Emergency!

Sunday, February 10, I flew home from my Grandpa's funeral. I rode the bus from the airport to my mom's house, where I stopped and called Dan to come pick me up. My stomach was hurting, so I tried to relax - although it hurt for several hours off and on, I thought I was just having strong stomach cramps or something.

Monday, February 11, I worked at home all day - alone. I didn't do very much that was physically exerting myself, which was probably a very good thing.

Tuesday, February 12, I woke up at 5:30 and was out the door by 6:10. That way I miss the worst of the morning traffic (6:30-9:00 AM are typically stop-and-go), and I arrive at work by 7:00 so I can leave by 3:30-4:00 and get home sooner. After a couple of hours of work that morning, I took a break and visited a friend in a neighboring cubicle/office. (A cubicle/office is a slightly larger, single occupant cubicle with a shower door for semi-privacy.) After visiting for a bit, I stood up to leave, and my stomach cramped again - badly. I made a funny face and some excuse about being sore, and I walked out of the cubicle/office. I made it about 10 yards, when I felt faint, so I leaned on the windowsill for a minute. When this didn't help, I staggered to the really really uncomfortable chairs nearby and sat on my knees with my head down. Needless to say, the first passerby thought this was odd, so he didn't leave me there - he waited until the cramps passed enough for me to walk down the hall to my boss' office. I told my boss I was hurting and that I was going to try to find a way home. Then I stopped at my desk, but walking and sitting were so uncomfortable that I didn't feel good sitting there, so I went to see if it was a bathroom-related thing. It wasn't, but I didn't make it back out of the bathroom. I called Dan to tell him I was hurting, but he didn't have a way to come pick me up (I take the car to work because my commute is a lot longer). I started to hurt so badly, and I called my mom, but she was just leaving Idaho for her flight home too. I crouched down on the bathroom floor, looking like I was praying or something. Some other people came into the restroom and asked if I was okay, and I said "no I'm not okay" and one of them went for help while the other two helped arrange some magazines into a pillow and someone found me a blanket. Boeing Medical (on-site) came, and I started to feel really faint. They kept asking me questions - my name and address, where it hurt, my husband's name and phone number, and was I allergic to anything, etc. For a while I was so grayed-out that I could hear them but only grunt one word or no answers, then I was back more awake and they had me hooked up to a finger-clip monitor and they kept taking my blood pressure, which was falling to about 60, then rising back to about 100. One of the Boeing Medical people was a really nice lady who laid my arm on her lap to work on me and she had long thick curly light brown hair and khaki pants - strange the things I remember later. The worst part seemed to be when they tried to figure out where the pain was coming from. They pushed (probably gently but it HURT) on different areas of my abdomen, and they all hurt, none really better or worse than any other. The firemen came next, asking the same kinds of questions, and somewhere in here they put a heart-rate monitor on me (it looked so good one of them asked if he could keep that printout for his next physical). And they started an IV line since my blood pressure was so low. And then it was their turn to push on my abdomen and try to figure out what hurt. Everything. I almost fainted again, and at some point I stopped answering their questions, and then I woke up again. Somewhere in here people kept stopping by - my boss John, and a friend named Tony saw me as he was exiting the mens room door across the way, and Cathy came and she fussed in a very nice way. And then the guys from the ambulance came. The same question routine and stuff all over again (and pushing on me to see where it hurt, which was still everything from below the belly-button to just below my chest), and there was a discussion of where they were going to take me. I'm sure someone asked if I was pregnant a couple times too - I said "technically I could be I guess" but I also told them I had just had a wierd period and been on Clomid for the first time that month. Someone decided I should go to Swedish Hospital - I'm not sure who it was. There were lots of theories going around - something about pressure on the Vega Nerve making me faint, or the sympathetic nervous system doing something. They mostly seemed worried about the low blood pressure. I mostly worried about the pain I think. So they helped me to sit and then to kind of stand up enough to sit down on the ambulance tray ... I mean the stretcher. I had to keep my feet in and my boss John had had Cathy pick up all of my stuff at my desk and loaded it in my backpack and they rolled me out of the building and the air was cold but not for too long cuz we got into the ambulance. The stretcher goes in and out of the ambulance so easily - just like on TV or in the movies how the wheels just step up and down. Or the EMT's are really strong. The Boeing Medical woman was in the ambulance with me for a bit but she got another call before a block or so, so she got back out. So me and one EMT rode in the ambulance. The ride was very bumpy, and every bump made my whole stomach hurt more. The guy riding in the ambulance with me asked me some more questions, and then when they were 5 minutes out of the hospital he radioed in to say we were coming with a 28-year old female, with abdominal pain, and when the radio operator asked if I could walk into the hospital he said no I couldn't. I also shook my head at that, which he thought for a minute meant I could walk - I mixed him up