Tears and Fears

My sweet girl is battling night terrors again tonight. Here she is holding onto her glow pillow, with her twinkle lights on and her TV. Tonight is bad. I gave her melatonin 30 minutes ago and she's still awake. I just used lavender and chamomile essential oil on her in hopes to relax and calm her. She's been battling nightmares and night terrors for weeks now, ever since school ended and they seem to be getting worse the closer to Liams birthday we get. 

I started seeing the pattern last year as Liam's birthday drew near. Same thing. As well as the year before. She just can't help it and I don't think she even realizes what's going on but it's the same thing every year. Last year it was just speculation but this year proves it. Lanie has an issue with Liam's birthday. 

It's not celebrating his birthday she has a problem with. It's the actual day of his birth. The day he was born was the day I was ripped away from her for a month. Then continuously ripped away from her the next few years. 

When I use the term "CDH hurts everyone" I truly mean it. We all have our scars that we will carry for the rest of our lives. I truly believe that Lanie ended up with PTSD as well as her dad and I did. He won't ever admit he has it but the NICU nurse said he had all the signs and so did I. I went and got officially diagnosed after Liam's discharge from NICU. It's been a hard road working through this as an adult, I can't imagine how hard it's been on Lanie to work through something so complex she doesn't even understand.

I try to help her. I can't always just bring up the subject of NICU or the pain she felt each time I had to leave her. I have to wait until she's ready to talk about it. We've had our talks when she's open and receptive. I do whatever I can to help her through it all but it's not a quick fix. 

This is another reminder of the failure I feel that I am. When Liam was born and rushed away all I could think about was getting to his side, afraid he would pass before I got to hold him and tell him how much I loved him and to fight hard. I quickly hugged and kissed her goodbye without explaining anything, without realizing how this would affect her. But we had nowhere to stay and I would be sleeping in a waiting room chair as it was so I could bring her. 

The one thing I never wanted to do was abandoned my children. I swore up and down before I became a mother that I would never do what my mother did. And now one of my biggest fears is that she feels like I abandoned her. I afraid to bring it up. I'm afraid to ask her. I spend my days trying hard to make up for the time I missed out on with her.

And now here's Liam getting ready to turn 4 years old. He shorter and smaller than Lanie was at 3 1/2 when he was born and I had to leave but he's got the same bright bubbly spirit she had and it only serves to remind me of how much I missed out on. How much she missed out on. How many cuddles we missed. How many laughs we missed. I can't ever get that back. We can't ever get this back. 

I hate what CDH has done to all of us. How it's tested our family and nearly brought us to our end. How it's kept me so stressed and tired through the years that now my body is so tired and worn how I'm sick with constant pain and headaches. Diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I can't get rid of it. I hate CDH!!

Girl talk: the uterus: a bloody mess

Rewind: the last three months have been horrible. Each day worse than the last. I've bled 3 weeks out of every month with horrible cramping. I've hardly ate anything. For a month and a half of that I couldn't keep down anything but fluids. I made an appointment with an OBGYN (her PA really) and went last Friday. 

I explained the bleeding and the pain and the bloating. I told her how I had started pushing myself to exercise with one of those big exercise balls and how I lay flat and transfer it from hands to feet and stretch out and repeat. I explained how it pulled what I first thought was muscles in my lower abdomen and stressed them but realized after the 2nd time that it was my uterus it was pulling and then bleeding would follow. She was concerned that I had ruptured my uterus where my csection scar was. It wasn't impossible for me. We knew my uterus was weak after finding out that it had torn during my pregnancy with Liam.

 We were also worried that the cyst had grown back. I have a long long history with cyst on my uterus and ovaries. It's painful and well, bloody. She ordered an ultrasound but it was a waiting game to wait for insurance to approve. Meanwhile I'm at home getting worse. The pain just continued to increase until I was taking tramadol every 6 hours around the clock and ibproffen in between. Then it became so bad that the meds didn't do a thing. I started swelling up to scary sizes:

I didn't know what to do. I laid with he heating pad on my abdomen 90% of the time and refused to move even an inch. The pain was horrid. It rivaled when I was pregnant and my uterus tore. I started having flash backs to that time because the pain was so bad. But it got worse. 

The pain and the swelling. I looked 9 months pregnant, was having spasms in my uterus to the point I and everyone around me thought I was pregnant. I was scared. 

Thursday I broke down and went to the doc. I was in so much pain and I couldn't stand it. After a being tortured all day long, they finally diagnosed me with pelvic inflammatory disease. Said I had had an infection that went undiagnosed and untreated and it spread to all my female reproductive organs in one massive infection. They gave me a shot of heavy duty antibiotics that stung worse than anything else I've ever felt and sent me home with a script for said antibiotics and norco for the pain. They also found a good sized cyst in my uterus, to the point the ultrasound looked like I was pregnant but without the baby in the sack. They also realized it was throwing off blood clots and causing the excess bleeding I've been doing. No sign of a ruptured uterus. Friday I woke up feeling much better. When I looked in the mirror half the swelling was gone. I started hurting later that day and have been hurting on and off since. The antibiotics cause a lot of pain after they get into my system because they're fighting the infection. It's painful business and glad they gave me norco, although to be honest, they don't help much. Stupid bodies response to pain! I have to call the doc and get an appt to see her and most likely discuss what we should do next with my uterus. Honestly I wish she'd give it the death sentence because all it does it cause me pain. I'm done having kids. Already had my tubes tied but that doesn't stop cyst from growing and they can turn cancerous so I just want this thing out. My grams had hers taken out when she was younger because of the same probs and worse. They were afraid it would finally turn to cancer so they took it out. I don't need the damn thing anymore. I don't need a damn period anymore either! Those are for women who still want to have kids in the future and I'm sick of bleeding all the time. It cost a small fortune every month to supply my pads! Any how, that's what's going on in my world. #deathtotheuterus 

