That Time My Fibroid Almost Killed Me - Day 7 Part 2

I had big plans tonight to go see the CP Christmas Train in Savona, but I woke up this morning with a little bit of a head cold, and it's -15 outside tonight so I decided to skip the train and watch it from my window when it goes by.  The picture above was last years train, which was amazing!  Since I am sitting in front of the fire keeping warm, I thought I should probably finish Day 7.

A few minutes after they brought me in to the back of the emergency department, past a slew of about 100 other people waiting to get in.  If looks could kill, I would most likely be dead!  They set me up in a semi-private bed (blocked off by a curtain), and a really nice nurse came in asking me to tell her what happened.  I gave her the whole story (for the umpteenth time over the past week).  She was super nice and asked if I needed anything to eat or drink.  By this time it was lunch time and she had a lunch tray come, which was a dry tuna sandwich, a juice box and some stake saltine crackers.  To be honest, those were the best tasting saltine crackers I had ever eaten...even if they needed some water to get them down my throat.  The nice nurse brought me more crackers that she found somewhere in the hospital (I wasn't asking questions).  She told me to hang tight for a few minutes and that the doctor would see me shortly.

A few minutes later, I could see a male in green scrubs walking towards me.  He looked like a doctor from Greys Anatomy (or some other handsome doctor show).  I thought maybe I was getting delusional, but as he walked towards me he introduced himself as "Dr. Brothwich" (or maybe Butterwick, or Brotherwick...I can't remember) and he would be my Doctor for the day.  He may have been one of the most handsome Doctors I ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Fortunately for me, he didn't run screaming after seeing a ghostly white, hair not did, dressed in sweats, zombie that was waiting for him.

The Doctor in the picture below was the closest one I could find online that somewhat did this guy justice.  He had shorter hair and was a bit younger than this doctor.

Doctor explained that I had lost a lot of blood, in fact, my levels were dangerously low, and I needed a blood transfusion, at least 3 bags of blood.  When I talked to my aunt who used to be a nurse later in the day, she figured I lost 1/2 the blood in my system.  Doctor explained how a blood transfusion worked and asked if I was willing to take the tiny risk that a blood transfusion could lead to something bad (minuscule chance).  I jokingly asked him if I had a choice and he told me no, I'd probably take quite a few months to gain the blood back that I had lost.  I oblige.  He put in a requisition for the blood and left.  About 20 minutes later Doctor and nice Nurse came back and hooked me up with all of the medical gadgets needed for a blood transfusion.

Each transfusion takes about 3 hours.  I needed 3 of them, so I was going to be in the ER for 9 hours.  My neighbour who brought me to the hospital went to visit a friend while I was there and told me she would wait for me.  She also went and picked up my prescriptions for me while I was getting the transfusions.

About 10 minutes after starting the transfusion, I was starting to feel it's effects.  It felt like blood was rushing into my system.  It almost felt like tingling, and I could feel my face starting to get flush.  Doctor came back at the 20 minute mark to see how I was doing.  He had come into the room and asked if he could sit on the bed (ummm yes!) and chat about my episode.  He was very concerned that I had to wait until the end of July to see a Gynaecologist.  He also was concerned that the doctor in Emerg had given me Progesterone.  He asked if I knew what happened when I came off that, and of course I had no idea.  He told me that I would most likely have a period which was worse.  He said that he was going to call some of his contacts and see if he could get me in quicker.  He came back a couple of minutes later and let me know that he had got me in to see Dr. Kozic the next week.  He also had told me that she had recommended Fibristal, which is what family Doctor had already prescribed on advise of the Gynaecologist that she had called.  He gave me the contact info for Dr. Kozic and went about his business until it was time for my next transfusion.

Three hours can go by so fast if you are doing something other than laying in a bed hooked up to a bag of blood!  I did have a book and my phone, but I was running out of things to keep my brain occupied.  For some reason, when I am in the emergency department, there always seems to be riff raff come in at some point and this stay did not disappoint.

