The first time someone comes to me falling apart I ask them "what's going on in your life? Have things changed? Has anything happened out of the ordinary?" Generally, they tell me something that goes like this: (I'll use me for an example.)
First of all, on May 5, 1984, I had a baby. She, Laura, was my second child. He, David, was my first. He was born on April 25th, three years prior. She came on the due date which was David's too.
With him, I had had a very easy labor but a very difficult delivery. In the final stages when I was getting ready to push, Dr. McKinley saw I was getting ready to tear so, without any numbing, picked up the scissors and cut two diagonal episiotomies which doctors hadn't performed since World War II.
I screamed bloody murder. Words cannot describe the pain I felt. I will never forget it. I have no idea how many stitches I had. I just knew the pain was indescribable. (Ask David today and he will tell you he's never met anyone with a bigger head. Seriously. He has little ears but a huge head.)
The labor was short, the delivery horrific, which caused major problems down the road that were life-changing.
I woke up at 3:15 a.m. in labor with Laura which, as I said above, was her due date. I woke Phil up around 3:30. Called Kathy Witty to come to take care of David around 3:45. She walked in about ten minutes later. Seriously. She said she was laying there awake and knew when the phone rang it was me. We walked out the door at 4:05 and drove to Glasgow doing about 85 mph.
I walked into the hospital eight centimeters dilated. The nurse said "Hold on honey. We'll get you prepped. You're getting ready to have a baby."
Once again I gave birth naturally less than two hours later. (Don't ask me why I chose to go natural again. I must have had a hole in my head. When I see women today who've just given birth after having an epidural, I am in utter amazement. Hair coiffed, makeup on, totally put together. Me? A different story.)
This time Dr. McKinley numbed me BEFORE the episiotomy. Yes, I had to have another one. I have no idea how many stitches this time.
As is normal after giving birth (or at least it was normal back in 1984) a nurse came in to massage my belly. I might add she was a young, inexperienced nurse, who years later I learned had been pulled from another floor because there were so many women in labor that night and they didn't have enough nurses. (The picture is actually of her and Laura.)
Thinking I was passing a clot, she asked me to go to the bathroom and sit down on the commode. She would get a bottle of hot water and at the same time I would push she would squirt the water and hopefully, the clot would dissolve.
About thirty seconds into my pushing she realized it was not a clot, but an attached body part--(I'm actually not sure whether it was my uterus or my bladder. Dr, Yurchisin, who later performed the hysterectomy said it had to have been my uterus.)
I'll never forget the look on her face when she asked who my doctor was and that she needed to call him. I told her Dr. McKinley. She left, came back, and told me he was coming as soon as possible.
A few hours later he came to my room, examined me, and told me he had seen one other woman worse than me. That my uterus/bladder had come out of my body but he thought Kegel exercises would take care of it. Yeah. That's right. The Kegel exercises would take care of my uterus/bladder coming out of my body. :-)
Five months later, on October 15, 1984, I entered Greenview Hospital for a vaginal hysterectomy and A. and P. repair, plus surgery to lift the bladder all at the same time. In layman's terms, it was a hell of a lot of surgery. (I've always taught my children if they were going to curse, to make it count--say it at the right time. And somehow I think I should have typed the word "hell" right there. Don't you?)
My bladder (I know this for sure) would come out of my body even just walking to the mailbox. Every time I was upright for any length of time I would have to push it back up in me to keep it from sticking to my underwear. I could easily see it if I tried. (Let your mind just go to see what other complications I might have had.)
I went into surgery at 8:00 a.m., came out at 12:00, hemorrhaged for two hours, never regained consciousness, went back into surgery at 2:00, and came out at 6:00. Dr. Yurchisin said I was hemorrhaging from behind the bladder--that he had had to take out every stitch to see where the blood was coming from.
Before ever waking up I started screaming for more pain medication. At first, I was given morphine shots every ninety minutes and then Tylox pills, as many as ten a day.
I wore a suprapubic catheter to void the urine which was retained in a bag on the side of my bed. I could not sit, stand, or walk without someone assisting me. At first, a nurse bed bathed me. Later Phil carried me to the shower, put me on a chair, washed my body, and dried my hair. I was hospitalized for ten days. On October 25, 1984, I came home.
