“What”s the matter with my girlfriend?” my husband asked my doctor.
“I don”t know but I think she has an infection. I”m checking her into the hospital right now.”
He had brought me into my OBGYN”s office only a few minutes before. I was immediately checked in, hustled into a room, told to undress and given a sheet. My doctor was by my side and examining me, pronto.
As I sat up from the table I glanced at the two people looking back at me. I saw concern, worry and confusion in their faces.
“Why? Where”d she get an infection?” James asked. “She”s been taking her meds, laying around and doing all the things on the list of instructions you sent home.”
“Well, sometimes it just happens,” my doctor said. “I don”t know why. But we need to get her into a hospital room in the next building right away. I”m ordering some tests; blood, urine, a MRI, a sonogram, maybe a full body scan. Whatever. There”s a wheelchair out in the hall, let me get it and you take her over there.”
Once again they turned back to me. I hadn”t joined into this whole conversation. I was too sick. I had come into the clinic with a fever of 103 degrees and I was so hot, so weak, and so tired I couldn”t speak or even think. I didn”t care what they did; I just wanted to lie down.
I hardly remember anything after that until I was in the bed at the hospital and my life suddenly became none of my concern. It turns out my husband and I were entering the scary medical vortex both us would be caught up in for months, and time after time I would be speechless in my own care or health.
A few months before I had been informed of some weird uterine cells after a routine PAP, and had several treatment options were laid out.
“So, you have thousands and thousands of cells in your uterus,” she had informed me. “Most of them are normal healthy cells. However, the tests shows, some of them are pre-cancerous, and some are not good at all. We can do some hormone therapy, see if that changes anything or we can just do a complete hysterectomy and be done with it.”
“What would you do?” I asked, “what if it were you, or your sister, or your mom?”
“I”d do the surgery, but we don”t have to decide that today. Let”s get you on some hormones and then do a DNC in a month. A lot of time that does it, and you don”t have to have any procedure at all. It”ll all depend on the lab tests, which we”ll get then.”
When that didn”t work, my radical surgery was scheduled. I was released 24 hours afterward, feeling fine as I walked right out of the hospital. At home I rested, took really good care of myself and basked in the special treatment given to me by my husband, my friends and my mother-in-law. All in all, I felt pretty good. It wasn”t until a week later that I started not feeling so good. Actually, I felt really bad, really sick, hot and achy.
The night before James insisted on taking me to the doctor”s office, I had taken my temperature and saw it was way over 100. When I called the on-call emergency nurse she said to take some aspirin and come in to the clinic the next morning if my temp didn”t go down. Later my doctor hit the roof about that being the advice I was given because as soon as she took one look at me she immediately jumped to it.
For the next few hours I was probed, stuck and examined relentlessly. My blood was taken out in alarming quantities, and I was hooked up to an IV, never an easy task as my veins are what they call “rollers,” meaning they roll around away from the needle, which makes me a hard stick. The most difficult procedure though was the one which consisted of me having to drink an incredibility foul-tasting, thick substance (all the while throwing up over and over) then having a tube inserted in my rectum and a big machine scanned my body back and forth, all the while being given an enema. It was torture.
By now I was truly reduced to someone who just laid on a wheeled table and moaned once in awhile. Everywhere I was taken, my husband pushed his way in, all the while questioning, demanding answers, and generally being a thorn in the side of all the doctors and nurses handling me.
I was told I had an abscess at the site of the sutures deep inside my vagina. The abscess was infected, and it seemed as if it were several different strains of bacteria.
“Sort of a super-bug kind of a thing,” the head doctor for infectious diseases said, “we need to go in there and get it out, then treat her with an intravenous antibiotic cocktail for a few days or weeks or however long it takes.”
“Go in there? What do you mean go in there? Where?” my husband asked, “you mean more surgery?”
“Yes, more surgery,” both my doctor, the OR head surgeon and this new doctor replied at the same time.
“I need to open up the place where I stitched her closed, insert a tube and drain the infection out,” my OBGYN said, “that seems to be where the infection is, and it”s the only way to get it out. It will take too long to treat it just with antibiotics; there”s too much infection and we need to lance it. We”ll do it in the morning, alright?”
My husband glanced down at me, looked up at the trio of doctors nodded his head and said to them all, “okay, let”s do it.”
To me he said, “Hon, I”ve got to go home, feed the dogs and check in with work. I”ll be back before they take you in the morning. You”ll be fine; it”s only a few hours from now. Okay?”
I could not answer; all of my will was gone. My eyes closed, and I lost consciousness.
That night I went between being delirious, passed out, and in and out of incredible stomach pain. I could do nothing to help myself. I was weaker than a newborn baby. The PM nurses ran their butts off wrapping me up in hot sheets as I shook with uncontrollable chills. They stood with me, all the while holding me up, inside a cold shower when my temperature soared up. Then they would start the whole process again as it crashed down.
In the morning my white blood count was too high to go into surgery so they decided to put it off until that evening. My husband came and went. I didn”t care one bit.
At 12 o”clock midnight the OR nurse came to get me. My husband was sleeping in a chair next to my bed. He woke up and said, “You guys are doing this now? You”ve got to be kidding me. She was supposed to get this done about six hours ago. What the hell are you doing it now for? It”s the middle of the night!”
