Hospital Stay

On the 12th of August I went in for a hysterectomy. I didn't really think it was a big deal but Jeff was sure nervous the entire time. Everything went well but they wanted me to stay a couple nights in the hospital just to watch me. While I was in hospital my family and Jeff's family were such a great help by taking care of the kids and making sure that they were fed. While I was in the hospital my hematocrit was low so they decided to give me a couple pints of blood. I wasn't too concerned about it because I am anemic and it's always low but the nurses sure were stressed about it. So I got the blood and everything seemed to be fine. I was released on Thursday afternoon and went home feeling pretty dang good. Jeff had everything arranged so that the kids could spend a couple days with a couple of my sisters so I wouldn't have to worry about them and could just focus on getting better. My doctor told me that I needed to be on bed rest for three weeks (which is impossible with five kids and a business to run) but I knew that wasn't going to happen so in my mind I figured that one week would probably be good enough. Everything went well on Thursday night and I just stayed in bed while my husband waited on me all night. I have to admit that it was actually quite nice to just lay there and relax. The next morning Jeff sent the kids to Jennifer's house so that I could rest some more and he headed off to work (after countless times of asking me if I was going to be okay on my own). Everything was fine the first half of the day and things seemed to be going well. Around noon I started feeling more pain in my abdomen and my back so I took some pain medicine. For some reason it didn't work but I didn't really think too much about it and just figured that the morphine block that they had given me was probably just barely wearing off. So I stayed in bed and just watched TV. As the day wore on the pain got worse and I suddenly developed a fever that just kept getting higher and higher. When it reached 103.5 and I could barely move because I was in so much pain I decided to call the doctor. They told me that I needed to immediately go in to their office. I called Jeff and told him what they said and he came home as soon as he could. He didn't seem to be too stressed until they did an ultrasound and saw that I had some sort of liquid floating around inside. They immediately sent me over to the hospital to have a CAT scan and have some blood work done up. At the same time they decided to admit me and get some fluid in me because I was dehydrated. I normally don't mind having my blood drawn or an IV put in but for some DUMB reason my veins would not cooperate. My veins kept blowing out or rolling so the nurse would hit a nerve. I was almost in more pain from them trying to get the IV in than I was from my stomach. After five tries and five huge bruises they got a pediatric butterfly IV into my arm. I was so relieved! Once they got some fluid into me they took me down for a CAT scan, which showed that I had some internal bleeding so I was immediately taken in to the operating room for another surgery. This time they had to make three small holes in my abdomen for the scope and laser to go in. They were able to get rid of all the blood but they never found the source of the bleeding and figured that it must have clotted itself off. Later that night I was in quite a bit more pain but not as much as I was before the surgery. Jeff and I were so relieved that they were able to fix the problem without any complications. I had to stay at the hospital until Sunday afternoon. Once again my family and Jeff's family helped out with meals and the kids. Several members of my ward also brought meals in, which was such a stress reliever.
I had to take it easy for another week and could not drive during that time either, which just about killed me. I also had to rely on other people to help me out with my kids so I could take a nap or just rest during the day.
It was a rather crazy ordeal and I am still not back to normal but I am so glad that I got it done! As I have thought about the whole thing I had the thought that maybe Heavenly Father was trying to teach me a lesson about taking it easy and accepting help from other people, which are two things that I have such a hard time with but because of the surgery I was forced to do both. It is so much easier to serve other people than it is to receive service from others (at least for me). I also realized how precious life is and that things can drastically change in such a short time.
Pieper still asks me if my stomach hurts and if I need to go back to the hospital. Yesterday she said, "My stomach hurts, I think I need to go to the hospital like you. Maybe my stomach is bleeding (bweeding) too."

I feel bad that I don't have any pictures but it's hard to take pictures of yourself and since I am the only one in my family that ever thinks about it they just didn't get taken.