two outings
May. 25th, 2009 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraLast weekend (it takes ages to manage to post anything these days) I had two diametrically-opposed experiences in separation from the baby.
The first was planned and awesome: last Sunday morning I left Josh with Juniper and a bottle of pumped milk in the fridge, got on a bus, and met Chaos in Davis to see Star Trek. The movie was a lot of fun as was the crazy freedom of just going out and getting on a bus and going somewhere. I even found a four-leaf clover while waiting at the bus stop.
The second was unplanned and horrible: last Monday night I went to the ER with what turned out to be a sudden severe migraine, from which I have been slowly recovering all week (through a whole little parade of the greatest hits of migraine side effects, nausea and stiff neck and dizziness, whee).
The longer story: while I have gotten numerous one-sided throbbing headaches in the past, they usually start off not-so-bad and proceed to get worse, sometimes to the point of quite bad if I fail to take some tylenol or ibuprofen. This was different - I'd had some headache the day before, after the movie, but hadn't thought about it all day Monday. And then the right side of my head just exploded, like, overwhelming pain in seconds. I remember thinking "oh god I'm never going to see my little girl again", those words exactly, and then when the pain continued and I didn't lose consciousness, thinking that I needed to at least let Josh know that something had happened, and staggering over to my laptop, where we had an open irc session, and trying to type with my left hand while gripping the side of my head with the right. He didn't reply immediately and I was really in quite appalling pain (I concluded later that the last time I had been in that much pain, I had been in labor for fourteen hours - labor then went on to get a bit worse, although never nearly as frightening) and all I could think was "golden hour", that if I *was* having a stroke, I couldn't afford to wait for Josh to get home to get medical help. And I really thought I might be having a stroke, or something; it was so sudden and so severe, and I was sitting on the toilet at the time which is such a classic place to have a stroke. So I called 911. I sort of had some vague idea when I called that paramedics might show up and determine that I was okay and that would be that, but in fact they not surprisingly wanted to take me to the ER, and I was still in horrible pain so the idea of going somewhere where someone might give me drugs sounded really nice.
Juniper had been asleep in the cosleeper when it happened, and I had made it down to the front door to open it and then focused on calling Josh rather than trying to make it back up to her. One of the paramedics was about to go fetch her when my downstairs neighbor appeared and offered to stay with her - she asked if there was milk in the fridge for her and I felt really guilty that there wasn't, since I hadn't restocked from the previous day. There was some discussion about what hospital to go to - it later turned out that my neighbor did know where we were going and was able to relay it to Josh, but at the time I didn't realize she knew, and there was this long period of sitting in the ER with terrible cell reception, trying to call Josh and let him know where I was and where the baby was, having just enough signal to be able to hear him saying "I can't hear you", until he showed up, with the baby, who as it turned out had stayed asleep the whole time. That was really the point when I felt like things were going to be okay. Well, that and the point where they decided I wasn't bleeding in my brain - there was never a serious question of whether I was having a stroke, but there did turn out to be a question of whether I might be having an aneurysm, so, once I was finally seen I had to have a CT scan and then a spinal tap when the CT scan didn't show anything. (It turns out it is much much easier to hold still for spinal needling while not having contractions.) Also, conveniently, it took them several hours to offer me anything for the pain, by which point it had ebbed to where I could get by with a couple of breastfeeding-compatible tylenol and turn down the shot of morphine. So I didn't even end up missing a feeding. Although if they had offered me that morphine when I first showed up I would have very happily let her have formula for the rest of the night... the pain had already gotten somewhat better in the ambulance on the way over, in that it had dropped from "clutching my head and sobbing" to "clutching my head and moaning", but it was coming and going in waves, and the waves coming in were still significantly worse than any headache I'd ever had, at that point. I would have been in much, much better shape if I had been able to take some tylenol right away at home, or while waiting to be seen at the ER, instead of having to wait for hours - of course, if I had been able to think of and carry out things like that, I might not have been calling 911 at all.
Hrm, this has gotten a little incoherent but I think I must post rather than edit since the baby could go off at any minute and who knows when I might get another chance to type with both hands. Um, to wrap up: ghastly horrific migraine, I'm really really hoping this was some crazy hormonal flux and is not going to be a regular occurrence, haven't seen a neurologist yet but am going to, am vaguely apprehensive about the bill for the thousand-dollar taxi ride when we're still paying all the co-pays from the birth, but thank god we have health insurance and I *can* say things like "if there was a chance that something major was happening and medical help could make a difference, then I was going to take it". (Oh, parenthetically about "birth" - the funniest moment of the evening was when I was asked if I could give a urine sample for a pregnancy test. I tried to explain that I had given birth seven weeks ago and hadn't had sex since but this was apparently not sure enough. I did not even attempt to get into the question of whether I was at a point in my cycle where a conception could show up on a urine test (no).) And we don't seem to have gotten swine flu from being in the ER. It was a little scary to have Junie there because of possible disease exposure, but it was really helpful to me to see her and know she was okay and not be worrying and wondering. She stayed helpfully asleep until we decided to wake her up to feed her so she wouldn't wake up frantic and hungry while I was in the middle of the spinal tap business, and then dozed happily on Josh until we left. Such a good baby. (And while I was waiting to find out if my brain was bleeding, feeding her and cuddling her was what I wanted to be doing most in the world anyways. I know it's trite but I am so extra grateful for every day I get with my beautiful little girl.)
The first was planned and awesome: last Sunday morning I left Josh with Juniper and a bottle of pumped milk in the fridge, got on a bus, and met Chaos in Davis to see Star Trek. The movie was a lot of fun as was the crazy freedom of just going out and getting on a bus and going somewhere. I even found a four-leaf clover while waiting at the bus stop.
