Monday, March 5, 2012

Our Horrible Trip to the ER

This weekend was supposed to be somewhat of a celebration.  Evan is off nights as I posted about HERE and though he was on call this weekend, we were still relieved to have him home sometimes.

Turns out, the weekend didn't go as planned AT ALL.  On Saturday night, I kinda craved some Mexican food and since Evan's beeper had been going off every 30 minutes all day, we decided to take advantage of a Mexican restaurant literally 2 minutes away from the house.  We enjoyed our dinner together as a family, Liliana was a dream as always, and though Evan's pager went off a few times he didn't have to rush off to the hospital for the first time that day so we were HAPPY.

As soon as we got home, Evan got paged and had to leave.  I decided to plop on the couch, have a little pity party, and put on the stupidest show I could think of while I worked on an etsy order I got over the weekend (highlight of the weekend!  Got my first order! WOO HOO!).  When Evan got home around 11, I told him the Mexican food didn't settle too well and I felt like throwing up.  I haven't felt sick like this in over a month, so I don't know if it was pregnancy related or what.

Long story short: I threw up around 11:30.  It was pretty miserable.  I threw up so hard that a ton of capillaries on my face burst and I looked like I had chicken pox yesterday.  They're still there, but make-up does a decent (note: not perfect, but decent) job of covering them up.

Wish I was kidding, but while he was cleaning me up and cleaning out the trash can, he got paged and headed back to the hospital.  POOR THING. 

He crawled back in bed around 2 am and was at the hospital at 6:45 on Sunday morning.  He got home in the early afternoon and had to head back a couple hours later.  Not an hour after he left, I went upstairs to put Liliana down for her nap.  On my way downstairs, I felt my foot on the first stair.

And then it happened.

I fell down the stairs.

HARD.

When I stopped on the landing, I just started BAWLING.  Panicked.  Terrified. 

I knew I had bruises on my body, and yes I did notice that I was in a huge amount of pain but more than anything, my body didn't know how to handle the trauma of my having done something to compromise the health of Gloria. 

I immediately called Evan (the phone slid down the stairs with me because I had it in my hands) and he could hardly understand me.  I was incoherent, crying, and panicked.  I think I mustered up something like "I just fell really hard down the entire flight of stairs.  I'm hurt.  Gloria. Gloria. Gloria."

He just said "I'm coming home."

I don't really know what happened at work, but I think it went something like telling the upper level resident "I have to go" and fortunately the upper level told him "LEAVE."

15 minutes later we had ice on my butt (got majority of the impact there).  I called my Aunt and just vented out to her.  She is SUCH an amazing woman.  I don't know what I would do without her.  She called my cousin and my brother and those were the only 3 people from my side of the family that I wanted to know.  My parents are on vacation and I didn't want them to worry.  Plus, I was just too panicked to talk to anyone.

We finally got to the ER and waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited. 

We brought Liliana to the ER with us.  She made me feel better by giving me a massage.


And then she painted me a picture.


Shortly after, Evan's aunt, as usual, was our saving grace and came to get Liliana.  She ended up keeping her until nearly 11 o'clock at night, because that's how long the rest of our day took.  It was a long day, needless to say.

So we waited more.  And more. 

Evan was getting REALLY pissed off.  He kept telling me, "I don't want to pull the 'I'm a doctor here damn it!' page."  Turns out, he should have.

The second the attending came in (around 8 pm) he looked at Evan and you could almost see him mutter ...

"oh shit."

Well what do you know?  Afterwards, we received VIP treatment!

ER Doctor: "OHH, why didn't you tell us it was you that was here?  Why didn't you tell us?  We would have seen you way sooner!"

To me, and excuse my French, this is bullshit.  Just because Evan's a doctor does not mean you should treat him or I better.  You shouldn't leave a nearly 20 week pregnant woman in the dark for nearly 4 hours not knowing if her baby is ok or not.  You should at the VERY least come in and apologize for your horrible service.  I am fine with them seeing us a little sooner just to help Evan out since he was BY THE WAY on call throughout all of this and answering pages, but to make it seem like this really upset me for other patients that don't have a husband who is a doctor there.  Seems unfair to me.

Anyway, nearly immediately after we finally saw them, we were wheeled up to labor and delivery and at 9 pm (5 hours after showing up) we heard Gloria's heartbeat.

Gloria's gorgeous, happy, PERFECT heartbeat. 

And she was moving around (like she is right now as I write this post).  And she looks WONDERFUL.  They did a quick pelvic exam to make sure my cervix was still closed and that I hadn't leaked any fluid.  All looked 100% and we were on our way home.

Exhausted.

Relieved. 

SORE.

By the time we got Liliana for Evan's aunt's house, put her to bed, ate something (because we hadn't had anything to eat since having a sandwich at noon), and got ready for bed it was nearly midnight. 

We fell asleep SO quickly.  I sent an email to work and told them "don't expect me at 7:40 like usual.  Let's try more like 9:15."  I just knew I wouldn't be able to muster it.  I showed up at 9:15 and look tired, my butt looks like it's been to hell and back, but I'm fine.

As for Evan, he was back at the hospital from 1:30 - 4 in the morning and back again at 6:15 this morning.  He needs to sleep.  But my husband, seriously, is the most amazing man on this planet.  You see, Evan is FINALLY doing Urology this month and while call this weekend was ROUGH he finally LOVES what he's doing.  I just got a text from him while writing this post "Holy crap I love this stuff!  Can't wait to tell you all about it."

Evan's off the next two weekends in a row.  As a result, this wife loves this Urology stuff too! : )

And while my butt and Evan's sleepiness might disagree, all seems ok for now.  One thing is for sure, I will be grabbing the rails EVERY TIME I walk down a flight of stairs from now on.

4 comments:

  1. Whew I'm so glad you and Gloria are ok!! I agree, that is crap how the ER treated you. If they could've seen you earlier they should have regardless of who you were.

    You would think they'd at least listen for a heartbeat immediately. Ugh

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  2. I am so relieved you and Gloria are ok. I wish I could have been there to help. It's hard to be away from you, my closest friends. And when I hear this story it saddens me to know I was of no use, being so far away. But I am relieved, I am relieved that you and Gloria are ok. I promise I will be there someday as you are for me, especially for Liliana, my beautiful Goddaughter. In the mean time, be safe, protect yourself, protect your family and know that I think of you all every day.

    Eternally your friend,
    Mikey

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  3. Glad you and baby are okay! Scary!

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  4. i'm so glad you and the baby are okay. i hate that that happened to you. and i'm totally with you on that bit about how just because your husband's a doctor shouldn't mean yall get better service. EVERYONE who enters that hospital should be treated with great hospitality and care.

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