Laura was five months old. David was three. I came home with the instructions not to lift as many as ten pounds. My husband's parents moved in with us for five weeks to take care of the kids, keep Phil from going insane, and do everything I could no longer do. I told Dot, "The kids are yours. Treat them as though they're your very own."
I went to my bedroom where I stayed for five weeks. We hired someone to turn our closet into a half bath so I didn't have to walk far to get to the bathroom.
What you've just read is "my story." I'm sure if you're falling apart or depressed you've got a similar one. You may have just never connected the two -- how you feel with what you've just been through.
Do you remember the quote I passed along in the post called "The First Panic Attack?" I said, "God made our bodies in such a way as to handle our stress until our minds are ready."
My body knew more about me than my mind would admit. Basically what it was saying was, "Listen up. You've put me through hell for the last three years and I'm not going to take it anymore. I'm shutting down. I don't want to hurt anymore."
When someone recounts something like I just wrote, I tell them they have every right in the world to be depressed. They deserve it. If they weren't, I'd be concerned because no one could go through what I went through and be unscathed.
My body basically said, "Look at what you've put me through. I've felt so many emotions, so much pain that you're not going to do this to me anymore. I'm shutting down. Sinara. Hasta la vista baby. I'm outta here. I'm going to be numb for a while. I'm checkin' out."
Like a muscle stiffens to protect itself when whiplashed, the body shuts down to keep itself from hurting any longer. The mind won't admit all the Hell it's gone through but the body knows. An alcoholic's body knows, long before his mind admits, that he needs to stop drinking. Likewise with someone who smokes.
Here's the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Take it and see if your body isn't telling you why you might be stressed.
Note: If you experienced the same event more than once, then
to gain a more accurate total, add the score again for each extra occurrence of
the event.
First of all, on May 5, 1984, I had a baby. She, Laura, was my second child. He, David, was my first. He was born on April 25th, three years prior. She came on the due date which was David's too.
With him, I had had a very easy labor but a very difficult delivery. In the final stages when I was getting ready to push, Dr. McKinley saw I was getting ready to tear so, without any numbing, picked up the scissors and cut two diagonal episiotomies which doctors hadn't performed since World War II.
I screamed bloody murder. Words cannot describe the pain I felt. I will never forget it. I have no idea how many stitches I had. I just knew the pain was indescribable. (Ask David today and he will tell you he's never met anyone with a bigger head. Seriously. He has little ears but a huge head.)
The labor was short, the delivery horrific, which caused major problems down the road that were life-changing.
I woke up at 3:15 a.m. in labor with Laura which, as I said above, was her due date. I woke Phil up around 3:30. Called Kathy Witty to come to take care of David around 3:45. She walked in about ten minutes later. Seriously. She said she was laying there awake and knew when the phone rang it was me. We walked out the door at 4:05 and drove to Glasgow doing about 85 mph.
I walked into the hospital eight centimeters dilated. The nurse said "Hold on honey. We'll get you prepped. You're getting ready to have a baby."
Once again I gave birth naturally less than two hours later. (Don't ask me why I chose to go natural again. I must have had a hole in my head. When I see women today who've just given birth after having an epidural, I am in utter amazement. Hair coiffed, makeup on, totally put together. Me? A different story.)
This time Dr. McKinley numbed me BEFORE the episiotomy. Yes, I had to have another one. I have no idea how many stitches this time.
As is normal after giving birth (or at least it was normal back in 1984) a nurse came in to massage my belly. I might add she was a young, inexperienced nurse, who years later I learned had been pulled from another floor because there were so many women in labor that night and they didn't have enough nurses. (The picture is actually of her and Laura.)
Thinking I was passing a clot, she asked me to go to the bathroom and sit down on the commode. She would get a bottle of hot water and at the same time I would push she would squirt the water and hopefully, the clot would dissolve.
About thirty seconds into my pushing she realized it was not a clot, but an attached body part--(I'm actually not sure whether it was my uterus or my bladder. Dr, Yurchisin, who later performed the hysterectomy said it had to have been my uterus.)
I'll never forget the look on her face when she asked who my doctor was and that she needed to call him. I told her Dr. McKinley. She left, came back, and told me he was coming as soon as possible.
