My uterus tried to kill me…

Well it's been a minutes since I've been able to write. I'd love to say that the silence was because everything was going nice and smoothly. But I'd be lying. Unfortunately, this journey through breast cancer has not been an easy one. I keep seeming to hit some bumps in the road. So let's catch up. Strap in it's going to be a bumpy ride/read.

Fri March 3-

I woke up feeling pretty good this morning. Which should've been my sign that the others show was going to drop at some point. Felt great and headed in for my third iron infusion. Apparently I felt great but my veins decided they were done. The nurse tried three times to get the IV in and nothing worked. So she just gave me to another nurse that again tried. She finally got the IV into a vein and as she tries flushing the IV, blood squirted everywhere. So they decided I wasn't getting this I fusion today- we would let my poor arms and veins rest.

After I got home, the nurse practitioner from my oncologist office called me. We decided that we would wait until my port was in to give me the additional iron infusions. That way my veins had some time to rest, and we didn't blow them all out.

Sat- March 4:

Today was a hard day. I decided to go shorter on my hair. I've never had a buzzer on my own head. So cutting my hair that short was a little bit Tough emotionally for me. But I'm getting closer to chemo so in need it to be done. I'll show those pics in a separate blog post.

Sun- march 5:

This morning I woke up, feeling really crappy. I had a headache and I threw up in the morning. I hardly ate all day very little bit. This probably should've been a clue that something wasn't right. But I took it easy all day rested a lot and try to keep up with my fluids.

Mon- March 6- 2am

So I woke up around 2 AM to go to the bathroom. Little did I know I was hemorrhaging blood. I went in to change my pad. And it was a lot blood. But I cleaned up, came back to bed half an hour later I was back in the bathroom.

By the second time I went to the bathroom I had to call Doug to help me. It was a lot I have never bled this much before. I needed help. Again, he helped me and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. At that point, I said, I just needed to lie down again. So I did. Half an hour later back up again in the bathroom.

This repeated for a total of two hours by that point I was in the bathroom, losing so much blood. I couldn't hear Doug talking to me, he sounded like the Charlie Brown adults. I could feel my self about to pass out, the room started to go dark and I started to fall to the floor.

Doug called 911.

The ambulance came and took me to Jersey shore, Medical Center. I was just really happy that it happened before my children woke up.

I was still hemorrhaging in the ER, but they quickly got me into a semi private-ish room in the ER. It at least had walls in a curtain doorway.

It was a madhouse of trying to figure out how to stop the blood. The OB/GYN on call try to do an examination which was almost impossible. Then they rushed me into an ultrasound. Luckily my own OB/GYN happen to be coming in shortly since her shift just about started.

Under normal circumstances, they would've been able to give me the hormone progesterone to stop the bleeding Or they would've had to do an emergency hysterectomy. But since I have breast cancer and my cancer is hormone positive giving me more hormones can in theory aggravate my cancer. So my OBGYN and my Oncologist had to all discuss the best method to get this bleeding to stop.

They are taking my blood to test my hemoglobin levels. My level was a 7. I should be at a level 14. To put that into perspective if your hemoglobin is at a 6.5 that's a life-threatening level and your organs start to shut down. Luckily, I didn't understand that at the time and neither did Doug. We knew I was bad, but I didn't know I was that bad. They did rush to get me a blood transfusion.

I was very weak, and just kept falling asleep while in the ER. So for hours people kept coming in taking blood giving me blood taking tests, but I just kept falling asleep. After they gave me the first blood transfusion my hemoglobin level still only went from 7 to 7.3. The blood wasn't working I was just bleeding it out.

So they decided the safest thing would be to give me progesterone for a short amount of time to slow the blood down. Which started to help. And then they gave me the second blood transfusion.

Now, while all this was going on, the interventional radiology department was also deciding how they were going to stop the flow of blood as well. Lots of different departments discussed it, and decided that the best course of action was to cut the blood supply to my uterus. So the decision was I was going to have a uterine artery embolization. Basically turning off the faucets, so there was no blood supply to my uterus anymore.

At this point at this point, they decided obviously I was going to be admitted into the hospital. So we just had to wait for a room. So I sat in the ER for a total of 20 hours. By the time they found me a room, Doug wasn't even allowed to come up. Trust me neither of us was thrilled that he couldn't stay with me. It was after midnight and with a kiss goodbye I was rolled up to my room alone.

Tues- Mar 7:

Unfortunately, this hospital has mostly shared rooms. Which sucks. But by the time I got to my room, I was so tired I just went to sleep. I knew in the morning Doug would get there and they were planning on my procedure happening first thing in the morning. So I slept the best I could. Not sure who my roommate was on the other side of the curtain at that point.

Now, I'm not sure how many people have been "lucky" enough to share a room with a stranger before in a hospital, but it is very odd, and you have no idea who you are sharing a room with. When I came in, she was quiet probably asleep. By 7 AM she was NOT quiet. The shift of nurses had switched over, they came in to take vitals so of course I was awake. And now so was my roommate on the other side of the curtain. And lucky for me she was throwing up every 30 seconds. And when I say every 30 seconds, I am not exaggerating. Vile, loud, vomiting, noises. She kept buzzing the nurse for more buckets.... and when she wasn't violently vomiting, she was showering. I don't know about you, but hearing someone vomit makes me instantly start to gag. It was awful.

my doctor did come in early and said they were going to get me in as soon as possible for my procedure. They were just waiting for transport. But at that point I was still alone because visiting hours had t started yet.

