Hi, thank you for coming to read my blog. I want to share with you my story as I came to live in the USA with a physical disability and how God has been my strength through it all. He has been faithful. Hopefully, the lessons that I have learned on this journey will inspire you and help you to live "Day by Day" in your own journey.

July 19, 2010

Emergency!

While I was still in Lima, I used to have some feminine problems. Every so often I would have a hemorrhage and my doctor once had to do an operation on me in order to help me.  He never found the real reason for these occurrences and mostly he would attribute the problem to stress causing a hormonal imbalance. After 4 months of being in NY, just when I was actually starting a part time job as a receptionist, I had a terrible hemorrhage that would not stop for 3 or 4 hours! I was alone in the apartment and Vic was at the office.  I remember I had taken more than one cup of oregano tea, I used to take that in Lima for abdominal cramps, but I didn’t realize at that time that those teas were making the situation worse since they would cause the release of more blood to relieve the pain of the cramps.  I called Vic to the office and told him what was happening and he said I should call a nurse from our insurance company since they had one to provide medical advice over the phone, and to call him back to know if he needed to leave the office immediately to come to my aid.  I called the nurse, by that time I was already almost fainted, after I explained everything, she said the best thing to do was to call 911 so they can take me to the Emergency Room in the hospital. 

So I called 911 and they sent the paramedics in 4 minutes! I called Vic and they all met at my door. When I was waiting for the paramedics, I decided to take the lock of my door off just in case I fainted before they arrived, I was feeling very light headed already and I thought that might happen. The first arriving was the police, they knocked at my door and I just yelled to for them to come in. They did and after a few minutes of asking me questions they gave me an oxygen mask, then the paramedics came along and Vic right behind them. The oxygen prevented me from passing out, they took my vital signs as they continue to ask questions and then just put me on a stretcher. The funny thing was that they would ask Vic a question related to the medical insurance we had and they needed the insurance ID card and Vic didn’t even know where it was at that moment, nerves I guess, so I was the one with oxygen mask and all telling Vic where the ID card was and the necessary info.  This made us all laugh at that time. Then they got me into an ambulance. The police and paramedics were very kind to me, made me laugh and helped me to be calm through the whole ordeal. We went to the Valhalla Hospital and into the Emergency Room. It was around 4:00 p.m. The doctor on duty was a resident Gynecologist and she didn’t know what was causing this problem and was concerned because of the blood loss. She called the head Gynecologist to his home. I was there for hours waiting for the specialist to come and see me. They said I had lost lots of blood and was continuing to lose it though not so massively. They could not give me any medicine to stop it since they didn’t know what was causing it. The specialist finally arrived and they took an ultra sound. It seems it was very difficult to see anything on the ultra sound image, the resident couldn’t the specialist did. It was like a miracle. The specialist saw a polyp and it was causing the bleeding. He said that he had to do emergency surgery to remove it and that depending on what he found he would probably have to remove all the feminine organs. He asked me to sign a release form should that be the case, I did.

It was about 9:30 p.m. and they scheduled the surgery for 11:00 p.m. because of the urgency of my case. Other cases took precedence so I officially I didn’t go in for my surgery until shortly after midnight. While we waited in the hallway Vic and I prayed together about the operation and the possibility of my reproductive organs being removed. Not that child bearing was a concern of ours because we had decided we were not going to have children even before we got married. But neither one of us wanted any organ to be removed. We know that every organ has a function and organs work with each other so it’s always better to keep them all if possible. We prayed releasing the control to God, asking that if it was best for me to keep my organs that He would not allow them to be removed and if it was the other way around, He would allow it to happen. One way or the other we prayed that He would give the doctor His wisdom to make the best decision for me. The time came, I went in and Vic stayed in the waiting room all alone until 3:30 a.m. when they came to tell him that I was fine, I was in the recovery room and later they were taking me upstairs to a room and that he should go home to rest.

They didn’t allow him to stay and wait for me in the room where they were taking me, which was a source of disappointment and stress for me when I woke up as they were transporting me to the room and he wasn’t there. It wasn’t his fault, just hospital regulations but in all the surgeries I ever had, I always had someone from my family waiting for me when I woke up. It was this moment that I felt I was sad and a little scared. Then I felt sleep.

I was in the hospital for a week, Vic had to work but he came to have lunch with me every day and later after work too. Everything was well. They didn’t remove anything but the polyp they found. I was very weak for all the blood I had lost and anemic. Other than that, I was fine. I just needed to build up my blood count again so they put me on iron pills.  

My recovery story coming next time…