Let’s get personal about Ptsd.

It was too much for my body to handle. Over the past few weeks the growth in my abdominal cavity had rapidly started pushing surrounding organs out of place. Blood flow to my right leg was dangerously restricted and my blood pressure had started climbing. My chronic discomfort chiseled away at whatever remnants of sanity I had managed to retain over the past few months.

I tried to prepare myself. I had the discussions with my doctor. I knew this was coming, but the lingering bittersweetness of it all was emotionally exhausting. In any one moment I was simultaneously relieved to see an end, terrified of the process, and anxious over what my life and health would - should? - look like once this was all over.

At the hospital, it took 3 nurses, 1 anesthesiologist, and 5 punctures to find a vein for my IV. When they started the medication to prep me for the removal, my abdomen responded with intensely painful muscle spasms. I responded by hollering for pain meds. Thankfully, it only took 1 puncture to insert a spinal catheter and pump me to wonderland.

And then we waited. And. Waited. But those damn cows never came home. My body never reached the “right levels” for us to proceed with the normal removal procedure. It was dangerous to wait any longer - emergency surgical removal was necessary.

Nurses descended on my room like stagehands, their unique coordination of shuffling machines, transferring IV bags, and untangling IV lines, perfectly executed in preparation for the scene change. It was time to roll out. My entire life until that point didn’t take as long as it took them to wheel me to the OR.

I’m transferred to surgery table (think Discovery Channel, tranquilized sea lion). There are so many surgical lights, a.k.a. I’m now blind. Surgical assistants stretch out my arms and strap them down in my very own, terrifying reenactment of the DaVinci Man. Masked faces blur together and distant voices echo weakly through the tin can filter of my fear. The staunch, acrid smell of sterile perfectionism is wretched, almost malicious. It’s all so very cold.

When it was all over, I needed 5 days of in-patient recovery time, during which I got everything except the rest I so desperately needed. I even got to take home a free set of Group A Streptococcal bacteria intent on Lewis and Clark-ing their way through my wound and into my bloodstream.

Two days after leaving the hospital, the infection became nauseatingly obvious. After five days of aggressive-but-unsuccessful antibiotic treatment, I was back at the hospital for another surgery. This time, I was grateful for being KO’d beforehand.

When I woke up, my wound had drastically increased in size. A 15x2x2.5 cm, open window into my abdomen. Closing the wound with the smallest amount of bacteria would put me back in the same situation eventually. The alternative was to let it heal from inside out using a wound vac.

Yes, vac, as in vacuum. Yes, it sucks. Yes, pun very much intended.

My wound was stuffed with sponges to keep moisture/infection away from the healing skin. To create the vacuum seal, a large, adhesive film was stuck over the entirety of the wound and some surrounding skin. A small incision in the film directly over the wound allowed for the vacuum tubing to be connected to me. The vacuum itself weighed about 5lbs and I carried it around in a bag slung across my shoulder.

I spent six more nights in the hospital on a constant IV cocktail of 3 different antibiotics. On the third day, I had my first wound dressing change. I was given Ativan and codeine to help me through it, but Tic-Tacs might have worked better. It felt like my skin was being peeled off as they removed the film - raw, traumatized skin that the surgeon hadn’t bothered to shave before applying the adhesive. When the film was off, the medical sponges in the wound had to be changed.

Now, I have great respect for the nursing profession, but in that moment those nurses were vultures circling over my emotional demise, picking at my flesh as they removed stuck sponge fibers from the healing tissues inside the wound. They gave me morphine halfway through the procedure. My husband still had to hold me down.

For 10 weeks a nurse came to our home twice a week to change my dressing. For 10 weeks I carried the wound vac waiting for the skin-framed window of misery in my abdomen to close. For 10 weeks I was unable to properly care for or bond with the beautiful, smiley, squishy little baby girl that they had removed from my belly during that first, terrifying emergency surgery.  Instead of wanting to wrap myself up into a cocoon of bliss with my new little family, I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be needed. I couldn’t see my new gift through the haze of anger, anxiety, and profound sadness.

Birth is a tremendous physical trauma for both mother and child, even when the wound vac isn’t included as a bonus surprise. Our culture emphasizes this image of the happy mother, cheeks blushing and healthy, pride’s sparkle in her eye, tenderly holding her contented newborn. Let me tell you something. Nobody expected smiles and sparkles when my father-in-law had portions of his colon removed. That would be preposterous…the man had a portion of an organ removed from his abdomen. That’s intense! Reminds me of that time I had a 7.5 lb growth we named Lina removed from my abdomen. But women are made of sugar and spice and everything nice and it’s the miracle of life so be happy, dammit.

Hard no. I object. It’s not glamorous, it’s not easy, it’s physically exhausting, emotionally challenging, and it is guaranteed to turn your body upside-over-inside-out. And after the 10 month journey toward the abyss of pain and exhaustion, women attempt to survive on 2 hours of sleep at a time, breastfeed or suffer the passive-aggressive pressure to do so, HEAL, and make sure everyone else feels like their life hasn’t changed in the slightest.

For me, therapy, medication, and a glorious husband allowed me to live again. Want to know how to help? Grab your nearest bottle of formula, head to your local new mom, and tell that amazonian goddess that going to sleep for the next 8 hours doesn’t make her less of mom - it makes her less of a mess. That baby will be just fine, and that new mom will be eternally grateful for being allowed to take a deep breath and start fresh. Rinse and repeat.

I’m putting my story down for the world to see. It’s my attempt to help even one new mother to acknowledge the magnitude of the battle she has just fought, and to give herself time to recover her physical and mental injuries before resuming her duties as Queen.

Put That Story Down.

Thanks for reading, y’all. Stay safe.

Dr. OH