Surgery - The Second

To refresh your memory: January, the first week of February, the second and third weeks of February, and my first surgery.

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I don't know what to expect. I know I will be tired because I haven't slept much and because pregnancy messes with thyroid hormones and I don't have a thyroid to pick up the slack. I expect to bleed but I don't. I don't expect to feel much pain but I do.

I am done with doctors. I am fragile and I am exhausted and I am completely unable to deal with the prospect of anything else going wrong medically so I try to tough it out. Until I can't tough it out and Shawn makes me promise I'll call my doctor.

My doctor isn't working (because of course) so I'm booked to see another doctor. He turns out to be a white-haired gentleman who looks at me over the top of his bifocals and tells me he needs to do an internal exam (because of course). I am in so much pain that I inadvertently scream during the exam. "Your cervix seems to be a little tender," he tells me, delicately, after I get dressed. He writes me a prescription for two antibiotics, which he tells me to fill immediately, and orders an ultrasound for the next day (because of course).

I go home and continue to not sleep. {Pro tip: if you ever find yourself not sleeping, and want to devour Netflix to while away the time, choose something light and fluffy. Do not watch every Broadchurch episode in two damn days. #themoreyouknow}

I'm back to beautiful, young ultrasound techs. I am beyond caring. Both the external and internal ultrasounds are excruciating. I drive home and hobble into the house. The pain becomes to bad that Shawn tells me we need to go to the emergency room. We arrive and the  emergency room is packed. I start to have a panic attack and force Shawn to take me home. There is no sleep.

Early the next morning Shawn takes me to the small hospital near our house. We know there is no OB/GYN on-call and they don't do D&Cs but we're desperate. I wait for three hours and then am strapped into an ambulance and taken to the hospital where I had my 32-hour ordeal the week before. Arriving at emergency in an ambulance speeds the process up but I still have to wait in an emergency overflow area until I pass out and suddenly I am priority one. Note to future self: low blood pressure + no sleep + an IV of the good drugs + standing up to follow a nurse to the exam room = fainting.

Shawn isn't with me because I wanted him to be with Grady, and my parents are battling rush hour (with two bridges!)  to get to the hospital, so a very nice nurse, whose name I don't remember but who was on her first shift back after maternity leave, took my belongings and made sure they got to my parents unscathed. This is honestly one of the most unbelievable aspects of my entire ordeal. Chaotic does not even begin to describe the emergency room and yet my purse and iPhone remained untouched. Nurses have superpowers is what I'm saying.

Late in the evening, a day less than four weeks from the first fateful ultrasound, my second D&C is complete.

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