A Friday the 13th to Remember

Pregnancy— it’s not glamorous. It might be beautiful and wonderful and necessary to the survival of the human race, but it’s certainly not glamorous.

I got the hemorrhoids.

Is that too much information? If you’ve been pregnant yourself, probably not. Having been around other ladies of the child-bearing age, I get the impression that hemorrhoids are sort of the seasonal allergies of pregnancy. Either you get them or you don’t, and there’s not all that much you can do about it.

Anyway, when I went to my latest appointment, the midwife– who is nice but I’ve met now only three times in my life– wanted to schedule surgery on the thrombosed hemorrhoids.

Surgery-surgery.

Her office figured out how to get me in with a general surgeon that same day. How convenient.

So David cancelled his day of appointments, met me at the office, and took the kids home from what was supposed to be a quick appointment but ended up as a solo spa day of hemorrhoid removal.

Before the procedure I asked the surgeon about risks to the baby and chances of excessive bleeding. I was assured by multiple professionals that this whole procedure was decidedly no big deal and could be completed in the office without general anesthesia.

The thought did strike me, “Good thing I’m not superstitious, or doing this shebang on Friday the 13th would be no bueno.” I grudgingly agreed to proceed based on the recommendations of all the people everywhere. (I guess I didn’t poll the waiting room or the receptionist, but everyone else seemed to think it was a good idea.)

I got the sense that things weren’t going well during the procedure. The crowd of people in the room for my spa day and I started out chit-chatting, but slowly the tone changed to all-business. Like the work on my business end was taking up all the energy and focus.

I took the hint and stopped asking questions until I couldn’t. Our time together couldn’t exactly be described as pleasant, and I wanted a progress report.

“What percent of the way done would you say we are?” I asked, knowing that the update would make it easier to bear the continued burden of my compromising position and pain.

Insert awkward non-committal response.

Cool-cool. So now I don’t know if we’re like 5% of the way done or 5% from being finished. The meaning of the response was not lost on me. Things were not going as planned.

“Have Mary grab the such and such, the one without the teeth,” the doctor continued with the business.

I had to giggle. Now we’re using tools that can come with or without teeth. The thought was absurd enough to find funny.

After some further intervention, apparently with the new tool, the doctor stepped back.

At that point the team agreed to leave me sit for awhile to see if the bleeding would slow down on its own.

Once again, the meaning of that sunk in. They were having a hard time getting the bleeding to stop. All the sudden I was on every medical show ever. It’s always the supposed-to-be-easy cases that end up with death, you know. Especially the friendly supposed-to-be-easy cases.

There was more reassurance that this was no big deal. I was given a glass of water and left alone on a procedure chair-table in a very boring room. We were back to joking, so at least that was something.

As I looked around, the thought from my Cee medical days struck me.

I’m here for a reason.

When things were really tough with Cee, I had to tell myself that we were experiencing everything for a reason. Perhaps there was a staff person we were supposed to meet. Perhaps there was a random person in the waiting room we were supposed to pray for.

Somehow today my story path was supposed to cross into a place I don’t usually end up, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

I hoped I would be open to being a little pencil in God’s hand, as Mother Teresa said, and prayed for whoever was needing a prayer in the office.

Sharing that feels silly, like I’m arrogantly expecting that my life means more than it does. But it’s an understanding that although our suffering isn’t what God wants, good can come from it. It’s a useful coping mechanism/life lesson I learned after going through all the stuff.

During this opportunity for sustained, silent, alone time I did notice the continued feeling of wetness. When the nurse or the medical student stopped to check on me, I was sure to mention what I suspected was happening under my paper-towel drape blanket.

They assured me that the doctor would be back soon, and I restated my appreciation for the team squeezing me in among a full day of clinic appointments.

I’m not sure at what point my thoughts switched over from “little pencil” to “I should have hugged my kids before David shipped them back home,” but they did. The doctor and his posse returned.

No one was panicked, per se, but no one expressed satisfaction at the progress.

I resumed my battle position knowing that there would be no percent-finished countdowns.

More stitches. More cauterization. More everything until I could picture the surgeon pushing back from my backside, hands in the air. He announced he was done in here and the rest would have to be completed with general anesthesia. The angles were too hard, and he didn’t want me to keep suffering.

I had been breathing through the pain, just like labor. Long inhales, long exhales. It got me through, but I could see how it would be disconcerting for someone used to a much more quiet patient response experience.

