Attack!

On a Monday afternoon when I was 39 weeks pregnant with Peter, I began suffering from what I was sure was a heart attack. I couldn't breathe. I had pain shooting throughout my body. And I felt nauseated. This was all bad enough, but the worst part was that I hadn't felt Peter move in hours. I waited until I was certain that I was close to death, and then called my doctor.

Of course, I had waited until after 5 p.m., so I got the doctor on call. After describing my symptoms, he asked if I wasn't in labor.

This was a completely different kind of pain than labor I told him. I told him my heart attack theory.

"Weeeellllll," he sighed, "it sounds like you could be having a pulmonary embolism. You need to go to the ER right away."

"The ER?" I asked. "Can't I just head over to OB?"

"No," he told me. "We're not equipped to deal with that in OB. Go to the ER."

I will pause in the story to admit here that I was significantly more alarmed about having to go to the ER than I was about possibly having a pulmonary embolism, whatever that was. The ER is approximately my least favorite place in the entire world for two reasons: 1) The ER is in the hospital; and 2) the ER is full of disgusting sick people who are armed with potentially lethal contagions. But the doc on call wouldn't budge, so I called my husband and told him the news.

After being slowly admitted into the ER and asked what I was most concerned about -- me or my baby -- I was informed that if I was more concerned about my baby, then I would be shipped down to OB because they didn't have any fetal monitoring equipment. Hallelujah though I felt as if I needed a disinfecting sponge bath from simply sitting in the admitting area of the ER.

So then I was sloooowwwly wheeled to OB where I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and was reassured that yes, my baby was doing just fine, which instantly made me feel better. Nonetheless, approximately two hours later, they managed to draw some blood and do an ultrasound only to discover that the source of my pain was not the pulmonary embolism as originally suspected (I would have likely died by the time they got around to running the tests). Instead, it was my gall bladder, which was full of stones. Apparently, the chocolate cake and walnuts I had eaten as an afternoon snack did not agree with my gall bladder one bit.

They kept me over night because by this time, with all of the waiting and the threat of going to the ER and talk of pulmonary embolisms and such, my blood pressure had gotten so high that I was on the verge of stroking out. The next morning, with my blood pressure back in check and instructions to eat lightly and to consume no fat, nuts, or whole grains, I went home where I promptly ate a pizza.

The very next day, I gave birth to Peter. What with all of the hubbub of a new baby, my gall bladder resumed its righteous place with all of my other internal organs -- that of being completely ignored and forgotten because they seem to work just fine.

Nonetheless, my OB told me she had referred me for a surgery consult and that I would have to wait until Peter was six weeks old to have my gall bladder removed, simply because my uterus would be too large for them to get to my insides.

If you've ever had a baby, you would understand when I say that the very idea of having surgery just when I was starting to feel better from giving birth did not appeal to me whatsoever. But best of all, I didn't suffer any more gall bladder attacks. So I decided to pretend that my gall bladder was completely better and that miraculously, each and every stone was passed. I was a healed woman.

Gall bladder? What gall bladder?

It probably helped significantly that I was trying desperately to lose all of the pregnancy weight that I had gained and so I didn't actually consume much fat. Or chocolate cake. Or pizza.

But then I turned 35. And to celebrate, over a period of several days, I drank a lot of wine. I ate a lot of chocolate cake and also a lot of spaghetti and meatballs. And over a period of several days, I woke up completely nauseated, with trouble breathing. But instead of remembering this feeling from four months earlier, I dismissed it as a touch of the flu.

And because I am a firm believer in really celebrating one's birthday, I went out later in the week with a group of friends. And I drank a lot more wine. And I ate a lot of gorgonzola cheese dip. And this really incredible cheesy artichoke dip. Then I went home where I wolfed down two slices of sausage pizza. Then I lay awake until 3 a.m. because I was sweating and in pain and so nauseated I thought that I was on the verge of dying. But again -- I just chalked it up to the flu.