but he got it right and I stayed in the stretcher. My arms kept falling over the sides of the stretcher since it is narrow and the bars on the sides were barely enough for me to grip with my thumbs to try to hold on to so my arms didn't drop to the floor. In the ambulance one arm was against the wall, so that was okay, and the other arm I put on the EMT's lap which he was okay with - it helped that I didn't have to hold it up for the rest of the ride. Plus I almost fainted again on the ambulance ride. I think it was actually the 4th and 5th time that I almost fainted - I was trying to keep count - and I think I greyed out twice on the ride to the hospital. Then we pulled into the ambulance garage and they opened up the back of the ambulance and took out the stretcher. It was two men at that point, moving my stretcher around. The garage looked just like a garage - with concrete walls and ceiling, and a door into the ER. In the ER they were directed to room #4, so they took me in there. A lot of things happened in room #4, so I probably won't get them all in order. They moved me to a different bed - I think by helping me roll onto this board that then they could more easily push, and then I had to roll off of it - a very uncomfortable and painful process. At first it was the same questions - my name and age and address and phone number and what hurt. And pushing on me to see where it hurt - this was the fourth time around and it still all hurt. I think they tried a covering oxygen mask, but it didn't feel good cuz I felt like I wasn't getting any air and I struggled with it. And they took my blood pressure - but the blood pressure guy said they would rather take it while I was sitting up. Later I found out that my blood pressure had been dropping to close to 40 when I was fainting, but I didn't know that at the time - I usually only heard them talking about it when I woke back up and it was coming back up to something near 100. I think they took blood samples in there too. I directed someone to get my purse out of my backpack and my wallet out of my purse so I could give them my ID and insurance cards. I told them that my mom was Wendy in my cell phone and my husband was Dan and Julie in my cell phone. Then there was just me and the blood pressure guy and he started to sit me up and I warned him that I would faint and that I was feeling faint but he sat me up anyway. I had enough time to tell him "I feel faint" and then I woke up with several more people around me, including the ER doctor. He was asking a question and I answered him and he was like "Well, see who's back with us." So he asked me more questions, and one was if I might be pregnant. I said "technically" and explained that I'd had an odd, extra-long period, been on clomid, etc. He got someone in there with a catheter. I asked if it would hurt and he said he'd done it before and it hurt a lot worse for men than for women. So they did it and got a urine sample for a pregnancy test. He also had someone give me an ER ultrasound which showed lots of blood in my abdomen. The urine sample came back positive for pregnancy. The ER doctor called in Dr. Harvey, the OB/GYN on call that day and she hurried to get me ready for surgery. She explained to me that they thought I had an ectopic preganancy, and that they would remove the prenancy and whatever else they needed to in surgery - either the fallopian tubes, or ovaries, or whatever else necessary. I think about now I heard Dr. Harvey calling for a surgery room - saying it was an emergency and they needed it in 10 minutes. She also reassured me that I would be okay and they would take care of me. Then I was taken to the surgery floor (I think they ran with me - the corners seemed pretty hard like they were turning pretty hard or having to slow down a lot). We went on the elevator, and the person taking me warned me about bumps and such. Then we got to the surgery floor. I think Dr. Harvey had to check in and then they took me to the OR. Someone asked to make sure I knew what they were going to do, and I had to sign something. Actually I had to sign several things in the hospital, and I'm pretty sure the ambulance guy didn't get his formed signed cuz it was one of the times I was passing out. Up in the OR, they started a second IV, and the next thing I really remember was waking up.

Still Tuesday, February 12, I woke up in the recovery room. There were a few ceiling tiles that had pretty leaves painted on them, in some kind of mural. I think I still had on the oxygen tubes (the ones that stick up your nose) at this point. Then I was taken to my room in the hospital, and Dan and my mom were there. I don't exactly remember if Brian & Annie were there or if they were there later in the evening. It's all a little fuzzy by now. The doctor came to see me, and she said something like - "maybe you're related to a cat, because you're on your second life." This seems impossible now, but I never had really realized I was dying. One of those times I was going to faint and not wake up. I blame my ignorance on the pain - I was too caught up in thinking about how much it hurt to think about what all that pain meant. The doctor told me that they had found my ectopic pregnancy, that it had ruptured my left Fallopian tube, and that they had removed the tube during surgery. Before they could even find the problem, they had removed 2 liters of blood that had just bled out into my abdomen. The doctor was worried about the blood loss, since I had been bleeding internally, plus I lost more blood in surgery, plus there was still some internal bleeding as the surgery healed. I had the pleasure of wearing a shunt for a couple of days - this was a plastic tube that stuck into my stomach and attached to a little plastic bulb, about the size of a typical baster (the things you use to squeeze the drippings for the gravy).