I expressed big concerns for the safety of the baby and was sure to mention that I wouldn’t have signed up for this whole deal if general anesthesia was part of the package. I said that if it was what was best, I’d agree, but I was also okay with sitting here for hours to see if it stopped on its own.

The doctor said he’d start the ball rolling to book us a space. It would take a fair amount of time to get the ducks in a row, and he’d check my bleeding before we left. If had it stopped on its own by then, I could go home. If it was still going, we had a date with an anesthesiologist.

The doctor had a gaggle of kids about the same ages as ours, and through the whole process I appreciated that he saw me as a person, not just a problem to be solved. After having seen lots of doctors these past six years, I know that’s not a universal trait.

I borrowed a phone to call David to tell him to dump the kids and get back here. I also told him to pray that the bleeding stop.

I was left alone again, this time with no water in case we ended up with anesthesia.

This time I selfish prayed. I prayed that the bleeding would stop. I prayed that the baby would be okay. I prayed that all my pain and anxiety be used for whatever needed prayer at that exact moment and listed some personal choice options if there wasn’t actually anything else.

A harried David arrived eventually. I had neither a phone or a clock, so I’m not sure how long it took to drive back into town. Just seeing David was such a relief for me. I joked about sitting there with my wood-burning kit (the cauterization machine) and other equally inappropriate things. It did not put him at ease.

We’ll be married for 13 years this winter, and I can read him like a book. David was shook. I saw on his face all his feelings at being told his wife wouldn’t stop bleeding and was going to require surgery.

During this last stretch of waiting, I had come to terms with needing additional surgery. At least I wouldn’t be awake! I told David that that was my expectation of what was going to happen next, and he agreed it was likely.

Ultimately this whole pregnancy has been an ongoing lesson in how little control I have. It didn’t make sense that God would bring us this far, when so many things had gone wrong, just to have everything fall apart. Then again–

The team came in and met David, and the surgeon turned to me and asked how I was feeling.

“Dry. Very dry, ” I joked. I was trying to be funny, but it was mostly true. Since the last round of intervention, I felt a lot less bleeding. When the medical student checked me last before David arrived, he said that the bleeding was half as much as it had been.

The surgeon and medical student both checked me over.

“It’s stopped.”

“No way!” I might have been praying that would happen, but I honestly didn’t think it would. “For real? I’ve been praying it would stop.”

“It’s done bleeding,” the doctor reiterated. He gave me some care tips, and suddenly David and I were wandering through a parking garage on our way home.

On our slow hike (the procedure + some blood loss meant I was even slower than usual) I pondered who it might have been that we needed to meet today.

I bristled when one of the nurses, handling my concerns about the risks of general anesthesia, called the baby “the fetus.” Although I understand that technically that term is medically accurate, I had already been calling the baby “The Baby,” so it seemed like an odd failure to mirror my words. I didn’t make a big deal about it, though, so that probably wasn’t it.

Maybe the medical student needed to hear me say that I’d been praying that the bleeding would stop. I don’t know his story at all. That could have been a thing.

Maybe someone in the surgery waiting room needed to see my five kids flip out over the giant aquarium before David took them home. They couldn’t contain their glee. That could have helped someone relax before their own procedure.

Maybe it was none of the above. It doesn’t really matter, but I like thinking about things that way. It makes the detours and flat tires of life more bearable to think of them as part of a bigger picture.

At any rate I’m grateful to be home and able to squeeze my kids.

“Mom, are you ill?” Bea asked after I’d been resting for a few hours.

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Sometimes ill people die in their beds,” she said nonchalantly. Oh, Bea. It’s hard to have the world-shake-up of a sick parent. Hopefully the hugs and cuddles will help her feel secure in this weird space.

For all the people who told me how much better I’d feel right away, I’m still waiting. But at least I’m waiting at home, grateful for how things turned out. We’re still at the level of not pleasant for sure.

Cee made a comment about the impressive full moon, and we chatted about how some people consider the combination of Friday the 13th and a full moon to be extra bad luck. I poo-pooed the idea. Why would the date or the stage of the moon impact anything other than the tides?

Overhearing our conversation, David got a funny look on his face, “Says the one who ended up with a sudden surgery with complications on Friday the 13th.”

Touché.

I’m still not superstitious, but maybe when the next one rolls around in December, I’ll just stay home. It’s going to be awhile before I’ll be walking under ladders or chasing black cats with reckless abandon, that’s for sure.