“Sorry sir, I have orders to come and get her.” He slid me over to the operating room table, covered me up and said as he wheeled me out, “you can follow along if you want to.”
Again, I had absolutely no will to resist. I didn”t care if they took my heart right out of my chest. I was in another state, one in which all I felt was pain, heat, and once in awhile, a numbing terror. My lifelong fear of anesthetic was over-ruled by my fear of death and I went quietly into that deep narcotic sleep without a struggle.
My doctor informed me when I came out of the drug after the operation, “I”m sorry, it didn”t work, we have to do something else. I”ll get back to you after I”ve conferred with the other docs. I”ll see you in a few hours. You rest.”
Daybreak found me back again in the lab, getting a sonogram. My husband had just left to run home, change his shirt, feed the dogs and check into his office. He promised me as he bent to kiss my forehead, “I”ll be right back.”
After the test was done, the tech left the room in order to show the results to the doctor. She turned off the overhead lights and closed the door. I opened my eyes but was unable to see anything because the room was almost pitch black. I noticed the only sounds I could hear were that of machines; “whoosh, whoosh, wheeze, wheeze, click, click” and then I realized I could feel nothing below my neck.
I lay there thinking, “Am I dead? Did I die? Is this what it”s like to die?” And then the thought came to me, “I really don”t care if I am. I can”t do this. It”s too hard.”
A tear came down my cheek as I felt myself just give up. I had no strength to fight for my life. I just didn”t have it. There was no hope, no desire, no nothing. I was surprised that was how I felt, but there it was.
It was the truth, getting through this meant nothing to me. All I could do for myself was close my eyes and stop thinking altogether, which is what I did.
Later the docs all crowded back into my room in order to tell us what the new plan was.
“Well,” the head surgeon said, “when we lanced the abscess, instead of draining out, it exploded inward and now pus is all throughout her abdominal cavity. We need to go in and do what”s called a gut wash.””
“A gut wash!” my husband challenged. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Probably,” said the surgeon. “We need to cut her open from the bottom of her ribs to her pubic bone and sort of wash out her insides. We rinse everything off with a saline solution in order to clean up the infection. That and along with the antibiotics we will continue to give her, she should get well. At least that is what we hope will happen.”
My husband turned to me, raised his eyebrows, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “What do you think, Hon?”
“I think,” I whispered back, “I will not be able to make it though something like that. I think they are trying to kill me. I will not live if that is what they do. I can”t take another surgery, I just know it.”
“You know guys,” James said in a firm voice, “every time I leave her side, you do something to her, and every time you do something to her, she gets worse. And, I have never even seen any results of these horrible tests you keep giving her. Why don”t you let these high-powered drugs you are pumping directly into her blood stream have some time to work? Before all of this she was a vital and healthy woman. Why don”t you let her body have a chance to recover some before you do something else even more invasive.”
The surgeon stepped forward, shook my husbands hand and replied, “You”re right. It”s already late in the day; let”s give it till morning and regroup after her AM blood test. However, we need to have an agreement between us. If her temperature goes up, even one degree, or her blood count gets any higher or there”s no significant improvement, we operate. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” my husband said, “but I”m positive she will be a lot better tomorrow. And by the way, I want to take a look at those tests.”
“No problem,” he said as they all started to file out of the room, “come with me.”
I went back to sleep and when I awoke my husband was standing at the door with a wheelchair, “Here, Hon, get in. I”m taking you out of here for a little while.”
“I can”t,” I whined, “I”m all hooked up to this machine.”
“It has wheels, they take it with you for all of your tests. Let”s take you for a walk. You”ll feel better, I promise. Besides, I have a surprise for you outside.”
“They won”t let me go outside. I don”t want to, what if they catch us?” I questioned. “I just want to lay here. I”m tired and so scared of tomorrow.”
“The nurses station is empty, I just passed it. Besides, I”m taking you down the back elevator. We”ll come right back up and then you can lay there all night and we”ll talk.”
I gave up.
A few minutes later without really too much trouble I found myself sitting in the sun, my dogs (the surprise outside) at my feet, and my will to live gently and slowly restoring itself.
There was no more surgery, my temperature went down, and for the most part stayed down, my blood count went back to normal and my body began its long and difficult road back to recovery. My desire, at last, to fight for my own life grew and at the same time my admiration and love for my husband grew as well.
His believing in me, in my body and in my spirit when I couldn”t tap into any of that was what saved my life. He knew what I needed and it wasn”t another operation or another test. It was a simple treatment; some sun on my face, a kiss from my dogs and a sneaky escape from the hospital ward. But mostly it was love, the love of the man who fought for my life when I was unable to do so. My husband, James Dennis O”Dell is my hero and I will always be indebted to him beyond measure.
Editor”s Note: Local resident Laurelee Roark is celebrating her 55th birthday today, Wednesday, Aug. 16. This article was originally written a couple of years ago; Roark circulated it via e-mail this week to let her friends know how glad she is to be alive and and how grateful she is to have made it to her 55th birthday.
