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
On my way to see Cal at his nursery for the first time (instead of him coming down to see me)!
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.
Enjoying some outside time after my first shower in almost 2 weeks!
The morning of the 20th, I was taken back for my final ex lap and abdominal washout. They were able to close completely.
At 9pm that evening, they decided they wanted to try to take the ventilator out. I was brought out of sedation and immediately terrified. I tried to pull the tube. I started to hyperventilate. They said they needed me to calmly breathe over the vent for 40 minutes before they would pull it. Imagine waking up in the CTICU with a tube down your throat and remembering nothing except for being at the end of your pregnancy. It wasn’t looking like I was going to stay calm enough for them to take it out. Then my best friend decided that this needed to happen tonight. I needed to get off this vent. She came to my bedside put her hand on my forehead, while holding my other hand and spoke softly to me. Every time she tried to take her hand off my head, I hyperventilated. She stood there, after barely sleeping for 3 nights and willed me off that ventilator. I was taken off the vent that night and switched over to nasal oxygen. It took me a while to catch my breath and I needed lots of oxygen plus some steroid treatments to help open my airways. Now that the vent was out, I didn’t need to be kept as sedated, but that meant I was more aware of what was going on around me and as a result, absolutely terrified.
My bestie getting me weaned off the ventilator.
July 21st
I held my son for the first time while conscious. I unfortunately don’t remember this, but we have a video. I asked if he looked like a fish and whether or not he was a mutant, like X-Men. I had a weird obsession with water and asked my mom if she remembered when we were in the water together and how weird that was. I then began to question what had happened to me. My family decided to tell me it was a c-section, until they could come with a better plan of how to tell me what actually happened. One of my favorite stories from this time is when I would look around and ask Steve if everything was okay. He would, of course, say yes and I would look around and ask “are you sure, seems pretty fucked up.”
The first time I held my son while “conscious”. Five days after his birth.
July 22nd
This was the day I finally found out what happened to me. My family couldn’t decide who would tell me and what they would include. No one felt qualified to explain what happened, but they also didn’t feel like they had a choice. As they were discussing it, my OBGYN and anesthesiologist from Paoli showed up to visit me. My OBGYN offered to explain what happened to me. This is actually my first memory. I remember she was at my bedside holding my hand to the right of my head and my anesthesiologist was on my left side, down near my hip, holding my hand. I remember her telling me that I had an AFE. I remember mostly holding it together and nodding thinking it finally made sense given where I was and all of my tubes and lines. Then, she told me I needed a hysterectomy, and I started to cry. She was so patient with explaining everything I wanted to know. After they left, I rested for a while and then started to ask my family a million questions. Later that day I was finally able to drink fluids. Unfortunately, I went a little crazy with the drinking because of my dry mouth and threw up massive amounts that night. I proceeded to tell everyone that it was the most traumatic thing I’d been through. To which they rolled their eyes and reminded me of my son’s birth, 5 days prior.
Once at Lankenau Medical Center, it took them a few hours to get my settled into my room in the CTICU because I had so many machines attached to me.
July 18th
Around 3am the next morning, my Cardiologist came to speak to Steve and my mom. ECMO was keeping me oxygenated, and therefore alive, but they were having trouble getting my heart to start pumping strong enough again. They had already tried a few different drugs with no success. They told my family that they were going to try an Impella Device. They basically insert a tiny windmill-like device into your femoral artery up into your heart. The hope is that it will expel the blood from the left ventricle and allow the heart to start pumping strongly again. The doctors were clear that this was pretty much a last ditch effort. If this didn’t work my heart would clot and I wouldn’t make it.
Thankfully, it worked! After the Impella Device was inserted, I was taken to the OR again for another exploratory laparotomy and abdominal washout. They cleaned up the abdominal area, re-stiched some previous incisions, and re-packed me. They, again, left me partially open so they could go back in. The idea was to continue going back in to make sure the bleeding was still slowed and to clean the area since my stat c-section was unable to be done under the most sterile of conditions. At this point my neurological functioning was still TBD. They were attempting to keep my temperature down to heed off any neurological complications, but they needed to start warming me back up so my heart and clotting would hopefully return to normal.
