Ramona Hobbes

Later that day I started feeling a bit “off,” but couldn’t really pin point what was wrong. It was a bit like a sick “pain” in my tummy and some lower back pain. I decided to put my daughter (20months) down for a nap and try to get some sleep myself. I could still feel the backache even while asleep. The rest of the day was about the same. My temp was up a little, 37 point something, which was up for me, but didn’t think too much of it. That night I went to sleep about 9:30/10 p.m. and I’m pretty sure that by then I was feeling ok. My partner and I were talking and decided we better buy the new baby a car seat tomorrow, since we only have two or so weeks until he’s born. LOL

21 October, I woke about 12:30 a.m. with a very distinct contraction. I got a tad excited! Within about 1 to 1.5 hours I’d had another three contractions and then BAM, they were 3 to 5 minutes apart! By then I was writing them all down and trying to breath through them. My partner woke and asked what I was doing and I said timing my contractions! Well he was surprised and that was the end of sleep for him! He went and woke my mother-in-law (who was living with us at the time) to let her know what was happening as she’d be looking after our daughter. Things were really heating up so I jumped in the shower and asked my partner to call the hospital. The pain was bad, but I could handle it. I spoke to a midwife and was told to come in. By 3:30 a.m., we were in the car heading to the hospital.

Would you believe it, roadworks!! At that time!! LOL

About 4 a.m., we were in the hospital and they put me in the little room before the birth suite, but was decided in there that an examination wasn’t necessary as it was obvious I was in labour and was taken to a birth suite.

The midwife checked me and I was 6 or 7 cm and she decided I should use the fit ball in the shower for pain relief. I remember sitting on the ball thinking “hmmm what should I be doing? Is sitting here bouncing enough?” Haha. By 5 a.m., I was ready to push, so came back out onto the bed.

My first or second push my waters broke and it wasn’t long before my son was born, only about 15 minutes. At 5:33 a.m., I met my son and he looked so tiny when he was put on my chest… just beautiful. I was expecting him to be 6 pounds or something being two weeks early, but he was a healthy 7 pounds, 5oz and 52cm long. My daughter was 10 days late and 7 pounds, 15.5oz, so I was expecting DS to be late too!

It was all just so perfect! My little man was here, earlier than anticipated, but I had done it, birthed our second miracle with only two breaths of (useless) gas. I rang my mum and woke her up. She sounded a bit cranky about that! I informed her I have a son and she was completely shocked, No-one was expecting this. I wasn’t due yet plus I didn’t tell anyone I was in labour! My partner went home about 7.30 a.m. to look after our daughter as my mother-in-law had to work. Everything back to normal already!

I was taken up to the ward about 8 a.m. and I was pleasantly surprised to be wheeled into a private room, yay! My son was asleep, what will I do now?! LOL

A few hours later my nightmare began…

It started with a headache and the red itchy tummy from the day before had become a rash that slowly spread to my neck, face, legs and chest. I was flushed, with a low-grade fever, flu-like symptoms, including neck stiffness, but I didn’t have a runny nose which you normally do if you just have a cold or the flu. My room’s air conditioning didn’t work and my room was HOT. My BP was low every time it was taken and my heart rate was over 90 per minute, and quickly jumped up to 130. By Thursday, it was around 150. I could feel it beating and described to my partner that I thought it was going to beat out of my chest (he told me I said this although I have no memory of saying it!).

At some stage I had calf pain and abdominal pain. My BP continued to drop, which wasn’t normal for me, so I became dizzy whenever I tried to stand up. Most of the time between 12 p.m. Wednesday and 2:30 p.m. Friday, I don’t remember, I have never been able to.

I had a lot of visitors Wednesday night, including my sister and her family, my Dad, my partner’s sister and family and earlier my partner’s mum. My sister noticed I was unwell as soon as she walked in. She said I looked flushed and asked what the nurses were doing for me. They weren’t doing much! She got a cloth and wet it to put on my forehead and helped change my son. My partner and 20-month-old daughter were there too, but I just sat on my bed, cranky and feeling horrible. Once everyone left, I don’t remember what happened overnight.

