When I went back to bed, I started uncontrollably shaking for over an hour. Sweatshirt, t-shirt, pajama pants on with two blankets on shivering like it was 20 degrees in my room. Now looking back, it's apparent that I was running a fever but I didn't know at the time. After shaking and being tense for that hour, my back and head were starting to hurt. I woke Justin up and told him something was up and what was going on.
He got me a hydrocodone that I had left over after delivery. After a little bit, I fell asleep and he went to work because I was fine. I woke up at 8 a.m to feed Landry again, with no problems. I still wasn't feeling great so I went back to sleep again with Landry next to me in bed. When I woke up at 11, my back was hurting so before I could take another pain pill, I knew I needed to eat something or I would be dizzy.
Too late.
As I was pouring my cereal, I had to catch myself on the kitchen counter because I felt like I was going to pass out. I was home by myself with the baby, so I ran to the bedroom so that in case anything happened to me that I was next to her and not in the other room. I called Justin immediately and told him he needed to come home because something was really wrong and was crying. As I'm talking to him the pain in my back goes through the roof and feels like someone is stabbing me and twisting a knife in my back and I'm screaming on the phone. He asks if he should call 911, but I told him that I couldn't let them in the door even if they came. Unfortunately, Justin's work is a good 30-40 minutes away. He hurries home.
I called my sister to make sure that I'm talking to someone in case something happens to me and I'm screaming like a total lunatic because of the pain. I can't tell you how scary it was being by myself with her and being unable to take care of her. I'm sure that she felt so helpless, she was almost an hour from me and her phone was about to die.
When I called to check where Justin is, he's still a good 15-20 minutes away and I told him I didn't think I could make it. So he calls 911 whether I wanted him to or not.
Meanwhile, I was supposed to feed Landry right when I woke up but the pain was so intense that I couldn't. I knew as soon as 911 got there, they were going to want to take me in so I'm cried on the bed in pain trying to nurse Landry while lying down. I swear four minutes later, they're knocking on my door. I didn't want them to kick in the door so I'm literally trying to do a walk/crawl to the door and screaming, "I'm coming!"
When the EMT and firemen got to the house, I told them there's a newborn baby in my room and one of the firemen goes to get her and all these big, tough firemen and EMT men are oohing and aahing over my baby girl. It was priceless, but can you blame them? She has a way of making grown men turn into mush.
Exhibit A:
Moving on...
At this point we're all thinking that it's some epidural complication b/c of the severe back pain and the migraine (never had a migraine before but I'm pretty darn sure that was one). Justin comes home and has Landry.
So they take me in by ambulance because I'm in a fetal position in a chair right by our front door. And all the while I'm thinking, "OMG, how much is all of this going to cost us?"
When we get to the ER near 12:30, my temp is only 99.5. After I show him where the back pain is, he says that it's not because of an epidural because that's not even where I get an epidural. They run some tests and get my pain under control and the doctor looks at my breasts and says that it's mastitis. Meanwhile, now it's nearly 1:00 and I was supposed to feed Landry at 11:00. So there went another 6 hour stretch that Landry went without eating. I'm pretty much knocked out on the hospital bed and Justin maneuvering her on the bed to nurse on me.
The blood work came back that I had a slight infection but the doctor said I should feel a lot better in a day after being on antibiotics and make sure that I feed, feed, feed Landry but we were free to go. The nurse came to do one last check on my vitals. Everything looked good but my temp was 103.1! The nurse wasn't sure if the doctor would let me go but he said yes, I just needed to get it the antibiotic filled and in my system.
We had friends helping with the boys so we needed to get home to them and plus I had a crazy old lady next to me cursing at the doctors and hitting nurses so I wanted OUT OF THERE!
At 5:00 pm, we filled the prescription immediately and headed home after picking up some much needed food. I hadn't eaten all day! Once I had the hydrocodone in me I felt much better.
The next 48 hours, included fevers 103, 104 and even once 105. As soon as I'd take the hydrocodone, I'd be fine but as soon as it wore off, it would spike right back up. I called my OBGYN on-call doctor since it was the weekend and she said to alternate between ibuprofen and the hydrocodone. I took Advil and it did absolutely nothing so then I went back to the hydrocodone but taking two instead of one and that seemed to do the trick but I had to take it every four hours. I had to use a warm compress before every feeding, feed her for 45 minutes to an hour to make sure she emptied the breast, then put a cabbage leaf (to help with the inflammation), and then start the whole thing over again because it was time to feed her again. It was seriously the worse.weekend.ever.
Finally, it was Monday and I didn't feel any better and then was beginning to see a rash on my right breast. I called my OB and they fit me in. Of course they confirmed that it was mastitis. My two options were to go to the hospital to get IV antibiotics or get a rocephin shot, a high powered antibiotic shot. I chose the shot of course not wanting to bring Landry to a hospital if I could prevent it. She couldn't believe they let me walk out of the ER with a fever, much less 103!
The nurse gave me the shot and warned me it would really hurt and sting. NO KIDDING! I could hardly walk out of that office. I went home immediately and got on a heating pad because it hurt so bad but late that night I felt slight relief. Since that shot, I haven't run a fever. I now feel like an absolutely new person. Besides an epidural, it was the most painful shot I've ever gotten (believe me, I've had a lot of shots the last 10 months of my life) but it was worth the pain!
Right when all this hit, it also affected my milk supply. So now I'm trying to get my milk supply up. I'm the look out for fenugreek, eating oatmeal and drinking lots of water. If you have any other successes getting your milk up, please share.
That was a really expensive stretch of sleep I got from Miss Landry!
So I'm really behind on photos! Sorry! I'll try to catch up! And since I have a ton of pictures to catch you up on before all this went down, here are some of my recent favorites and me and my sweet girl.
She makes me forget all about this painful week. Again, another hardship in our lives but another thing checked off our "worth it" list.
That sounds so scary! I'm sorry you were so ill but glad that you're feeling better now.
ReplyDeleteLove the photos xx