about 6pm I told Doug that I was worried that Geoff would be disappointed if he didn't get to Boy Scouts, and asked if I should call around for a ride for him. Doug drove him and arranged a ride home.

I cried and cried and cried because I couldn't believe I had gotten myself into this position. Why didn't I just sit down months ago and schedule the hysterectomy? What was I thinking? Why am I so unfocused on my own physical well being and always focused on others...?

The ER doctor had a beautiful tie on and his hands were very warm and comforting.

A good friend of mine is a surgical nurse at this particular hospital and she arrived and hugged me, held me, cried with me, got the run down from the other nurses, went and got the OB/GYN doctor on call, had a meeting with her, had her come to me.

Drugs.

Bleeding stops.

Relief of pain.

They bring me upstairs to my room and admit me. Why are they admitting me? I just want it to stop the bleeding and the bleeding stopped, right? You can send me home now. I am fine! I am fine! I am fine! come on!

But no. I have an ultrasound.

They state we have to "evacuate" the organ. So they give me drugs to recreate what I was just going through. It is awful but feels more in control than what I was feeling at home. Not sure how much of that was the drugs or me gaining calm and relaxation, and understanding.  Thursday night was rough but that controlled chaos with an IV to dance with, nurses to hold me, eventual sleep, and relief of cramping and cessation of bleeing.

Friday: Insert a cardiac filter called a "greenfield" filter to keep any pieces from the DVT clot in the back of my knee from moving up to my heart should they decide to go on an adventure. That filter has a 2 month shelf life and has to be removed by the end of March.

Friday: Another ultrasound. Shows that nothing really has changed on the overnight, there is still a lot of blood. Schedule D&C to evacuate the uterus of the blood that is still in there. Send samples to the lab to make sure that I am not full of cancer or extraterrestrial DNA. I think the later may be true.

Saturday: Meet with hematology about the clot and how to treat it immediately. The last medication I had was Wednesday, which means the clot could be all "I'M GONNA GET BIG AGAIN AND SWELL UP YER LEG STUPID!" so they put me on Heparin and are monitoring my blood levels every 6 hours...

Sunday: No action, keep Christine still and happy and let the Heparin do its thing.

Sunday: Watch the Super Bowl and question every reality I'd held about football over the past couple of months as Peyton Manning is eaten alive by the Seattle defense. Congratulations Seattle, you deserved that. 

Monday: Schedule hysterectomy for Wednesday.

Monday: Huge chinese food feast brought to me by Carrie which we spread out and enjoy and laugh and  make all the nurses jealous because we know how to party up in here.

Monday: Two units of A+ blood transfused into my body. All those years of donating and I get a little bit back. Hmmm. Lots of thoughts around that process.

And that is where we find ourselves now. What comes next, now that I have extraterrestrial DNA and radiated super spider blood transfused into my body? What kind of shenanigans are we going to get into?!

Tuesday: Wait for pathology on that blood sample stuff and that extraterrestrial DNA I might be carrying. We have to know. Mandatory, you know.

Tuesday: eventually stop the Heparin, not sure if it is 6 or 12 hours prior to surgery, but we turn it off so my body can reclot things if necessary on Wednesday.

Wednesday midnight: No food or drink until further notice.

Wednesday, not sure when: Escort the Uterus to the nearest exit, bid it farewell, and get the hell on with my life.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday... recovery here.

Monday next week, home to recover there for about six weeks.

That's our game plan kids.

And all of this comes to today, to this day, to this week, because for the past three years I've had the talent of saying "I'll do it next month. I'll call the doctor and get on the dance card after we do this thing..." What thing? oh, camping, or canoeing, or packing for four months, moving for 2 months, oh a Barenaked Ladies Concert in the middle of the summer. Twice! Can't miss that! Oh and then the unpacking. oh! and holidays and I have this nice new contractor job that I do not want to lose so I can't say "I need to vanish for six weeks or so, is that okay?" and they keep renewing me month after month and I keep accepting because work! money! fun! happiness!

Oh I have what? I have a uterus that wants to kill me? Oh it's not so bad. It is one day a month really and I'll just tell my boss I can't come in on that day and look how cool she is and understands! I am so lucky!

Maybe they'll hire me as a full time employee and I can take Short Term Disability about six months after I start working there because I think that would be fair and ethical. None of this "Oh hey, you hired me Monday but next Tuesday I'm outta here for six weeks! Suckers!" No. Not me. A good person would work for like 6 months before dipping into the benefits package like this.

But no.

All the factors and the lining up of ducks in their little rows and the "maybe this'll happen" and "Oh, this month it fell on a weekend so I didn't miss work!" or "Hey! It fell on New Year's Eve and I have the next day off!" None of this wrangling and getting to the point where the next 3 weeks could be lived "normally" as going to happen again.

The decision was made FOR me, to stop putting shit off and take care of myself. To be honest, it is the best time of year to be laid up for six weeks. February and March are not my favorite months. So okay, I'm cool with that...

The only thing I'm not cool with is no income. I don't know where that stands, and am not going to blog about my hopes, dreams and possibilities because they may not come true. I don't want to set up for failure any possibilities I would like to see happen. Suffice to say, whatever happens happens.

I'm in a hotel hospital. I have leftover chinese food in the fridge. Ambien is an amazing drug.

More later.