On Friday somewhere around 10-10:30 while sitting at the computer and doing my basic morning surfing when I realized the right side of my tummy and back were starting to ache. I went and laid down on the sofa on my left side for a while. Within about 20 minutes, the pain was what could be termed ‘bad’. I went and emptied my bladder, (a full bladder can irritate the uterus) and ate some soup, just incase my body was complaining about a lack of food in a new way. Also, I thought walking around might help if one of the boys was lying on a nerve. I laid back down. The pain got worse. I finally called Ben who came on home.
Ben suggested me getting on all fours to see if that shifted what we were thinking was a baby on a nerve. It made no difference. The pain was quite bad by this point, but somehow still seemed to be intensifying. Of course, being Good Friday, the dr’s office was closed. Ben called the exchange and the dr on call called back. He said it could just be ligament pain. I didn’t think that was it. I know ligament pain can be bad, but you could draw a line down my front and back and it was only the right side that hurt. He told us to go ahead and go to the Women’s Evaluations Unit to get checked.
When we got there, they decided to take me next before the others who were already waiting. I don’t know if it was because of the twins, or me moaning in pain in their waiting room. I do think they made the right decision. The other women did not appear to even be pregnant and were busy smiling at Becca and admiring her while they casually flipped through their magazines.
The nurse got my blood pressure and info. She said that she would find one of the midwives and update her with my info. After a bit, I starte to feel nauseous. Ben went off to find me something to expel into and came back with the midwife and the nurse. They went ahead and gave me an iv. After at least half an hour, they called down a dr from Labor & Delivery. the dr came down, did a cervical check and called down a resident from l&d. I couldn’t keep much straight at this point. The dr on call for my dr came in at some point. He called down a surgeon for a general surgical consult. I do recall that the surgeon was wearing a blazer over his scrubs.
At some point during the afternoon, I was given a shot of morphine, which didn’t touch the pain but made me nauseous. A shot of something for the nausea. Another shot of morphine. Something else for the nausea. Somewhere around there I was taken to a labor & delivery room. I was given a shot of demerol. I was able to sleep for short burst before the pain hit in waves. I was given another shot of demerol. The demerol was taking about 30-45 min to kick in for me. They wheeled downstairs somewhere for an ultrasound. They had pretty much ruled out appendicitis at this point. They were thinking something to do with my kidney. The only time I opened my eyes on this trip was to see a l&d room where they had put up a sign saying that no males were allowed. I sure hope they were having a girl.
The ultrasound tech scanned for my appendix and my kidneys, next they had a dr scan my kidneys. I was lying with my back to the machine, so even if I did have my eyes open, I wouldn’t have been able to see. Ben said he could hardly see the healthy kidney, but my right kidney was huge and black.
The final decision was that my uterus was compressing or had caused a kink in the ureter(?) from my right kidney to my bladder. No urine was passing through from the right side at all.
Back up in the l&d room, they hooked me up with a morphine drip and a pump. That was when the pain was finally manageable. This was about 6:30-7. We had arrived at the hospital at 1. The pain started at home at 10. That was a lot of pain. The pump refreshed every 8 minutes. There were several times during the night that I hit it, but had to wait. You can call me druggie.
The last time I pushed the morphine pump was around 3am Saturday morning. It seems that the way they choose to treat this condition initially is with pain control (thank you!) and fluids. They had me on 150 ml(?)/units(?) of saline an hour. I assure you that by Saturday night I was getting up every two hours to pee with an overfull bladder. This was off the iv alone, not with me drinking anything. From the time I got to the hospital until 5pm Saturday, they had the babies on monitors. I didn’t get hardly any sleep at all Friday night, since the babies kept moving around so much. Apparently the morphine didn’t make them sleepy at all. The nurse had to keep coming in and shifting the monitors. Those monitors and the straps get very uncomfortable after 28 hours of digging into you.
The dr on call for my dr came in Saturday morning. He said I looked quite a bit better then when he had seen me last. I said I was feeling fine. I said that I hadn’t used the pump since about 3am. He told me I would be in the hospital for several days and went ahead and left. It wasn’t until Ben came in later with Becca that he told me I had a continual morphine drip going. For some reason, I had been thinking that the only drugs I was getting were through the pump.
At 5pm Saturday they moved me to the high risk pregnancy/bed-rest unit. I had to wait until I saw another parter of my dr’s on Sunday morning to ask to have the morphine taken away. It was taken away for 1-2 hours Saturday night when my blood pressure went down to 86. Unfortunately, the nurse hooked it back up later. The dr I saw on Sunday morning said that if all continued to go well, I may get to go home the first half of this week. I was ready to go home Saturday.
I finally got to see my dr this morning. He had been out of town for the weekend, and I guess noone else wanted to make the call to send me home. He asked me how my pain level was. I said that I had had no pain since Saturday at 3am. I also said my husband wanted me at home to cook his food. The dr said I could go home this morning and here I am.