The second was unplanned and horrible: last Monday night I went to the ER with what turned out to be a sudden severe migraine, from which I have been slowly recovering all week (through a whole little parade of the greatest hits of migraine side effects, nausea and stiff neck and dizziness, whee).
The longer story: while I have gotten numerous one-sided throbbing headaches in the past, they usually start off not-so-bad and proceed to get worse, sometimes to the point of quite bad if I fail to take some tylenol or ibuprofen. This was different - I'd had some headache the day before, after the movie, but hadn't thought about it all day Monday. And then the right side of my head just exploded, like, overwhelming pain in seconds. I remember thinking "oh god I'm never going to see my little girl again", those words exactly, and then when the pain continued and I didn't lose consciousness, thinking that I needed to at least let Josh know that something had happened, and staggering over to my laptop, where we had an open irc session, and trying to type with my left hand while gripping the side of my head with the right. He didn't reply immediately and I was really in quite appalling pain (I concluded later that the last time I had been in that much pain, I had been in labor for fourteen hours - labor then went on to get a bit worse, although never nearly as frightening) and all I could think was "golden hour", that if I *was* having a stroke, I couldn't afford to wait for Josh to get home to get medical help. And I really thought I might be having a stroke, or something; it was so sudden and so severe, and I was sitting on the toilet at the time which is such a classic place to have a stroke. So I called 911. I sort of had some vague idea when I called that paramedics might show up and determine that I was okay and that would be that, but in fact they not surprisingly wanted to take me to the ER, and I was still in horrible pain so the idea of going somewhere where someone might give me drugs sounded really nice.
Juniper had been asleep in the cosleeper when it happened, and I had made it down to the front door to open it and then focused on calling Josh rather than trying to make it back up to her. One of the paramedics was about to go fetch her when my downstairs neighbor appeared and offered to stay with her - she asked if there was milk in the fridge for her and I felt really guilty that there wasn't, since I hadn't restocked from the previous day. There was some discussion about what hospital to go to - it later turned out that my neighbor did know where we were going and was able to relay it to Josh, but at the time I didn't realize she knew, and there was this long period of sitting in the ER with terrible cell reception, trying to call Josh and let him know where I was and where the baby was, having just enough signal to be able to hear him saying "I can't hear you", until he showed up, with the baby, who as it turned out had stayed asleep the whole time. That was really the point when I felt like things were going to be okay. Well, that and the point where they decided I wasn't bleeding in my brain - there was never a serious question of whether I was having a stroke, but there did turn out to be a question of whether I might be having an aneurysm, so, once I was finally seen I had to have a CT scan and then a spinal tap when the CT scan didn't show anything. (It turns out it is much much easier to hold still for spinal needling while not having contractions.) Also, conveniently, it took them several hours to offer me anything for the pain, by which point it had ebbed to where I could get by with a couple of breastfeeding-compatible tylenol and turn down the shot of morphine. So I didn't even end up missing a feeding. Although if they had offered me that morphine when I first showed up I would have very happily let her have formula for the rest of the night... the pain had already gotten somewhat better in the ambulance on the way over, in that it had dropped from "clutching my head and sobbing" to "clutching my head and moaning", but it was coming and going in waves, and the waves coming in were still significantly worse than any headache I'd ever had, at that point. I would have been in much, much better shape if I had been able to take some tylenol right away at home, or while waiting to be seen at the ER, instead of having to wait for hours - of course, if I had been able to think of and carry out things like that, I might not have been calling 911 at all.
Hrm, this has gotten a little incoherent but I think I must post rather than edit since the baby could go off at any minute and who knows when I might get another chance to type with both hands. Um, to wrap up: ghastly horrific migraine, I'm really really hoping this was some crazy hormonal flux and is not going to be a regular occurrence, haven't seen a neurologist yet but am going to, am vaguely apprehensive about the bill for the thousand-dollar taxi ride when we're still paying all the co-pays from the birth, but thank god we have health insurance and I *can* say things like "if there was a chance that something major was happening and medical help could make a difference, then I was going to take it". (Oh, parenthetically about "birth" - the funniest moment of the evening was when I was asked if I could give a urine sample for a pregnancy test. I tried to explain that I had given birth seven weeks ago and hadn't had sex since but this was apparently not sure enough. I did not even attempt to get into the question of whether I was at a point in my cycle where a conception could show up on a urine test (no).) And we don't seem to have gotten swine flu from being in the ER. It was a little scary to have Junie there because of possible disease exposure, but it was really helpful to me to see her and know she was okay and not be worrying and wondering. She stayed helpfully asleep until we decided to wake her up to feed her so she wouldn't wake up frantic and hungry while I was in the middle of the spinal tap business, and then dozed happily on Josh until we left. Such a good baby. (And while I was waiting to find out if my brain was bleeding, feeding her and cuddling her was what I wanted to be doing most in the world anyways. I know it's trite but I am so extra grateful for every day I get with my beautiful little girl.)
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scary
Date: 2009-05-26 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-05-26 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-05-26 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 05:06 pm (UTC)Very scary stuff. The headache itself would have been bad enough, but worrying out Junie must have made it so much worse. I hope it doesn't happen again!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 02:10 am (UTC)And doesn't an experience like this make you think the people who say "having children makes you feel immortal" are ridiculously wrong? Nothing made me feel more terrifyingly aware that I won't go on forever like the fear of leaving my kids behind. From the first week of foot drop after Jazz was born (sent with a numb leg and instructions to report pain which could indicate a lethal clot) to this week's infection, it's just one long, scary handshake with mortality.