Thursday morning when I was changing my son because he wee’d everywhere, but I didn’t have the strength to bathe him. A nurse did that for me while I just sat on the little couch next to my bed. Even getting up to get more clothes for my son was hard. Not sure what else happened through that day, apart from seeing a few junior doctors and continually being brushed off as fine. They said it was just a viral infection and that I can have regular panadol and nurofen, and that I should try to drink plenty of water to try to up my lowering BP.

Once again I had lots of visitors Thursday everning, my partner’s sister and family, his mum and Grandma and my Mum and another of my sisters. And again I just sat on my bed, uninterested in what was going on around me, flushed and feeling like death. I had to send my partner to put my washing into the dryer from the machine (I had slowly made my way to the laundry earlier that day to put the washing on). My mum eventually commented that everyone should go so I could get some rest. I had 11 visitors at the time!

That night was HELL. I lost control of my bowels and didn’t make it to the bathroom. I then had more diarrhea later, but thankfully made it to the bathroom those other times. By now I KNEW I was really sick and it wasn’t just the viral infection the docs keep saying I had. I was so restless and couldn’t sleep because my bed felt like it had a big lump in it and it was digging into my hips. I lost my temper with my nurse; I was just so frustrated. Here I was sick as a dog, not able to look after myself, yet somehow needing to look after my newborn who I was having trouble breastfeeding as he was sleepy from jaundice (which still wasn’t diagnosed). All my clothing felt two sizes too small, my underwear was cutting in and annoying me. My stuff was everywhere, thrown about my (private) room, my bathroom was disgusting, wet towels, dirty clothing and pads on the floor. None of that is me; I’m a neat freak and need everything to be perfectly tidy and in place, especially when staying somewhere away from home.

Sometime during the early hours of Friday morning, I suddenly couldn’t breathe properly; it was like I just couldn’t get enough air in. By Friday morning and shift change over, I was utterly exhausted. Thankfully I had a good nurse Friday who seemed to actually care about me. She gave my oxygen through the nostril tubes and later gave me the oxygen mask. My partner came up early as I had been texting him and he was very worried that now I couldn’t breathe.

By about midday. the nurse suggested my partner go home so I could get some sleep. I think only about 20 minutes passed before things changed. All Friday I had people coming and going, from the Hearing Test lady, physio, nurse and doctors.

Something clicked with someone who looked at my chart and things were finally being done. I saw a young male doctor about 9/10 a.m. and he said he would speak to his boss about me and come back. So not long after my partner left he came back. I can’t remember who exactly told me I was being transferred to Intensive Care, it could’ve been the ICU nurse, who did come and see me and explained what ICU was and that it would be different to this ward etc. Apparently she then phoned the ICU and said she needed help as there was no way she could get me there by herself. They then told me to ring mypartner and tell him to come back and he would be staying in my room, and will need to look after baby.

About 40 minutes later, my partner got back, but they’d decided to instead take the baby to special care nursery as he needed treatment for jaundice and cautionary antibiotics as they still weren’t sure what was wrong with me.

It was about 3 p.m. now and I was transferred from my bed to the ICU bed they brought up. I was hooked up to monitors and my partner said he was really scared then once the machines started monitoring my heart rate, which was about 150 and beeping like crazy. On my way to ICU, we stopped for me to have a CT scan. That was horrible, as I had to lay flat, which meant I couldn’t breathe at all. They had my oxygen turned right up and still wasn’t enough. After that I was taken to ICU.

Over the next four or so hours, I was given several drips including a central line. I don’t remember ANY of this. I think my mind just blacked it out as it was so unpleasant. My family all came up and sat with me in ICU while the staff organised a theatre (surgical) team. I was to go to the operating theatre (operating room) at 8:30 p.m. for an exploratory laparoscopy and since that showed nothing, they did a laparotomy and a D&C. I was given me about 20 litres of fluid on admission to try to increase my BP, which was dangerously low, so I was so bloated and got some horrendous stretch marks.

Next thing i knew it’s the 31st October!! I just lost eight days to an induced coma… Please excuse this if it’s all over the place. It’s hard writing it all down and trying to remember things.

Saturday 31st October, 10 days after my son was born, I woke up to find myself in the strange place i was seeing in my dreams, my isolation room in Intensive Care, I was hooked up to so many machines and monitors. I can’t remember what was actually said to me when I did finally come to, but I did remember my nurse! (I was to have her again for quite a few days later down the track.) She was lovely. In fact, 90% of the nurses were fantastic. I could really only complain about a few (One I actually did complain about!) and they were mostly the agency nurses.

