Mommy Dilemmas- Part 2

When I last left off in my post I referenced how March 2012 would forever alter my life and set me on a VERY different path then I'd ever imagined. In the middle of March 2012, I got sick! It wasn't like I had the flu, or I ran a fever. It wasn't even like having pneumonia, which I've had before. It was wake up in the middle of the night and drive yourself to the emergency room kind of sick, because you are pretty sure the pain in your chest is the onset of a heart attack and you don't want to alarm anyone. In retrospect pretty stupid for me to get in the car, but I didn't want to wake my kids, my husband, anyone....I just wanted help and fast! I can't even tell you how many nights I made in into the ER or how many times I visited an Emergency Care facility in the coming two weeks. I will say it was at least three ER visits before I found a hint at what was happening,
Thankfully my cousin is a phenomenal doctor who has a ton of patience, He listened to me, and tried to assure me that I was going to be ok. after two EKGs and numerous tests on my heart he was confident it wasn't that. Even with his assurance I would find myself up in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling. Pain coursing through my chest, sure that I wasn't going to make it till morning, and feeling desperate to find a way to live. I was 33, I had two young kids, I couldn't die and leave them without a mother, God wouldn't do that would he? And yet I know it happens, I know it's possible and this thought terrified me....the thought of leaving behind my children.
In the three weeks that followed the initial onset of my illness I lost weight...a lot of weight. I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. Every night I was awake weighing whether these heart pains were more intense than before. I needed help, I needed answers!
So a bunch of tests were run again, and after a trip to the ultrasound tech, I found a glimmer of hope. she looked at my gallbladder and told me it was filled with stones and that more than likely it would need to come out very soon. I told her my symptoms and she assured me that sometimes, quite often in fact, gallbladder attacks can mimic signs of a heart attack. FINALLY!!! I had a direction to go in, but my dr was on vacation, couldn't get a reference, enter my cousin, who found me a NEW dr in hrs and set up a consultation with an surgeon. I was so hopeful this would be the resolution I'd been waiting for. the surgeons advise, take it out....when? I wanted it resolved that day....he said ok next week. Ill never forget him telling me that he wasn't sure that this would resolve my issues, that quite possibly I was experiencing anxiety as well...I sort of laughed, anxious, hell I was terrified!
In the 1st  week of April just about 21 days from the start of my fiasco, I underwent the only surgery of my life. My mom and Husband sat in the waiting room for my laparoscopic procedure which was to take an hr, and have me released that same day.  I would be in surgery for nearly two hours.
I wasn't conscious for the part that would have terrified me most...the last vision I'd had was light and fear, and I woke up to excruciating pain, I remember the nurse in recovery (ironically my cousin) asking how bad the pain was on a scale of ten and I was a solid 10! I knew something strange had happened to me, I just didn't know what. She talked fast to calm me, I was ok, everything had gone well, my gallbladder was out, there had been a lot more stones than they thought, the dr had had to put in a drain, I was going to have to stay the night. What my Mom and husband were told by my Dr. "She had more than a thousand stones, it was one of the worst gallbladders I've ever seen!" And this man had told me I could have waited a month, two to remove it, It prayed on me that had it not come out when it did, I could have died!
I spend the worst two days of my life in a hospital room! It was scary and horrid. I hated every minute I was there and had it not been for my Mom and husband I might have folded right then. It was horrid to have a drain in me, terrifying to be surrounded by death. I hated the drugs, and couldn't move without help. I had devices on my legs to keep pumping bloods through so I didn't get a blood clot too. It was a battle, but two days later I went home praying that everything was behind me.
A week after my surgery Id lost about 25 in a month, I couldn't eat much, so I'd lose another 18 before the end of June. I'd love to tell you this was the end...but it wasn't. In the wake of my experience a new fear had been born, one that would send me reeling into dr after dr office and ultimately on a path to my destiny as a twin mom....