Two buff police officers hauled a drunk (and I'm assuming high as well) guy in to the ward and placed him into the bed kitty corner (diagonally across for those who don't know what kitty corner stands for).  I knew it was going to be somewhat of a ruckus having this guy around.  The poor nurses had nothing but trouble with this guy, and I had the unfortunate view of his bare behind at one point and time.  The nurses were handling the situation much better than I could have.  I am pretty sure they got urinated and spit on multiple times.

First bag of blood down, the Doc came back and told me it would be about 20 minutes before my next bag came up.  In actuality it took about an hour for the next bag to come up.  One bag down, 4 hours plus hours in the hospital...this was going to be a LONG day.  Lucky for me the Nurses let me walk around the ward to go to the washroom and to get a little mental stimulation.  I am pretty sure every patient in the looked at me with loathe in their eyes as some of them were in the exact same waiting chair since I came in to the ER.

While walking around the ward, I noticed that the Doctor from Sunday's ER visit was working.  Just seeing his face put me into a rage.  I don't know if he recognized me, but all kept thinking was how on earth did he not notice the dramatic loss of blood from the blood work he took.  I had blood work Friday and then again on Sunday, and he did not have the smarts to compare them.  I am sure after loosing about 3L of blood in 3 days that something would be off in my blood work.  I gave him the stink eye every time I saw him, but I am pretty sure he had no idea who I was.  All I wanted to do was yell "Do you remember me...the girl who you thought was having a "heavy period"...It's a good thing I had Handsome Doctor for the transfusions and not Sunday Doctor; I would have been choked.

After the second bag took what seemed like 8 hours, my neighbour had come back to the hospital.  I was just about to get the third bag.  I was clearly exhausted.  The nice new nurse asked me how the other two bags went at the faster pace and she agreed to fast track the blood drip to pretty much as fast as it could go.  That last bag seemed to go by much faster, but it may have been the company.  Time always goes by slower when you are by yourself!

The Doctor let me go after the third bag with no other testing, just the note for the gynaecologist referral.  We got out of the hospital at about 9:30 pm, which essentially was a 13.5 hour day.  I was exhausted.  My neighbour had picked up my prescription from Shoppers so I took my first Fibristal on the way home.

While I was in the hospital, my Sister and Brother in Law decided that they would drive over from Calgary on Friday.  It was July long weekend so they took an extra day to make it an extra long weekend and to come take care of me for a few days until my hubby got home.  

After the 45 minute drive home, I crashed!  I slept so well that night and was feeling much more human than zombie.  I woke in the morning for once with a clearer head, and I was starving.  After I made a quick breakfast I cleaned feverishly.  Even though my sister told me not to touch anything, there was no way I was letting any other human see the state of my bathroom.  It was a disaster.  Thinking back to it now, I wish I had of had my cleaners at that point.

Sis and Bro-in-Law showed up in the afternoon and took care of me for the remainder of the weekend and then Hubby got home on Sunday afternoon.

What I didn't realise until I had the blood transfusion, remember that skin tag that I had mentioned that I thought I had ripped and was dying?  Well that was not the case at all.  The little sucker had barely any blood to survive so it shriveled up and died.

When my Hubby came home, he got the Intel from my neighbour as I didn't remember a lot of what had happened at that time.  He hadn't realized how off I was.  He is convinced I was very close to meeting my maker.  Some of the symptoms like blurred vision were signs I was going into shock.  I had no idea.  I assumed I wasn't in that bad of a state as they kept sending me home from emergency.

The moral of this story is to know your body and fight for what you know is right.  I knew there was something wrong, just not how critical I was.  If I had my time over, I would have asked them to keep me the second time I went to the ER.  If that didn't work, I would have called an ambulance to come and get me.  Ladies, if you have a bleeding episode that is much much heavier than usual, please go get checked.  You never know what your body may be harboring, for me it was a huge fibroid that was trying to kill me.

Next blog posts will tell you about some of the treatments I have been getting, how they worked, and what my next steps are with battling this beast.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Jen