Surgery at 28 Weeks Pregnant
“Just go to the ER. You can’t wait with this sort of thing. If it bursts, you and the baby have big problems”
Hearing that from the sister-in-law (a pediatrician) was all we needed to pack up, feed the dog and tell him “we will be back soon!” (Note: we would not be back soon)
It was 5:45pm when we arrived at the ER, and, even in downtown Chicago, it was amazing how quickly the team reacted to a pregnant lady complaining about pain. Whitney had been getting pain that was progressively worse through the weekend. It was at the point that she couldn’t function normally. Usually, that’s a bad sign I’m thinking.
One thing that’s immediately apparent when you walk into an ER is that those people have zero idea what’s going on with you, obviously. And, for some reason, it seems they aren’t allowed to talk to each other since you get the same 10 questions over and over. They also each push on the pain spot to make sure it was painful. (Spoiler: still was!)
Everything is very quick in this place. Tubes were hooked up, baby was checked, multiple doctors and nurses showed up and testing options were shot at us like a canon. For this, it seemed like an obvious open and shut case. They wanted to check a whole bunch of ideas, but I imagine everyone in the room knew what we had. Still, it took four hours to get the “official” diagnosis and start talking next steps.
I realized during this experience that time moves both fast and slow, and the hospital is the expert at making hours feel like minutes. Doctors showed up every 15–20 minutes to make you think you’re getting just enough attention and making just enough progress towards the next step in the process.
When the doctor said the word surgery we both kind of laughed. Whitney has been through enough with multiple surgeries in the last few years. Most recently, when she got her gallbladder removed I jokingly asked if they could take out her appendix so all the pointless organs are out of there. It wasn’t quite as funny now, but at least I felt super smart with my idea!
At 11pm, we finally get moving on surgery. More doctors come around and everyone gives us the same speech about risks and pregnancy and babies…yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t mean to laugh about the risks, and I realize they have to tell us, but, again, can’t everyone just agree on who’s telling us so we don’t hear it 12 times? At 28 weeks, this is the concern. Both of us are barely thinking about her having legitimate surgery, it’s all about how the baby responds to getting knocked out for surgery.
We got moved to the OR waiting area at 11:15 and are now waiting for some really smart radiology guy to triple confirm the diagnosis. I feel a little bad that this person needed to come in on a Sunday night but figured that wasn’t something I should feel bad about at this point. Even when he does confirm the consensus selection, we are still told it might not be appendicitis. In fact, we won’t know for sure what the problem is until she gets in there. I wanted to say, “So, you’re telling me you’re going to cut open my pregnant wife and hope that you all read the picture right, but there’s a chance you’re all wrong and surgery is pointless?” Instead, I basically said the equivalent of, “Awesome! I feel good about our confidence at this point.”
I forgot to mention the OR area is empty. It’s literally just us, the constant flow of OR attendees and my slowly dying phone. Thankfully the nurse had an iPhone charger since I did not plan on this type of night! They take the wife back and send me to a waiting area the size of a football field. It’s just me and two TVs blasting infomercials. My personal favorite was dropmypayment.com. The reason I remember dropmypayment.com is because they said dropmypayment.com 6,000 times over the course of thirty minutes of a commercial for dropmypayment.com. I have to say, I wasn’t even convinced the scam made any sense even after they attempted to brainwash me. I mean, a 2015 Acura MDX for $450 per month? Is that a good deal?
It’s after 1. It’s after 1:30. It has gotten to the point that I’m stressed not just for my wife or the baby…our dog has been home for like 8 hours wondering what the hell is going on here!
The surgeon comes out, everything went great and, when I’m told I can’t see Whitney for another 1–2 hours, I immediately peace out, pay my $26 in parking(!!!) and head home to get the dog. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but, after getting home in record time, I heated up the chili I made earlier in the day and drank my Mountain Dew I had left in the car. All of this at 2:30 in the morning. Dinner/breakfast of champions?
After an hour of sleep, it was time to head back into the hospital. Whitney was moved to the recovery area. I packed a ridiculously large bag and raced back to the hospital downtown in even better time than three hours prior. 5am on Lake Shore Drive is the best! As I got to her recovery room, it was clear she was doing well. Just as important, the baby was doing well and recovering along with her. In 14 hours, we went from watching the Lions lose (as is tradition) to driving home after surgery. Pregnancy is tough. But, apparently, it can always get tougher if you have organs that are ready to burst. Fortunately for us, doctors know what to do about that and after a few weeks we can all laugh about this and the great deal we got by using dropmypayment.com!