Musings for Moms

Musings for Moms: Persistance Is a Must

Written by Nicole Sebula
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 16:11
Today’s Musings for Moms column is about persistence. All moms must have to have it and as a new mom, I am discovering if you don’t, you are leaving some important issues to chance. As you can imagine, leaving things to chance is not a good thing for new moms. Furthermore, this is not going to be my typical type of article; this is going to be more of a letter from the heart.

You see, I gave birth to an amazing little boy in August. My pregnancy was actually pretty smooth until the last few weeks when walking became increasingly difficult as the bulk of my pregnancy weight was putting added pressure on my back and knees.

My issues didn’t start until after the little one was born. About a month after his birth I had a hemorrhaging episode. I was freaking out, thinking this could not be normal but it only lasted a few minutes and stopped as if nothing happened at all. I called my OBGYN and she told me that this was “normal” as my body is trying to regulate itself.

This sounded believable so I was ok with the answer. Until a few days later it happened again. This time it was much worse as I ended up in the emergency room at Magee. I was stuck with many needles, ultra -sounded and a few other things and again told this was normal. Ok, I thought maybe I was over reacting… but still in the back of my mind I knew there was something seriously wrong.
I had several more episodes calling my doctors office after they would happen. Finally I decided to go in for a second opinion. Basically the second opinion made me feel even worse afterward. And of course I had yet another episode that night. I was home alone with my son when it happened. When my husband came home he found me curled up on our bedroom floor. He said my lips were blue, which I am thinking cannot be good. I called my doctors office again and the doc on call told me to go directly to the ER again and she would personally send down a resident to look me over.



My blood count dropped to 5 (take my word: this is seriously bad) and my blood pressure was dangerously low. This “little episode” resulted in an overnight stay in the hospital. I again went through a battery of tests which revealed something this time, a polyp in my cervix. I would undergo outpatient surgery to have it removed.

Of course I would be discharged first then have to come back the next day for the surgery. My arms were already messed up from the IV’s and all the blood tests they were running that it was pretty difficult for them to find a place for the new IV the day of the surgery. There were complications and I ended up staying a few more nights in the hospital for observation.

I was to return to my OBGYN’s office three days later for follow-up. I didn’t make it: I had yet another episode which again landed me into the ER. This time my blood pressure was extremely low and one of the doctors in the practice actually came down to the ER to treat me. I was getting them scared I think. And guess what? I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in the process of landing myself a week-long stay at the hospital.

During the week I spent most of my time in the 2800 wing of Magee. I must say that the nurses and aides on this floor are some of the nicest I had. Also during this week, I had a hemorrhaging episode in front of my nurse. Not one of my finest moments, but this time someone actually saw what was happening to me.

I ended up passing out from all the blood that I was losing and they had to call one of those ‘Code’ deals on me. I felt like I was in the middle of some medical drama except this was my life and not a TV show. I scared a lot of people, ended up in the ICU (again a great group of nurses helped me out while I was here) and finally had an answer to my problem.

I had an aneurism in my uterus that was causing the problems. This however is something very rare apparently as no one has ever heard of such a thing. I am out of the hospital now and have to go back in two weeks to make sure what they did to fix the aneurism is actually working. We are all keeping our fingers crossed that it will work.

The point of all this, be persistent. If there is something not right with you, keep bugging your doctor’s until they figure it out. Granted my arms were like pin cushions for two weeks and I am walking with a slight limp right now because of the angiograms I had. But if I didn’t keep bugging my doctors and running to the ER, I probably wouldn’t be here right now writing this article for AcrossRoss.com.
I want to thank all of those who treated me while I was at Magee, there were many and they were all great. Also, I want to thank all of you that donate blood. I had to get eight units over the past two weeks and without the donations I most certainly would have been in some serious trouble.

Nicole Sebula is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer for AcrossRoss.com.

Last Updated on Sunday, 01 November 2009 06:57