July 23rd
The epidural came out today (they left it in this whole time for pain management.). The plan was to move me from the CTICU to the surgical ICU, but the surgical ICU wasn’t open and they didn’t want to open it for one patient. I was instead moved to the Cardiac ICU. That evening I got out of bed for the first time and was able to pivot to the chair. I was in a lot of pain, but his was a huge step for me!
In the middle of the night I had an abnormal heart rhythm. It just felt like a palpitation to me, which I’ve experienced intermittently before even being pregnant. Everything up until this point had felt like progress forward. This was my first set back. Someone immediately came into the room and they put large AED pads on me incase they needed to shock my heart back into rhythm (cue the tears). I was a hot mess. The anxiety I was already experiencing skyrocketed and I was unable to sleep the rest of the night.
July 24th
That morning they reran an EKG, x-ray, and blood work to check on my heart functioning. Everything came back normal. Unfortunately, I had my first run in with an unhelpful physician after this event. A heart rhythm doctor was called to consult because of the abnormal rhythm. When I told him that I had experienced these palpitations in the past usually associated with anxiety, he told me to “please stop calling this anxiety” and then proceeded to say he wouldn’t tell me what it was because then I would google it and scare myself. Needless to say I asked to never speak to that doctor again. Thankfully, my wonderful cardiologist came to check on me and let me know that everything seemed fine and that there are a lot of things that can cause what I experienced, lack of sleep, stress, my low potassium/magnesium numbers etc.
July 25th
I was able to start solid food, which I was so pumped about! It had been over a week since my last food. However, when I tried to eat, I had no appetite and everything tasted like cardboard, even the bagel and cream cheese I craved all pregnancy. Apparently, this is common for abdominal surgery, but I was definitely disappointed. The only thing that sounded good was cereal with milk. I had to force myself to eat the rest of the hospital stay and for a few weeks after discharge. Thankfully my appetite did eventually return.
My anxiety was still very high and I needed someone to sleep in my room with me every night in order to even get 3 hours of sleep. Poor Steve had been sleeping over every night and was absolutely wrecked. We forced Steve to stay at the hotel and had my mom sleep over that night. I remember listening to music so that I didn’t have to hear the sounds of the ICU. Our wedding song came on and I balled my eyes out thinking about how lucky I was to still be here. I just couldn’t believe I had made it through what everyone was telling me happened.
That night, soon after I finally fell asleep, I woke up feeling like I was drowning. I was coughing and sounding like I was choking. I was absolutely fine and have no idea what I was dreaming about except that I felt like I was drowning.