The next day, I had a snack of some walnuts and a big bowl of whole grain cereal with sliced almonds. And within a half-hour of eating, I was back on the verge of death. Sweating. Difficulty breathing. Pain shooting throughout my torso.

And suddenly it became clear to me -- this was not the flu! It was my gall bladder! Apparently it had not miraculously healed itself at all. And my birthday bender had sent my poor little non-functioning gall bladder into overdrive.

I felt so badly that I actually contemplated going to the ER. But after googling whether or not you can die from a gall bladder attack (the answer is no), I decided to sweat it out at home.

The next day, I called to schedule my surgery consult and will have this offensive little organ removed in just a few short days.

And surgery cannot come too soon. I have shed a total of nine pounds in the ten days since my last attack. My gall bladder diet is by far the best diet I've ever been on, but living on approximately 37 calories of saltines and dry white bread a day is getting a little stale to say the very least. While walking home from work the other day, I literally had to think about putting one foot in front of the other. I do not have enough energy to go to the gym, let alone chase around my three year old, nurse my baby, work, and be a pleasant human being.

My husband regularly jokes when I don't feel well that he'll just get out the leeches so we can bleed out whatever is ailing me. And truthfully, leeches sound significantly more pleasant to me than the surgery I am planning to have this week. So to willingly undergo being put out and then sliced open in three different places is fairly indicative of just how terrible I feel. And just how much I miss pizza.

Scaredy Cat

One thing you should know about me is that if we’re ever together on a vessel at sea, I will have prepared a grab bag in case the ship goes down. We’ll have everything we need to live in one of the harshest environments on earth – the ocean. I even know how to make drinkable water using a plastic bag, a rock, a small bowl, and a rubber band. And, I can help you figure out what seaweed is edible and what will make your survival at sea even more tenuous.

But, if a storm hits and the ship starts to sink, it is going to be entirely up to you to get that vital grab bag and get us both on the lifeboat. Because I am going to be very busy – standing still, wringing my hands, and peeing myself.

I have been scared about lots of things in life – like being lonely or not succeeding. But I have been terrified – so scared that after the event is over, I am left as a shaking, wobbly-kneed, and nauseated survivor – only six times. And three of those times have been very recently.

The first time I was terrified I was in high school. I had spent the night at a friend’s house and we had sneaked out, “borrowed” her mother’s car, and driven to her boyfriend’s house. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and the middle of nowhere is very dark in the middle of the night. I remember not being able to see my hand in front of me as we stumbled toward the boyfriend’s house and then stood under his bedroom window, casting pebbles at it. And then, all of a sudden, I felt someone’s hands grab me by the arms and throw me to the ground. Then my friend screamed and ran, leaving me alone on the ground with the hands and an enormous figure looming over me. It took me a few minutes of laying there, my heart pounding, my stomach churning before it dawned on me that it was the boyfriend’s father, threatening to call the cops because he thought we were intruders trying to break into his house.

The second time I was terrified was while I was in graduate school. I had ventured to the public library to do research, and with my nose buried in a book, I suddenly felt someone standing too close for comfort. I looked up – into the barrel of a gun, pointed directly at my face.

“Give me your purse,” the gun said to me.

I just sat there. I was not able to move. I was not able to think. I could not see beyond the gun to the man holding it at my head. My only conscious thought was how enormous the gun looked, almost like a cartoon, and I envisioned my head being blown clean off, landing somewhere in the biography section.

“Give me your purse,” the gun said again. But I just sat there.

Fortunately, the gun had more presence of mind than I did, and he grabbed my purse, oddly thanked me for it, and left. I sat there for another 30 minutes, unable to move, just listening to my breath, extremely grateful that I had breath to listen to.

The third time I was terrified was on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean, on a return flight from Vienna. I’ve traveled a lot in life, often on very small six-seater planes in bad weather. So being on a jumbo jet didn’t concern me much. When the seatbelt light came on and the pilot announced some turbulence ahead, I thought nothing of it.