A few hours later he came to my room, examined me, and told me he had seen one other woman worse than me. That my uterus/bladder had come out of my body but he thought Kegel exercises would take care of it. Yeah. That's right. The Kegel exercises would take care of my uterus/bladder coming out of my body. :-)
Five months later, on October 15, 1984, I entered Greenview Hospital for a vaginal hysterectomy and A. and P. repair, plus surgery to lift the bladder all at the same time. In layman's terms, it was a hell of a lot of surgery. (I've always taught my children if they were going to curse, to make it count--say it at the right time. And somehow I think I should have typed the word "hell" right there. Don't you?)
My bladder (I know this for sure) would come out of my body even just walking to the mailbox. Every time I was upright for any length of time I would have to push it back up in me to keep it from sticking to my underwear. I could easily see it if I tried. (Let your mind just go to see what other complications I might have had.)
I went into surgery at 8:00 a.m., came out at 12:00, hemorrhaged for two hours, never regained consciousness, went back into surgery at 2:00, and came out at 6:00. Dr. Yurchisin said I was hemorrhaging from behind the bladder--that he had had to take out every stitch to see where the blood was coming from.
Before ever waking up I started screaming for more pain medication. At first, I was given morphine shots every ninety minutes and then Tylox pills, as many as ten a day.
I wore a suprapubic catheter to void the urine which was retained in a bag on the side of my bed. I could not sit, stand, or walk without someone assisting me. At first, a nurse bed bathed me. Later Phil carried me to the shower, put me on a chair, washed my body, and dried my hair. I was hospitalized for ten days. On October 25, 1984, I came home.
Laura was five months old. David was three. I came home with the instructions not to lift as many as ten pounds. My husband's parents moved in with us for five weeks to take care of the kids, keep Phil from going insane, and do everything I could no longer do. I told Dot, "The kids are yours. Treat them as though they're your very own."
I went to my bedroom where I stayed for five weeks. We hired someone to turn our closet into a half bath so I didn't have to walk far to get to the bathroom.
What you've just read is "my story." I'm sure if you're falling apart or depressed you've got a similar one. You may have just never connected the two -- how you feel with what you've just been through.
Do you remember the quote I passed along in the post called "The First Panic Attack?" I said, "God made our bodies in such a way as to handle our stress until our minds are ready."
My body knew more about me than my mind would admit. Basically what it was saying was, "Listen up. You've put me through hell for the last three years and I'm not going to take it anymore. I'm shutting down. I don't want to hurt anymore."
When someone recounts something like I just wrote, I tell them they have every right in the world to be depressed. They deserve it. If they weren't, I'd be concerned because no one could go through what I went through and be unscathed.
My body basically said, "Look at what you've put me through. I've felt so many emotions, so much pain that you're not going to do this to me anymore. I'm shutting down. Sinara. Hasta la vista baby. I'm outta here. I'm going to be numb for a while. I'm checkin' out."
Like a muscle stiffens to protect itself when whiplashed, the body shuts down to keep itself from hurting any longer. The mind won't admit all the Hell it's gone through but the body knows. An alcoholic's body knows, long before his mind admits, that he needs to stop drinking. Likewise with someone who smokes.
Here's the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Take it and see if your body isn't telling you why you might be stressed.
Score Interpretation
| Score | Comment |
|---|---|
| 300+ | You have a high or very high risk of becoming ill in the near future. |
| 150-299 | You have a moderate to high chance of becoming ill in the near future. |
| <150 | You have only a low to moderate chance of becoming ill in the near future. |
Teresa, I think its only the grace of God which carried you through all this. I haven't had the severity of illness which you have had, but I did have major surgery when Scott was 8 days old for gall bladder. I too had episiotomies with each of my children, but was numbed for each one. I was given ether for our first child's birth--wasn't given a choice by my doc. Had an epidural with Scott from which it was so much easier to recover. The gall bladder surgery was so very painful long after the wound was healed simply because of the muscle groups involved! I can't imagine enduring what you endured and be able to deal with life! I know God has been beside you helping you find your way through this journey we call life! Thank you for sharing your story!! <3
ReplyDelete