Doug finally arrived while i was waiting for transport and lucky for him, He was able to be witness to the beautiful sounds of my neighbor.

Even the transport guy said "does she do this lol day?"

And I said "yup!"

So we asked my nurse if possible could I switch rooms if one becomes available. Honestly, after having my mastectomy, and still recovering from that and now going in for the uterus embolization, I couldn't even stand the sound or thought of th gagging. I needed no more issues. So I was praying a room with open up anywhere else.

Surgery time!

So I get wheeled down to the Interventional radiology department. Let me tell you I've met some of the sweetest people and all of these departments. They gave me two amazing nurses who hooked up my IV. Got me all sad we chatted for a little bit and just were really sweet women. The one doctor gave me a heads up of what the procedure was going to entail. He said they would be using a catheter and go through the femoral artery and go to either side of my uterus and cauterize the blood supply to the uterus. This would stop any additional blood from reaching my uterus so I would stop bleeding. They also didn't pull any punches. He said this is not going to be a pain-free recovery. Yay me!

One of my nurses stayed with me the whole time. She said she would be there next to me throughout the whole procedure. So as I was wheeled in there, getting me all set up. I felt the need to give them all a heads up because well it's me. So the first nurse Has to get me all cleaned up and ready and I warned her that I have had a double mastectomy and I have not been able to use my arms which means I cannot shave...Anywhere.

So I warned them it's gonna be like a "70's Porno down there ".. which made them laugh. And she said, "don't worry I'll clean it up for you"

So I asked "while your down there feel free to shave my legs too!" (Spoiler alert- she didn't. Damn- I guess I'll have to wait for chemo to do it for me)

So for this procedure, you're actually awake. But in like a twilight type state. Not really sure how long it took. Think it was about 45 minutes. But everyone was really friendly really sweet and the procedure went well. They kept me in the recovery room for about an hour just to keep an eye on me before bringing me back to my room.

Transport brought me back wait to my room. Yep same room with my vomiting BFF. Dammit! So, unfortunately, after this procedure, you have to lay flat for four hours. I can't move a muscle. And my roommate won't stop vomiting. Yay me!

I was in my room for probably about an hour. I sister and mom came and met us there. I'm lucky that they got to it hear the sounds of my beautiful roommate. By this time my roommates parents had come and we decided she may have been detoxing or something. It was really just awful.

But by some stroke of luck they found me a new room!! so they came and took me away! Thank you, God!

Room number 2

So I am still unable to move for the four hours. At this point I had another three hours to go. They had me on a morphine drip for the pain. So when they rolled me into the room, I couldn't really see who my roommate was as I rolled past. All I could hear was the very loud TV and some sort of Jerry Springer type show that they were watching. By the volume TV was that I could tell this was an old person.

The old lady was in vomiting, so this is already a step up. And I was on the side of the room with the window, which is another plus. Still can't move, but I'll take it.

Now the procedure I had can technically be an out patient procedure. But not for me of course. Because I am a walking mess. So they kept me for another night to monitor my bleeding and make sure they could get my levels up higher. My hemoglobin still didn't wanna go above 7.

Now I have to say, my old lady roommate was quite entertaining. And for 90% of the time I never even saw what she looked like. But I could hear her. And she was a chatty one. Talk to every nurse and every doctor and complained about lots of things but was also very nice.

The only problem I had was she kept the volume of the TV as high as it could go. At all hours! So I had to ask the one nurse if she could please have her turn it down so I could sleep.

Old lady response was "I'm sorry I just can't hear at all"

And being hard of hearing would have been fine except every time my IV or morphine machine would beep she could hear that beep, and she immediately would complain about it. Can't hear the trashy reality TV shows but my small beeping medicine was just the right decipal for her...

"Can you call the nurse? What's that beeping?"

She was like Aunt Bethany from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation! I half expected to find cat food in a jello mold.

It was an interesting night but luckily I was able to sleep- morphine drip definitely helped.

There was one part of my night that was mentally hard for me. It was a very vulnerable moment that was embarrassing. I wasn't able to move because I had a catheter in so I needed help. And I was still bleeding- my incredible nurse has to help clean me up. And we always joke "who's going to wipe my ass when I'm old". But when I had this young nurse helping clean me up I literally cried uncontrollably. It was mortifying for me. I'm a 42 yr old independent woman and I needed her to clean me. She was so sweet and kind and I know it's their job and they are used to it. But it was emotionally awful for me. For all you nurses out there- YOU ROCK! 💗🙏🏽

Wed- March 8:

My hemoglobin levels had finally gotten over 8 so they felt I could be released. I would need to stay on the progesterone pill for another 5 days to keep the bleeding at bay. I just needed to make sure to get rest and recover. My OBGYN said the reason I probably hemorrhaged like i did was because of the blood thinner i was on. So we kept me off of it for now. My oncologist also agreed to keep me off it as well. They will just ultrasound my arms to make sure I'm clear of blood clots.

As I was wheeled out I finally got to see my roommate- and she was the tiniest little old woman, who barely even took up any space on the hospital bed. I wished her good luck and take care. And we headed home FINALLY!

So that was how my uterus tried to kill me.

First my breasts and then the uterus- my female organs for some reason are protesting. The exhaustion has been why I haven't been able to write. I physically couldn't type or focus long enough. But tomorrow I get my port so shit is getting real.... updates will be coming.