September 18th.

Today it's been a year since I had emergency surgery. I went to work, and someone had brought donuts. I chose the biggest apple turnover known to man...literally it was bigger than my head. About 5 minutes after finishing my turnover I got a rather sharp pain in my left side. I called my OB/GYN and she told me to go to an emergency room. I drove to the one my OB was affilliated with even though it was about a 45 minute drive. I went in and described my pain and told them that I was 8 weeks pregnant. They told me to wait in the ER and they would call me.

Within 5 minutes a nurse came out with a wheelchair to get me. They poked and prodded at my side and sent me in for an ultrasound. I was all too familiar with all this because this was actually my third pregnancy in 13 months. (I have about a million things physically wrong with me, but that's a whole other story!) The ultrasound confirmed that the pregnancy was tubal, and I would need to undergo an emergency surgery. I asked them if I could just have chemotherapy like I did one other time, but the doctor told me this was too late to do that. I would later find out that my fallopian tube had already ruptured at this point.

I called Nick to tell him that I was in the ER and had a tubal pregnancy and was going to need surgery. I had never had any kind of surgery and I was scared. Nick told me he would get there as soon as he was done with work. Now, Nick is a mailman and has literally thousands of hours of sick pay that he is allowed to use for either himself or a family member's illness, or medical emergency. We went back and forth and he said he would see what he could do. This was about 10:30 am.

The doctors began prepping me and asking all kinds of questions about what I had eaten etc. Well, I had eaten the world's largest apple turnover just before coming. (those of you who voted me most likely to sell my soul for a donut on facebook, weren't too far off, huh?) They determined I would need to wait a little while for my surgery due to the fullness of my stomach. So they put me on an IV, and put my under this silver heat blanket that blows warm air on you. A nice young guy asked what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10, and I told him it was about a 7. He asked if I wanted some morphine, and I said I was fine. He said, "Are you sure, I've got lots! Don't be a hero!" So I let him give me morphine for the pain. They were trying to keep me from going into shock because I was bleeding internally, while trying to buy some time for me to digest my apple turnover. Leave it to me to delay medical attention due to my eating habits! I called Nick a few more times. I was scared and alone in the hospital.

They moved me to the pre-op area after about 4-5 hours. The nurses started taking my jewelry off and putting it all in a denture (Ick!) container--hopefully a new one! One nurse reprimanded me because I was told to take off all my jewelry, and when she removed my socks, she saw I had 2 toe rings on still. Well in all the blur of the morphine, frankly, I forgot they were there! Anyway, they wheeled me into surgery and Nick still wasn't there.

I woke up to about 5 nurses standing around me. It was all fuzzy, but I distinctly heard one of them say that she got really scared when my heart rate dipped below 50 beats per minute. (I have bradycardia, and my heart slows way down...if it gets worse, I may end up with a pacemaker) I slowly opened my eyes and saw all these nurses standing around me, looking at me and asking how I felt. I asked them if my bikini modeling career was over, and they laughed and knew I was ok. I noticed there was another woman in the recovery room who had elbow surgery. She had 1 nurse there with her and she was really complaining and whining. It's funny, she has elbow surgery and you would think it was the end of the world. I actually "bradied down" during surgery--that's when alarms start going off and they start worrying that they may have to shock you, and I'm making jokes with the nurses when I wake up.

Anyway, it was about 5:30 when they moved me to my hospital room. They were serving dinner, and the hallway smelled really good. I asked what we were having, and was informed that I just woke up from surgery, so it would be jello and broth for me. (ick--although I did con them into giving me chocolate pudding later) I got to my room and Nick was FINALLY there. He bought me my iPod, but no earbuds. So he visited for 15 minutes, and went home (45min one way) to get my earbuds. I don't know why he didn't just go to the Target that was 1 mile away and buy some. So an 1 1/2 hours later he came back with my earbuds, and promptly left with his uncle to help him drive my car home.

He called me the next morning and told me to call him when I was released. I was released at about 2:00 pm, and he picked me up in front of the hospital. He didn't even come up to get me in my hospital room. A nurse wheeled me down in the wheelchair, and he picked me up outside.

It's been a year, and I'm ok with the no kids thing. I really like my life the way it is. It's just hard to get passed being abandoned in a hospital by someone who is supposed to love you. Nick is no longer my medical emergency contact person, my friend Susan is. That isn't right.