Weakness

I am back! No, I have not abandoned my readers. After almost a month of silence due to my computer passing away and complicating my life, I'm back! Here is part two of the story.

I was feeling very vulnerable on those days I was in the hospital. I have had several operations in my life due to my disability, but this time something was very different. I didn’t have my family with me this time. And it works this way, when you are sick you want your mommy! So I did and I remember the next night after the operation I was on the phone talking with my mommy and my sister from Peru. Also my brother and his wife came to visit me to the hospital that night. At least they lived in the next State over so it was a little easier to see them. That helped.

After a week I was able to go back home. Before I left the hospital, the resident doctor tried to give me a blood transfusion to make up for some of all the blood I had lost. It didn’t work! My veins simply refused to receive anything! Every time they put a needle in, my veins just kind of pushed them out… So finally after 2 or 3 times I just said no more and I went home. I haven’t had those problems since then.

When we left and were on the sidewalk before entering in the car, I was able to see my reflection on the glass walls of the hospital and I was shocked to see my face white as a paper! It was really bad and made me nervous; I had never seen myself or anybody for that matter with that color. I was really anemic and the doctors warned me that I was going to feel very weak and I needed to rest and be lying down as much as I could. Because if I sat for long, the blood was not going to have enough strength to go up the brain much and I was going to feel light headed.

When we got home we realized I was going to need more attention than we thought. I didn’t have any energy, I could not cook or even stay sitting on my chair for long periods of time. Vic took a couple of days off but then he had to go to work, he didn’t have any more vacation days left and we didn’t have anybody to take care of me during the day. We were in trouble! Thank God, my sister volunteered to come from Peru and take care of me for a couple of weeks. That was God’s provision for my need at that time.

I would get up and go sit on the couch because I didn’t want to stay in bed. I felt good for short periods of time, but just as the doctors said, I felt very weak and dizzy all of a sudden and I had to lay down immediately to have the blood go up to my brain. It was a very strange sensation I never experienced before or after that time. It was not pleasant to feel that way. Actually I couldn’t do anything because I felt too weak to do anything. So it was kind of boring. But at least I got to be with my sister during the day and she cooked for us. Then Vic would join us after work that was fun.

My sister and I had a funny thing happen once. We didn’t have much experience using microwave ovens back then and I used the microwave to cook a lot. So one day I wanted her to cook a piece of steak in the microwave and it was in a plastic container. Since I normally used plastic containers to heat the food that was already cooked for a minute (not anymore), and the container was supposed to be microwave safe, I thought it was ok for cooking too and she didn’t know so she followed my instructions. So she started the meat in the microwave and I asked her to leave it there for 15 minutes! Then the meat started to smell really good almost like grilled meat would and I was excited about it. Then by the time the time ended, the plastic container was practically gone since it melted onto the meat and the meat was scorched! So much for steak that day! But it certainly gave us a good laugh and still does every time I remember and we also learned a good lesson!

After the couple of weeks were over my sister had to go back home, but I was pretty much recuperated. At least I could spend more time sitting up and on my chair. Feeling a little weak still but I was able to do things again. Only I was a little shaky emotionally and I have to admit I was afraid to be alone in the apartment thinking what I would do if I felt light headed again. But thank God it didn’t happen. I just had to adapt to life as usual again. After a week after she left I was back to normal.

Only one thing left to say, there is nothing like having family close to you in times of need. I am blessed beyond imagination with the family I have. They are always there for me no matter what or where.... Thank you sis!

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…