Later that day, my team updated my family to let them know that my heart was starting to eject and that they felt like the Impella was working. The goal was to give me time to rest and they would run a few tests to check on any possible heart damage as well as brain activity.
The best moment of the day: Cal was transferred from Paoli to be with me. We met for the first time, even though I was unconscious.
That night, I opened my eyes, felt all of my tubes, and also moved my leg.
The first time I met my son. More than twenty-four hours after he was born.
July 19th
The next morning, I was brought into the OR for another exploratory laparotomy and abdominal washout. Again, they cleaned up the abdominal area, re-stiched some previous incisions, and re-packed me. They were able to close me a little more this time, but still left the incision partially open to go back in the next day.
My heart was finally doing it’s job again and looked great. They were hoping to downgrade my ECMO support to just lungs. When they took me back to test the functioning with the ECMO support clamped off, they realized my lungs were doing pretty well with just the vent, so they were able to take me completely off of ECMO just 2 days after the support had been initiated. They originally thought I would be on ECMO for a week or two.
My family celebrating me getting taken off ECMO support.
During my initial collapse on the 17th, everyone has their individual perspectives because they were all in different places. The timing of my AFE made it so that people were preparing to meet the baby, so they were already at the hospital or on their way there. The following are the perspectives of my husband, my parents, and my best friend. These memories are so important to me because I wasn’t there to have any for myself.
Steve
Steve and I had just decided that we were going to ask my mom to be in the room during the birth. Steve was so incredibly anxious that he admits (now) that he didn’t even want to be in the room with me. He thought it would be helpful to have another support person there for me, since he was struggling too. She happily accepted and went to tell my dad. My OBGYN checked me and let me know I was 10cm and that we we’re going to have a baby today. She left the room and moments later I said I wasn’t feeling right. The nurse handed Steve a puke bag to hold for me because she said sometimes people throw up. While he was holding the puke bag, I started yelling my heart didn’t feel right. Because nothing registered on the machine, Steve was assuming it was just my anxiety. But when my eyes rolled to the back of my head and I slumped over he knew something very bad was happening. When he wasn’t able to wake me up, he sprinted to the hallway to yell for a doctor. The nurse hit the code blue alarm and people came streaming into the room pushing Steve to the back corner. He just remembers pure chaos. He heard someone yell do we have a pulse, but doesn’t remember the reply. Then someone said we’re going to OR 1, but someone replied no OR 1 is booked, head to OR 2. They proceeded to rip lines and cords out of the wall and unlock my bed. The room emptied just as quickly as it had filled. At this point, Steve was still in shock and just stared at the door. Soon after, 2 nurses came in to reassure him that they were going to do everything they could to try to save my life. My mom arrived at the room just before the social worker and chaplain arrived. She was frantically asking Steve what happened. He told her he had no idea but described my collapse. My dad and Steve’s mom eventually got back to the room. Steve couldn’t stop replaying the scene in his head trying to make sense of pieces that didn’t fit together. What had just happened? Is my wife dying? He started to think about what life was going to be like as a single father. How was he going to afford to raise a kid on his own?
The OBGYN came into the room and said the baby was out and fine but that I wouldn’t stop bleeding, they were trying to stop it. She rushed back to the OR. My family was told told they were not allowed to leave the room (we found out later no one on the L&D floor was allowed out of their rooms, so they could keep the hallways clear for me). Steve remembers hearing people running up and down the halls and urgent muffled voices behind closed doors. The chaplain and social worker came back into the room and asked for Steve to come with them. They took him down the hallway to a tiny room. There was one chair in the middle of the room. Steve sat down with the chaplain and social worker on either side of him. Steve was preparing himself for them to tell him I was dead. My OBGYN came in and Steve remembers her being covered in blood, but isn’t sure if that was actually the case or he imagined it. The doctor told Steve I suffered an Amniotic Fluid Embolism. He doesn’t remember any of the conversation after that.
