The Power of July 6th and a Field of Daises

Crazy pill count:
AM 1 Ativan, 90 Cymbalta, 10 Viibryd, 50 Lamictal, 5 Zyprexa
afternoon 1 Ativen
PM .5 Ativan, 150 Seroquel XR, 50 Topamax

I had an appointment with Dr. Crazy this morning and we had a long chat about my recent difficulties. My mood has been especially unstable these last ten months, and especially, especially unstable theses past four months. Frankly, it's been a hard year in Bacon Bipolar World.

I'm sorry, apparently this disc is not for sale.

He noted that I haven't been quite the same since my ectopic pregnancy and surgery.

"For the love of Apollo, that was three damn years ago!" was all I could yell.

But then I really thought about it, and you know what? He's right. Something changed in me that day. And I fear perhaps a part of me has not recovered. And if I haven't recovered in three years, will I ever?

I thought I would share the story with you today.

Technically it's Once Upon a Time in the Mid-Atlantic...

I try to only think of it as a sesame seed. Not an embryo that would become a baby. A real baby that would be part me and part my husband. A little person that we created that would eat cake on their first birthday and learn to ride a bike. No, I can’t think of it that way. I can only think of it as an embryo, the size of a sesame seed, that burrowed into the wrong place. My right fallopian tube is not a fit place to grow. And so it ruptured.

I had never experienced that kind of intense pain before. I had also never sent myself to the hospital before, but I knew something was wrong - very wrong. And wrong it was.

When I arrived at the hospital at about 10pm no one seemed to care I was pregnant but me. At this point I also started to develop sharp pain in my right shoulder. I later learned it was due to the blood pooling in my abdomen.

They gave me pain medication, a hospital gown, and a bed.
A nurse came in with a due date calendar.
“July 6th,” she said with a warm smile. That’s the day you’re going to become a mother.” 

She hugged me, and gently tucked a blanket around my legs.

Finally at 6am, nearly eight hours after I arrived in the ER, they gave me a sonogram.  A doctor came in. The first time I had seen a doctor in those nearly eight hours. “There is a lot of free fluid in your abdomen. That means blood,” he said. “You’re going to need surgery in ten minutes.”

I was scared. 

I cried. 

I had never had surgery before.

And on July 6th, I was not going to be a mother.

Less than ten minutes later they were drawing my blood “just in case” and I was counting backwards from ten. My supposedly sixty-minute surgery ended three hours later. I woke up in pain, missing one fallopian tube, and 900cc of blood.

When I allow myself to think about it I do still feel sad. They put me to sleep, cut me open, and dug into my body. They took out a part of me, placed it in a dish, and threw it in the trash. They used shiny, sterile, metal things while I laid there open and vulnerable. All my bloody insides were exposed and no longer remained safely tucked inside. They suctioned blood out of my abdomen – one fourth of my blood.

To them it was just another day at work. But not to me. To me it was the day I lost more than just a part of my body and blood. Apparently I lost a piece of my sanity. I gained something too - the ability to be haunted by a day on the calendar. July 6th still has a lonely power over me.

I have a really ugly scar too. It’s a daily reminder my body has been to war and what I lost.
I recently heard the sentiment:

“Don’t you hate that your skin is not smooth.
That scar means you are stronger than what happened to you.” 

I try to remember that.

After all, life in Bacon Bipolar World still marches on. Dogs chase cats, cats chase mice, and mice run through fields of daisies, and I find great comfort in the simplicity and certainty of that. And I know one of these years July 6th will slip by and I won't even notice.

Now that's a lot of daises!

Until next time...