Pain in Internal Ramblings

Life has been one hell of a roller coaster. The last year has been filled with obstacles that I haven't completely passed emotionally. Externally I went through the motions and handled myself, but internally I may as well be dying.

Starting around this time last year, I was pregnant and swollen and thought I was just having an unlucky pregnancy with "morning sickness" that never went away. My husband's lovely aunt passed away very suddenly of a massive heart attack. We had a rough time coming to terms with losing her, but we barely had time to grieve as I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia shortly after returning home from her funeral. Suddenly I was tossed into a torrent of misery as I couldn't keep anything down and felt ridiculously ill. I delivered my son 2 months early. I was put on a magnesium drip for 24 hours after delivery. I cried to my nurse at 3 am begging her to stop the magneseum. Telling her I was so uncomfortable- I hadn't eaten in a week, the magneseum had me so swollen I couldn't even see straight, it took me to the extremes of hot AND cold, and made me feel so weighted down I couldn't turn from side to side, could barely lift my blanket; and even though my mouth was dry from thirst I could only have ice chips or 2.5oz of juice every few hours. After I was finally freed from that nightmare, I was moved to a normal post delivery room. I could hear infants in the other rooms which is the worst when you haven't even seen yours in over a day. And I had only had the strength to hold him for a minute; I can't even remember his face in that moment. Fast forward a month when I am finally able to take my son home from the NICU. I had lost 40 lbs. within 9 days post delivery. And a few more pounds waiting to take my baby home.

Fast forward 2 months, I received a phone call from my dad telling me he's heading to the hospital because his heart is throwing out strange rhythms. He was diagnosed with CHF and by the time he went in he was days to a week from passing. The surgeons did a magnificent job during his triple bypass and he was given a second chance. 6 months later he passed away (This past February) after he had just finished his cardiac rehab and they removed his D - fib vest. My world came crashing down. I still haven't accepted any of this. I'm not sure I know how to accept any of it. I know all of it happened, but coming to terms with death is difficult. Whether it's losing someone, or realizing your own mortality as you're laying in the hospital so weak and sick wondering if you or your baby will make it through.

My first visit to the NICU to visit my son was 2 days after he had been born. My husband wheeled me into the NICU and the nurses let us back and as I round the corner to hus bed, there is a doctor, a respiratory specialist, and a nurse gathered around his tiny bed, and there's an ET tube sticking out of his mouth while they're doing tiny compressions on his chest. They told me he's okay, and they were just giving him a lung treatment, but my heart, what was left of it, shattered at the sight of him. My first time getting to hold him in the NICU was 5 days after his birth, on my birthday no less.

I'm hopeful that I will come to terms with all of this eventually and I'll be able to take from it what I'm supposed to, rather than being on the verge of tears each time my mind slips up and reminds me my father's gone, or plays back a memory from this time last year.