The doctor returned to let them know it was extremely critical and that they needed to pray. Steve remembers thinking “just go save her, go save my wife.”
Our First Family Photo
My Parents
My parents came to the hospital on Wednesday morning to prepare to see their first grandchild born. Steve and I were exhausted and becoming increasingly anxious about how we were going to get through this. We had planned to just have the two of us in the room during the birth, but Steve changed his mind that morning. We decided we needed another support person so we asked my mom to stay for the birth. She left the room when I was getting checked to tell my dad that she was going to stay for the birth. As she was about the leave the waiting room to come back to walk back to my room, they both heard “Rapid Response Room 230.” They knew it was my room and my mom began to panic, but my dad said it could be anything don’t worry yet. At the same time my dad thought he heard Steve’s voice yell down the hall for a doctor, but my mom was sure it wasn’t Steve. Then, “Code Blue, Room 230” rang over the loud speaker and chaos ensued. My mom tried to step out into the hallway to get to my room just as a herd of medical personnel ran by, but they wouldn’t let her back. She told them “you don’t understand that’s my baby girl.” What felt like an eternity later, they let my mom back into my room where Steve was saying over and over again, “please just save my wife, please just save my wife.” My dad stayed in the waiting room because he knew my brother and sister-in-law were about to arrive. My mom asked Steve what happened, but at this point he still didn’t know. Eventually my dad came back to the room. Followed by my brother and sister-in-law. When the doctor gave the second update that I was extremely critical and they needed to pray, the room lost it. Everyone was crying. They were sure this was it. This was going to be the day they lost me.
Hanging out with my parents and Cal in the CTICU.
Jessi
Jessi wrote me her perception of events a while ago, so I’ve included an excerpt of her own words here.
“That Wednesday morning, Steve called me while I was in the gym. It was almost time he said. Your body had recognized that it was going into labor and your cervix continued to dilate on its own overnight. You were at 8 centimeters and would be pushing in the next couple of hours. “I think she’d like you to come,” Steve said. “She’ll want to know you’re close by.” I called Michael and told him I was going to the hospital to see you and the baby. I gave him the option of coming or waiting for us to go together the next day after Callahan would have already been there. “I’ll drive you,” he said, – thank God, looking back now.
We arrived to the hospital and pulled into the parking garage – right before 1 o’clock. I remember laughing and smiling together, excited to see you and Cal. We made our way through the hospital and up to maternity. Turning into the maternity waiting room, my brain took three beats to recognize your dad, slumped forward in his chair, and a woman I didn’t recognize sitting in the chair beside him. He saw me and immediately his face crumpled. “It’s not okay, it’s not okay,” he said. He stood and hugged me hard, as I tried to piece together what was happening. “Kayleigh and the baby, we don’t know, we don’t know.”
We sat there. Michael on my left, holding my hand or rubbing my arm, me putting my hand on your dad’s back ever so often. Eventually, someone came to take your dad back to be with your mom, i think the chaplain, maybe. She told us that the baby was out and okay, but you were not. Kyle and Simone arrived not long after, much like we had, with smiles on their faces, food and coffee that would sit on the table and eventually be thrown out hours later. “The baby is okay, but we don’t know about Kayleigh yet,” is all I could clumsily tell them. Kyle fell into a waiting room chair, I remember his hair falling over across his face, head in hands, as he rocked back and forth.
At 2:03, you’d been diagnosed, but things still looked okay. Kyle and Simone got taken back to be with your mom and dad and Michael and I stayed in the waiting room. It was so difficult to sit there, not knowing what was happening, and every text from Simone was a godsend. My mom offered to come and I told her she didn’t need to, but when I got the notification on my phone that their garage door had opened, I knew that she was on her way anyway. Within 20 minutes, you were hemmoraghing and the doctors couldn’t stop your body from bleeding. I sat facing out of the waiting room, right outside the double doors, watching people in OR scrubs, running back and forth. “Please pray,” Simone’s text read. I continued to watch them run in an out of those double doors, running to save your life. “Run faster, run faster,” I desperately willed them, finally realizing that you might not live. But what will I do I remember thinking. Who will I talk to who understands what I’m saying. How could my world exist without her in it. Steve and Cal might not have her. My mom got there at some point and she and Michael held me up from both sides, reminding me how strong you were. We prayed at some point, just as we had done with Kyle and Simone earlier. The four of us had held hands and said the our father before they were taken back. I bargained with Nan, trying my best to convince her that she was not allowed to let you into heaven that day. Cal needs her, Steve needs her, I need her, I begged.