Uterine Tear

Here I am, snuggles with my cat in massive pain. He knows I'm hurting worse than normal and that's why he's here. 

There's a lot of stress right now but only one topic I'd like to focus on. 

When I was pregnant with Liam, my uterus tore. This is a very serious problem and rare. It only happens in like 1% of woman. Both baby and mom could die from this. Liam and I were blessed and survived. That's a miracle as the docs didn't even catch it until two months later during his csection. 

It's been almost 4 years since this chilling discovery. Liam was my 2nd csection baby, and the scar from my 1st csection made my uterus weak. Lanie was 3 1/2 years old at this point, making that scar the same age. 

Now Liam is close to the same age Lanie was when my uterus tore and I am facing this possibility again. Only this time I'm not pregnant. 

I have cyst that like to reaccur often even after we get rid of them via birth control pills. It's ironic. My tubes are tied but I still have to be on birth control on and off. Laughable really. Anyhow.... It takes care of the problem for an undetermined period of time. 

For the last 3 months I have blead 3 weeks out of every month. The pain has been getting increasingly worse. These were two warning signs that the cyst were back and it was time to high tail it to the womans doctor. I had also started working out using a big exercise ball where I lay flat, and transfer it from hands to feet, stretch out and repeat. When I did this, I felt pulling in my lower abdomen and within minutes started bleeding. At first I thought nothing of it. Until this last time about a week-two weeks ago. 

So today I went. As much as I hate it, I went knowing that I couldn't put it off any longer because it was only going to get worse from here on out. God must have been watching over me and whispering in my ear this afternoon to go because I almost missed the appointment. 

This was the first time I saw this doctor and normally I'm uneasy with doctors. Especially ones that want to have a close look at down there. Luckily, thanks to bleeding, she couldn't (that's the only time I'll ever be happy to be bleeding!!). I explained my past medical history with cyst, and a torn uterus and what was going on now. I felt she needed to hear it all before she came to a diagnosis. 

It's imperative nothing gets missed. She was concerned that I've continued to have cyst over and over again but was happy that birth control had gotten rid of them before. Unfortunately she wasn't happy that they keep accuring. Still she prescribed them as a precaution and ordered a ultrasound. Secondly she was concerned that not only had I had a torn uterus previously (and 2 Csections) but that when I tried to exercise or "pulled" a lower abdominal muscle or uterus that bleeding and pain were a result. This is another reason she ordered the ultrasound. She's said that once we Rey the ultrasound back, she will decide if she needs to CT my abdomen as well depending on what she sees or even if she sees nothing at all. 

Her worry is that I have once again torn my uterus open. She said there could also be a lot of scarring pulling and causing pain as well. The prognosis was if my uterus was torn again or there was excessive scar tissue that we'd have to do a hysterectomy. 

Depending on the severity of the cyst, it could go either way. Stick with birth control and see if they continue to return or if they're or severe then do a hysterectomy and be done with it. 

I say God was looking out for me today because tonight, I have been in severe pain. Pain that has caused tears, I tractor breathing and me trying to figure out how to get to ER. This severe pain is the same exact pain I had while pregnant with Liam when my uterus tore. Moving has only made it worse. I've take tramadol, ibuprofen, and used essential oils and have a heating pad on my stomach but that pain is so severe nothing is helping. Thankfully the pain comes in waves, giving a reprieve between. 

I've tried to do research on the chances of a uterus tearing a second time and while not pregnant but that Info just isn't out there. I'm guessing because it just doesn't usually happen and is more rate than the 1% chance of a torn uterus to begin with. This is why I wanted to share my story. If it could happen to me, it could happen to someone else and with any luck the next person who does a google search and finds this, won't feel so alone. 

Possible symptoms of a torn uterus:

Severe cramping

Tenderness at the site

Pain at the site

Contraction like cramps that are intermittent. 

Bleeding. 

If your pregnant and this is happening, seek emergency medical attention. It's deadly to both baby and mom. If the placenta were to break and leak into your body through the tear, it's toxic and could result in death. 

If your not pregnant but think this could be a possibility, see your doctor right away because this could still be bad. Your don't neccisarily have had to have a csection for this to happen. It can happen during birth when your straining to push or from the drugs to induce labor. Again this is rare and happens only 1-2% of the time. 

The above is just my story. I am not a doctor or in the medical profession. Always seek medical attention.