HypoGal Shares How Being A New Mom Almost Causes Her Death
My Story
Most of my life I have never considered what the words, "chronically ill" or "living with a disability" meant until I began my HypoGal journey. I use to relate the words," chronically ill" and "disability" to someone dying or becoming paralyzed.
I naively took for granite my ability to walk, talk, socialize, use the restroom or drive a car. I had no idea that after the birth of my second daughter, Isabella, my life would take on these new words, chronically ill.
Hi, my name is Lisa, and I have Sheehan's Syndrome. I hope my HypoGal story will help others who are sick and in search of answers. My life with a chronic illness begin when I give birth to my oldest daughter, Sarah, via C-section on January 24, 1996.
I was a first-time mother, but I knew the delivery was not normal. With each contraction, my organs feel like they were being pulled out of my body. I plead to the nurse on-call for help but she discredit my pleads, and she later disapproves of my screams.
My timing to give childbirth was less than ideal, my OB is on vacation for the weekend. As my daughter's heart beat began to decrease the doctor decides I need an emergency C-section. During my C-section the surgeon discovers that I had partial placenta accreta.
Partial placenta accerta meant my daughter's umbilical cord is embedded inside of the uterus. The doctors found placenta accerta causes my hemorrhage. Fortunately, the surgeons are able to stop the bleeding, and save my uterus.
After several miscarriages, I was able to become pregnant with my second daughter, Isabella. This time, a planned C-section and a delivery date of March 15, 2002, are chosen.
As my OB delivers my daughter, I know something is terribly wrong with my body. Minutes after my daughter is born I begin to throw up relentlessly, and my body temperature was abnormally low.
My body becomes numb with fatigue, but I am not able to sleep. I am not aware that all these symptoms are most likely an adrenal crisis.
A week later I arrived home with my beautiful baby daughter, but never felt normal.
However, I question, what was my normal? I had just been through five years of hard pregnancies. I had never been ill before and thought I must be tired, like all new moms.
As the months passed so did my weight. At first, I was happy, but then I could not stop the weight loss. My food intake went rapidly through my system. And, the fatigue. My entire body pain throbbed as if I had just finished a full marathon.
Each week I became weaker and weaker. I was depressed, I had very limited, short-term memory, trouble with my speech, fell from dizziness, my body ached all over, and I had extreme jabbing abdominal pain. I dreaded conveying all my symptoms because it sounded like I was a hypochondriac.
Sadly, my family had to live through my emotional havoc. Everything and anything would make me cry, and the thought of everyday life just overwhelmed me. Each day my body became weaker, and illness throughout my body become apparent.
Every day the pain throughout my body increased, I spent my time in tears crying in pain like a wounded animal. I did not know what was wrong with my body. My husband did what he could be supportive but at numerous times, I am sure he thought I had served postpartum depression and that I was a hypochondriac.
Through my seemingly never-ending appointments with different ologists, I convey to doctors that all of these symptoms began with the delivery of my second daughter. Doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist that tell me that I am healthy.
YOU ARE READING
HypoGal Shares How Being A New Mother Almost Caused Her Death
Non-FictionThe HypoGal Story is a woman's journey with a rare disease after the birth of her second daughter. Numerous medical specialists insisted she was fine, her condition was all in her head. She was a new mother so she was just overwhelmed, depressed. L...
