A Sky the Color of Sludge

Nearly three weeks ago, I experienced something terrible, depressing, painful, and life-changing. It was a typical Wednesday morning. I was getting out of the shower and I flipped my head so I could wrap my wet hair in my dry towel. When I flipped my head back up, I immediately felt pain in my groin area. I thought I might have tweaked something, so I tried to stretch a little. It only got worse. I decided to lay on my bed for a while, just to give whatever was going on in my body a rest. The pain began to rise to my pelvis. Then to my stomach. Then to my ribs. I could hardly breathe and I started to sweat and feel extremely overheated. I had hoped it would relieve itself, but it only became more angry and volatile.

After about twenty-five minutes, I decided to call my husband at school. He raced home so he could take me to the hospital. He had to dress me while I cried. He helped me stand and I immediately had to lay back down. I was dizzy and felt that I was going to vomit. Once I regained my composure, we headed to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, I semi-blacked out. I could hear what Jose was saying to me, but I couldn't make my body respond. I was just so tired. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Jose had to grab my hair and shake my head to keep me awake.

We finally made it to the hospital, after hitting every red light on the way, and they put me in a wheelchair. After them asking me question after question for the paperwork, they finally took me into a room. I don't remember how I got from the wheelchair to the hospital bed, as I must have blacked out, but I ended up undressed and in a gown. Nurses were everywhere, and I just sat there with my eyes closed, wanting to sleep. My stomach and chest were distended and puffed-out.

After a urine test--with the delightful help of a catheter--they told me that I was pregnant, about six weeks along. Next, I had to get an ultrasound and a vaginal probe. The latter being the most painful of the two. I thought I could not experience something more painful than the probe. It made me scream every time she moved it inside of me. Through those tests, they discovered that I had a ectopic pregnancy, meaning the fertilized egg latched onto the inside of my tube instead of inside the uterus.

They discovered that my stomach cavity were filling up with blood, as my tube had ruptured and it would not clot on its own. And that's why my stomach and chest were distended. The blood loss is what caused me to black out and become unresponsive.

I was in that room for a total of about four hours before I was taken to surgery. I felt every bump of the cart as they took me to the OR. Once inside the OR, I was met with the most pain I've ever felt in my life when they rolled me on my side and moved me onto the operating table. In that moment, I told God to end my life. I knew I was dying. I could feel it. I wanted all the pain to stop. I wanted relief. I wanted to die.

It's scary to think of the clarity of that moment, the moment I didn't care about anything other than being free from the pain my body was experiencing.

I remember screaming "NO!" over and over again because of the pain as the nurses hurried around me. The anesthesiologist put a mask on my face and told me to take deep breaths. It only took a few breaths to knock me out, but it felt like that release would never come.

I woke up to the sound of crying, but I couldn't quite open my eyes yet. I could hear talking and machines beeping. When I finally could open my eyes, I realized that it hadn't all been a terrible dream, as it felt like. It was real.

Everything was surreal, and I'm sure that was the anesthesia talking. I looked to find the source of the weeping, and it was coming from a girl about my age. She was laying with her back to me, curled in the fetal position. She was surrounded by nurses and doctors and they finally closed the curtain around her so she had some privacy. I overheard the nurses say that she had her wisdom teeth removed a while ago and the sockets were infected.

Four and a half hours after I went in for surgery, I was wheeled into my hospital room. The first person I saw was my beautiful husband. Then I saw a few of my brother-in-laws and a sister-in-law. And that's when the healing process of my body began.

The surgeon came by later to tell me that I had three blood transfusions during surgery because I lost pretty much all of my blood pre-surgery. Three pints of blood had been in my stomach area and they had to suction it all out. They had to remove my left tube because of the rupture, and I obviously lost the baby. But I lived. I guess that's the important part. I survived.

I was in the hospital for nearly four days and I had a total of four blood transfusions--three during surgery and one the day that I was released. I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself, shower by myself, get out of bed by myself, or even pick things up by myself. Because of the constant fluids through an IV, my body was swollen and puffy. The back of my hands looked like half a grapefruit sitting on top. I had to be spoon-fed for the first few meals because I couldn't even grasp a spoon.

The days and weeks since have been full of pain, tears, anger, resentment, and emotional solitude. But it has also brought me and my husband closer. And as of now, that is the only silver lining I see in a sky the color of sludge.