She WAS glowing, but not in the way I had pictured. No, this was more like the glow from piece of
iron that had just been pulled from a blast furnace. My wife was furiously
clawing at her skin as her mother did her best to keep my wife calm. “Umm, what
the hell is going on?” I asked. Her mom said that my wife had a bad reaction to
the morphine that was used in her spinal anesthesia during the c-section. What
was susposed to provide long term pain relief was also causing itching that
would later be described as ‘the worst reaction to morphine the doctor had ever
seen’. Great, I thought. This is going to be ‘fun’.
Between attempts to remove the top layer of skin from her
body, my wife asked me how the girls were doing. I said, “They are doing good!”
My wife looked at me, and I could see that the bellows of the proverbial blast
furnace were being worked again. “Good?!”
she said, clearly irritated. “What does good
mean? That’s vague. I need to know how my babies are doing!!” This was clearly
not an appropriate answer for someone who is a pediatric nurse. I started
rattling off every medical stat I could think of. “Well they are 3lb 7oz and 3lb 15oz, they are
both on a CPAP machine to assist with breathing, they are getting IV fluids,
their blood oxygen levels are over 90%, they are stable… and absolutely
beautiful by the way!” This was apparently a more acceptable answer.
Her mother and I spent the next several hours doing
everything we could to keep my wife comfortable, and she finally fell asleep
around 12:30 AM. Her mother left to go home and get some sleep, and I set up
the pull-out couch and settled in for some much needed sleep.
I awoke to my wife saying my name and I glanced at my watch,
it was 2:30 AM. “Well that was short
lived.” I thought to myself. She called my name again, this time with more urgency.
I jumped off the couch and walked towards her bed. “Something’s wrong.” She
said, clearly in pain. “I hit the nurse call button. The nurse walked in and my
wife said she was bleeding, a lot, and the pain was getting worse. A quick look
confirmed this without a doubt. My wife was hemorrhaging and within moments the
room was filled with more nurses and residents.
I won’t go into the gory details, but what happened next was
not a pleasant experience. It’s pretty scary when you are forehead to forehead
with the person you love most and see nothing but fear and pain in her eyes. Through
all of this, somehow, I had this incredible sense of calm come over me. Maybe
it was that the past week had made me numb, or maybe it was that I had absolute
trust in the people working around me, but whatever it was, it was
surreal. The room was buzzing with
activity and my wife was crying out in what sounded like level 10 pain as the
medical team tried to resolve the issue while she was still in her room. This
went on for what seemed like a few minutes until her own OB doctor came into
the room. She took one look at my wife
and said that this wasn’t going to keep going on here. She was going to go back
to the operating room so they could push stronger pain meds and fix the problem.
I walked alongside the bed as they pushed my wife towards the OR and watched as
the doors closed behind her. I was fully aware that there was a chance, no
matter how small, that my wife wasn’t coming back down that hallway.
I walked into the room and sat down, still calm for some
reason. Alone, in a hospital room with no bed…
Very well written sir.
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