So here I was hooked up to a ventilator, with a tracheostomy, two different drips, one in my left arm (arterial line – for monitoring, I think?) and the other for antibiotics. I did have a central line put in my neck on admission, but that was taken out sometime during my “sleep.” I had an NG tube for feeds, catheter, FCD, oxymeter on my finger and dressings on my arms. I also had kidney failure and had to undergo dialysis. Lower down, I had pressure stockings, foot pumps and these half boot things to prevent foot drop. I had a large bandage over my stomach for the wound from my surgery and was dressed in a horrid hospital gown that I would soon learn to despise. I would look down at myself and I think “how the hell did this happen, how did things go so horribly wrong?” One minute I was normal with my brand new baby, next thing I was “this” and I just couldn’t comprehend how it all happened.

One of the first questions my mum asked me the day I woke up was “are you confused?” The answer was a simple “No”. I knew what had happened and I knew where I was, just WHY it all happened was my question. How did they let this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?

On the day I woke up I remember asking to get out of bed! lol At that stage I had NO idea just how sick and weak I was. I think it was the following day, Sunday, that they first got me up. (could’ve been the Monday) OMG… I just couldn’t do it, my body was failing… My mind was yelling “Get up, you have to get out of this place,” but my body just wasn’t responding. I felt like I weighed 200kg. I had visions of just hopping up and using a wheelie walker to cruise down the corridors of ICU! Haha

There was always so much going on, medically, that there wasn’t much emotional room to think about my new baby and toddler at home. If I tried thinking about them, it was like I didn’t have the energy to fight this awful infection that had almost killed me. It seemed it was one or the other, so I told myself for the time being I would concentrate on getting better so I could get home. I still feel guilty about that now (almost two years on I’m writing/editing this). I only got to see my children about six times max, in the 6 1/2 weeks I was in hospital – not a good way to start a new relationship with your newborn.

My family used to come and visit twice a day, which helped so much. There’s no way I could’ve gotten through it without them. They brought in photos of my two children and they were put up on the walls in my room. I was never short a “Get well” balloon either! lol No flowers/teddy bears allowed in ICU.

The first night was weird. I tried to sleep, but was paranoid I’d stop breathing if I did sleep. The nurses/doctors were reassuring me that that would not happen and even if I did stop breathing the machine was would take over. It was hard trying to breathe when you had a tube pushing air into your lungs. It wasn’t long before the ventilator setting was changed from Pressure support to Spontaneous – I was doing all the breathing, only receiving minimal support, so I had control again! The couple of times I did drift off, I dreamt my bed was a space ship and would lift off the floor! It was strange…

My diet consisted off a brown liquid in a bag hanging next to my bed *vomit*. My family used to joke it was a milkshake! As they say, what goes in liquid, comes out liquid! (and that’s exactly what happened the next three weeks). I had to have a FCD to drain my bowel. This was however taken out and put back in twice (so three all up I think). Not a nice experience. My catheter was also changed once so they could send the tip off to be cultured. I had to have bloods taken twice a day, but that was reduced when I had my second central line put in.

I would be here all day if I wanted to write what happened each day I spent in ICU! I had my ups and downs, it was one step forward, two steps back. The pneumonia was a major set back, it took nearly a week to work out what was wrong, I kept having high temps, up to 40.4 Celsius. My right lung was worse, it was the one that had to have the two drains out in, each stayed in place for three to four days.

I had a speech therapist come to see me each day (after about a week, as I wasn’t stable enough for oral trials). She got me swallowing again, thickened fluids, very much like jelly. After quite a few days of that, I moved onto custard, ice cream and I was even given a few teaspoons of water. Oh how I missed water! Nothing had gone into my mouth, other than a toothbrush, for nearly three weeks! Oral trials could only be done if I was breathing using the T-piece, not the ventilator.

About 2 1/2 weeks in, I got to go outside in a big oxford chair. It was so nice to be outside, to see the blue sky and clouds and feel fresh air on my face! My fiancé and Dad were there with me that day. I felt like I’d turned a corner, I felt like everything would be ok, that I would get better and be home any day now. I was even upgraded from the isolation room to a normal “room” with curtain walls! lol Sadly I didn’t get to go home a few days later (the second chest drain was done in my new room).

