July 26th
Things were looking good, my abdominal incisions were doing well and the drain I had there was draining less and less. I was able to begin walking a few feet at a time with a walker, which was a great improvement from the previous days when I could only stand for a minute or two at a time. The plan was to head to a rehab facility once I was discharged, to gain strength and endurance so that I could walk again.
The only negative this day was that my white blood cell count was elevated, so they were worried about a potential infection. I had a lot of emergency surgery that first day, so they’d had me on prophylactic antibiotics in hopes of staving off any infections.
My ability to sleep continued to be an issue and was only exacerbating my anxiety. Under the doctor’s suggestion, I tried Melatonin. The next morning I told the nurse I felt like it made me hallucinate because I had a panic attack in the middle of the night. Apparently, what actually happened is that there was a code blue alarm for L&D in the middle of the night, which trigged my panic. A code blue that I later learned was for a mom suffering a suspected Amniotic Fluid Embolism, that she did not survive. I don’t have the words to describe the overwhelming grief and survivors guilt I experienced when I learned this the next day.
July 27th
Things were continuing to improve. My WBC count was trending down, but still high so they needed to keep an eye on it. My heart was looking great. That morning I was able to walk without the walker and then that evening I was walking up and down stairs. No one really understands how this progressed so quickly. I just remember feeling like I wasn’t in pain anymore and at this point I was mostly just on Tylenol for pain, Dilauded when it got worse, usually at night. It felt good to be out of bed and walking so I continued to do it. At this point I was feeling so over being in the hospital, I just wanted to go home. My wonderful nurse could tell I was starting to lose it, so she suggested that I take a walk outside since I was able to be disconnected from the heart monitor for a little bit each day. The first time I went outside, even though it was in the middle of a heat wave, was magical. The ICU air was so dry for me, I actually had to start using a mouth rinse to keep my mouth moist when I came off the vent. Feeling the sun on my skin was the medicine my soul needed.