For an hour and forty minutes I didn’t know that you were going to live. People came in and out of the waiting room. Some tried to talk to us. I vaguely remember a set of grandparents and a newborn’s older sister coming to visit her new baby sibling. Can’t you see I don’t want to talk to you, I remember thinking. People would come up to the doors to go inside and look in, startled to see tears and sadness. Keep walking, don’t look at me I thought. A doctor came in with her white coat on and asked if we were there for you. “It doesn’t look good,” she said, then asking if we were family. “I’m her best friend,” I told her. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything,” she said, with a pitying look on her face. “It’s touch and go,” she finally admitted. “How much touch and how much go?”, my mom pressed, looking at my face. She grimaced and with an uncomfortable shrug said, “I mean, there’s a very small chance she could make it.”
Finally, around four o’clock there was news that the bleeding was slowing.
I wrote you this in a note…
‘ Kayleigh, If you don’t pull it together I’m going to be so so angry at you. Do you know how terrible it is to sit in a hospital all day thinking JUST DO YOUR JOB AND FIX HER. Also, I’m mad that of course you were right about the bleeding.’ “
Around 3pm they took me from the OR to Interventional Radiology where they attempted to embolize my uterine arteries in hopes of slowing the blood loss from my uterus. As they were taking me to IR they noticed my abdomen had become significantly distended and decided they would have to take me to the OR after and open me up for an exploratory laparotomy. The bleeding had started to slow after this procedure, but not enough.
Meanwhile, my family was brought to a conference room so that they could be closer to where I was in the OR. When they got there (around 4pm), a few people urged Steve to go see the baby but he didn’t want to leave the location where he could be closest to me. Eventually, he agreed that he needed to be the first one to hold our son, so he went up to see Callahan with his mom and my mom. The pictures from their first time meeting bring up so many emotions for the me. They are heart wrenching. My OBGYN again came to update them. She asked for my husband to sign for the Ex Lap and possible hysterectomy. At that point, he didn’t care what they had to do, as long as they saved me. He signed the paperwork.
Around 6pm that night they took me in for the exploratory laparotomy. When they opened me up they found 4 liters of blood in my abdomen. They decided that they needed to do a hysterectomy because there was still too much bleeding. They removed my uterus and one of my ovaries/fallopian tubes. They packed my entire pelvic cavity with surgical sponges and quick clot combat gauze to help with bleeding. They then left my abdomen open with a wound vac in place because they knew they would need to go back in several times to clear clotting and possibly restitch some areas.
They updated my family that they had to perform the hysterectomy but that they were able to save one of my ovaries so that I would not go into early menopause.
Around 8pm one of my trauma surgeons spoke to my family. He explained what happened during the surgery and the way he had to pack my abdomen and leave it partially open. He told my family that he’d done 2 tours with the army and that this was the worst trauma he’d seen outside of war. He had to pack me like a war victim. He told them I was begin transferred to Lankenau Medical Center so they could maintain the ECMO circuit. Paoli was a Trauma 2 hospital, which meant they had enough blood for me, but they weren’t equipped for ECMO. Lankenau is a Trauma 1 facility. Thankfully the 2 hospitals are still in the same hospital system, so transfer of care was seamless.