But this was turbulence like none that I had ever experienced before. The plane pitched. The plane dipped. Overhead bins popped open. People were throwing up, clutching onto their seats, protecting their heads from loose luggage. And then things really got bad.

The plane began what felt like a free fall and the oxygen masks dropped from above. The woman next to me grabbed my hand and screamed, “We’re going to die!!!” I remember wondering why I had never listened to how to use these oxygen masks and wondered where my flotation device was. And I remember feeling like my body was one giant cramped and very tense muscle – preparing for impact, I guess. And then it stopped. The pilot’s voice came on and apologized for the rough ride. People around me were sobbing with relief. But I just sat there, again, listening to my breath.

Terrifying times 4, 5, and 6 have all been the same. My new baby, Peter, is happily cooing and goo-goo-gahing, laughing and smiling. Then he is not. His eyes roll back in his head. His little body goes rigid. His arms and legs shake. It is like he is choking to death, unable to breathe. It is like he is having a seizure. It is like he is going to die right before my eyes.

Let me tell you that I would rather be on a plane hurtling towards the Atlantic Ocean a thousand miles per hour. Let me tell you that I would rather be staring down the barrel of a very large gun. Let me tell you that I would rather be laying on the ground with an unknown figure looming over me in the dark. Because none of those events require any kind of presence of mind; they do not require you to act and the only one whose life was on the line was mine.

No matter though because the reality of the situation is that this new little baby of mine would choke to death right in front of me if I reacted in my typical, pee-myself response to tragedy or frightening events.

While my first reaction was to call my husband at work and tell him to come home fast to save Peter’s life, I resisted. My second reaction was to dial 911. Again, I resisted. And then in the few seconds of time you have before your baby turns blue, I have actually reacted in the right way each and every time. I have grabbed him, flipped his little body over against my forearm and banged on his back as hard as I can. Then, shockingly, amazingly, I have actually located one of the approximately five hundred blue suctioners we have laying around and I have suctioned out his throat as if I went to medical school to do it. It is only when I hear his cry and he starts trying to beat away the suctioner that my knees practically give out from under me.

So there you have terrifying moments numbers four, five, and six.

Our very low-key pediatrician suggested that this might be acid reflux that was causing these “episodes”. So after a barrage of tests, including an upper GI, X-rays, and an ultrasound, we now know that yes, Peter has reflux.

I wish I could say that the good doctor prescribed medicine, Peter took it happily and thus we had a happy ending to our little story. But that is not the case.

Our doctor did prescribe medicine, one of which is a very scary drug that says right on the page of warnings accompanying it that one of the side effects can be DEATH. We weighed our options – uncomfortable, barfing baby or dead baby – and thus opted to give Peter one medicine and not the potentially fatal one. We wished very sincerely that suddenly unicorns would start jumping over rainbows and the sun would shine forever brightly in the sky and our little baby would eat right along and gain weight and not almost choke to death on his own barf.

But again, this is not the case. Peter did start throwing up significantly less, but that may be because he completely refuses to consume food. You wouldn’t think that someone who weighs 17 pounds could physically overcome his fully-grown and fairly strong parents. But you would be amazed at how exhausting it is to try to force food down a baby’s throat when he is screaming and hitting and kicking and otherwise completely hysterical.

Our doctor assures me that his refusal to nurse or take a bottle is just learned behavior, a reaction to the fact that eating probably causes him a great deal of pain. But for a learned behavior to completely overcome instinct, and not just any instinct, but a most basic instinct like eating, seems kind of, well, crazy to me. And I just wonder if someone somewhere (i.e. the doctor) is missing the mark with either treatment or diagnosis.

Anyway, it seems such a little thing – acid reflux – and is apparently common among newborns. But I have to tell you, like anything, when it is happening to you, to your brand new baby, it can consume you. And scare you to death.