I finally started getting up more with the physios and walking around, once about 10 metres to the bathroom, man that was a mission! I got to have my first shower, what a luxury! The things we take for granted are amazing! In the 27 days I spent in ICU I only had two showers! Of course I had sponge baths, I wasn’t left dirty! My hair was washed while I was in bed a few times and that was nice.

When I first went to ICU and while in a coma I received high dose inotropes, including adrenaline, noradrenaline and activated protein C (xigris). Not to mention the thousand different antibiotics. I think I was on about four different ones when I woke up, but after a while I developed a rash from one of them, so they decided to stop them all and see what happened. They managed to work out the culprit and was put back on a cocktail of antibiotics.

About day 20 or so I was told my heart wasn’t well. I knew something was up, because they couldn’t keep my heart rate down. Whenever I got up it would sky rocket to 170 or so! I so became paranoid about it, I was worried I’d have a heart attack and used to ask my fiancé when he was there what my heart rate was as I couldn’t see the machine. Finally the doctor in charge decided to put my on a beta-blocker. This scared me though, because when he spoke about it (during ward rounds I think) he said he’d put me on a small dose, but I needed to be closely monitored while on it. That might’ve had something to do with how sick I was/had been, I’m not entirely sure.

Oh and speaking of ward rounds, it was like a circus, I felt like a freak everyone had come to gawk at. There were always at least eight people, most times a lot more. Doctors, nurses, phsyios, speechies, med students… you name it, they were there. They would all look at me and I swear that would send my heart rate up again and I’d struggle breathing, it was awful.

I forgot about the suctioning… oh how unpleasant that was. Those little coughs we do spontaneously to clear secretions, wasn’t possible for me with a breathing tube stuck in my wind pipe, so I had to have them suctioned out by the nurse. It was like silent choking/coughing/gagging for me, not very nice and that happened constantly day and night.

When you’re in ICU it’s virtually impossible to sleep. I spent most nights wide awake starring at the clock. I just wasn’t tired as I’d been in bed all day. They don’t stop for sleep in ICU either, bloods at 4 am, X-Rays at 2am… BP checks hourly (The cuff stayed on my arm the whole time and gave me a massive bruise on the inside of my arm) blood sugar tests, temperature checks, medications, drip flushes, potassium, magnesium, dressings changed… and it goes on, it didn’t matter whether it was day or night.

To avoid pressure areas, I was repositioned in my bed hourly, so I was rolled over and pillows moved or my sheets were changed or it was “bath” time. My bed was lowered and flattened and that was torture, as I simply could not breath when I was laying flat. It would take three people to do a bed change. My nurse who did the changing/cleaning/wiping/pillows, a wardsman to “roll and hold” me and someone else to hold my breathing tube, they were known as the “tubey.” I won’t too much into the bed pan story, but that also had to happen between FCD’s and was worse than your worst nightmare.

Finally something nice. The day before moving up to the ward, my NG tube was removed, catheter gone and best of all the tracheostomy was decannulated! The best thing that had happened to me in 26 days! I couldn’t wait for my family to come up that night and see me tube free! The next day I was transferred to the ward and my recovery went in leaps and bounds from there. I stayed there for 2 1/2 weeks.

Finally I got out of hospital on the 4th of December and was able to go home and actually meet my newborn son, who by now was 6 1/2 weeks old and my two-year-old daughter who I missed terribly.

Not until the day before leaving hospital was I really made aware that I have a heart condition. The heart failure nurse came to see me and handed me a booklet “Living with chronic heart failure.” That was a shock!

I was on metroprolol, but no ACE-I due to it causing hypotension we tried two weeks or so earlier. My EF at discharge was 30%.

Diagnosis- Strep A Sepsis (endometritis), multi organ failure secondary to severe septic shock. Later I learned I also had/have cardiomyopathy (peripartum/sepsis related – not certain which, so going with both)

Once home I decided to give breastfeeding a go, seeing as I’d planned all along to BF for two years, I wasn’t going to give up without a fight! Thankfully I was successful and we’re still BFing today and DS is almost 18 months old.

This has been finished in July 2011. My DS has self weaned at 20 months of age. Congratulations to us both.