They told my family they could see me before I was transferred to Lankenau. The doctors warned them that I would not look like myself. I was even larger and more swollen than when I was pregnant due to quantities of fluid and blood product. After waiting for about an hour while the 20 or so medical professionals readied me to travel, my family saw me for the first time since I had collapsed. It was difficult to see my face because of all the tubes coming from my nose and mouth. Steve was the first one to see me. He walked right up to the gurney, which was surrounded by about 20 nurses and doctors. Steve told me what a good job I had done keeping Cal safe. He let me know how big he was and that he was doing so well up in the NICU. My family told me there wasn’t a dry eye around that gurney when Steve was telling me about Cal. The rest of my family told me how much they loved me and to keep fighting. I was off on the ambulance to be transferred and my family rushed around to complete all of the tasks they has divvied up while waiting to see me. Steve, his sister, my mom, and my brother would follow the ambulance straight to the hospital. My dad would stay with Callahan (he couldn’t be transferred with me yet). Simone would go to Target to get clothes/toiletries for Steve. Steve’s mom would go home to take care of the dogs and Jessi would take my car home until she came to Lankenau the next day.
My husband meeting our son for the first time, while they were doing everything to save my life.
By the next morning, I was at 7cm and by 11am I was at 9cm. The only issue was that Callahan was facing sunny side up which is a more difficult position to deliver, so they were attempting to get him to turn. At around 12:30 my OBGYN came in to check me and let me know I was 10 centimeters “ready to push!” I was definitely nervous about not having enough energy to push after laboring for so long and barely sleeping, but I was so excited to meet my little boy. The doctor left the room and said she would be back shortly to deliver my baby.
My bed was completely upright, so I was leaning against the back with my legs out straight. I told the nurse I wasn’t feeling well, which she said was normal during this stage of labor. As she went to go get me a bag I continued to say I didn’t feel well, but there was growing concern in my voice. I then started to say that something was wrong with my heart. The monitors weren’t registering anything, but I started shouting that something was wrong with my heart. The monitors picked it up, started to alert and then I was out. I slumped over in my bed with my eyes open but nothing behind them. My husband started yelling in my face to get me to wake up and then he ran into the hallway shouting for a doctor. At the same time, my nurse hit the code blue alarm, an alarm that very rarely gets pushed in L&D. People came flooding into the room, pushing Steve into the corner. By sheer luck there happened to be conference full of critical care personnel on the L&D floor that day. The quick (and life-saving!) decision was made to take me right to the OR. I was hurriedly disconnecting from every wire and IV as they wheeled me down the hall, leaving Steve back in the room. Steve was left to wait in my room alone until two nurses came to sit with him. There were nurses and techs in the hallway pointing the way to my OR so that the necessary people could get there as quickly as possible.
Once in the OR, CPR was initiated and they began an emergency c-section. The baby was out within 6 minutes of my code, which saved his life. It was a miracle that he came out crying and was somehow unaffected by my collapse. Once the baby was out, the attention turned towards me. I was dying. They successfully resuscitated me after the c-section, but I coded again a few minutes later. After the second resuscitation, I began to bleed and A LOT. I went into what is called DIC, which is when your blood no longer clots. They inserted a balloon into my uterus to try to stem the bleeding from that location.
The OBGYN came to update my family. She told them the baby was out and he was completely healthy, even though I had coded while he was still inside. She explained that I, unfortunately, was not okay, I had suffered an Amniotic Fluid Embolism. She said they were giving me clotting fluids for the DIC and that I was in critical condition, but she was hopeful they could stabilize me.
Twenty minutes later things took a turn for the worst. The OBGYN updated that it was extremely critical because they could no longer stop the bleeding and asked my family to please pray. I was bleeding from everywhere and there was no way to stop it. Massive transfusion protocol had been initiated, but the blood was pouring out as fast as it was going in (I ended up with a total of 143 units of blood product transfused by the end of this ordeal). More than 5 Liters of blood were collected through the catheter attached to the balloon that was attempting to stop the bleeding from my uterus. I was also struggling with oxygenation because my heart and lungs weren’t working at full capacity. The decision was made to put me on ECMO (a form of life support).
The first picture taken of Cal about an hour after he was born. His wonderful nurses took it and sent it to us!
