Designated Fat Girl

by Jennifer Joyner

  That afternoon, I became aware of how incapable I was of being a caregiver for my children. I wasn’t supposed to lift anything for a couple of weeks, and that meant not picking up the children. I got around this in various ways, including having Eli step up into a chair and climb over the crib railing when it was time for his nap. Probably not the safest thing in the world, but he was two and a half, and I stood right there while he did it, sure that I would be able to help if needed. While both kids were sleeping, I writhed around in agony, my collarbone pain hurting so much, I was near tears. It wasn’t long before Eli woke up and wanted out of his crib. I couldn’t let him climb out the same way he’d climbed in; even I knew that was too dangerous. The day before, I’d been able to lift him out, even though I wasn’t supposed to and it hurt like hell. This day, however, I just couldn’t do it. I could barely lift my arms, much less a thirty-pound toddler. So at first I ignored his cries, hoping he would fall back asleep. When he only got louder, I walked to his room, doubled over from the pain. Feebly I tried to soothe him with my words, but honestly, I thought I would die … and I was scared. I couldn’t even care for my child! There I sat with him, for forty-five minutes, talking to him and playing with him through the slats of his crib. Michael eventually got home, and I tearfully told him how I wasn’t able to lift our son out of his crib.

  Finally I couldn’t take it any longer. I called the doctor’s office and told his nurse that my pain was worse than ever and the fever was back. I couldn’t function in my daily life, and I needed help. She called back that evening, saying the surgeon wanted me to have another CT scan, this time as an outpatient. I went the next day and had a much better experience. I wasn’t made to drink anything yucky, and the nurse gave me complete instructions on what to do. That afternoon the surgeon’s nurse called me at home with the results: no abscess. Nothing wrong that they could see. I probably just had a bug and would feel better in a few days. “But what about the pain in my collarbone?” I asked weakly. The nurse wasn’t sure, but she scheduled an appointment for me to see the doctor in a couple of days.

  That night Michael was furious. He couldn’t believe the doctor wasn’t doing more and that I was still in so much pain. As I sat in the recliner, I thought I would faint from the pain in my shoulder area. Michael gave me more pain meds, and they helped. We reluctantly made plans to send the kids off—Emma would go to my mom’s house and Eli would go to Michael’s parents. It broke our hearts to do this—our children had never been away from both of us, not even for one night. Michael would go with me to the doctor, and he vowed not to leave until we found out something definitive.

  We went to the surgeon’s office and didn’t have to wait long. As we waited for the doctor, I tearfully told the nurse that I wasn’t any better and I desperately needed some help. As if on cue my doctor came in the room, and I swear he was whistling, as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He stopped abruptly when he saw me start to cry even harder. I couldn’t speak, so Michael told him I wasn’t feeling any better and that my pain was in fact a lot worse. It was then that the doctor said he hadn’t read the latest CT scan himself; he simply went by what the radiologist told him, that the scan was clear. He left the exam room to go pull up the report to get a look for himself.

  He was back in less than five minutes, phone to his ear. “I’m calling the radiologist now. I see an abscess.”

  The news should have been devastating, but all I could feel was relief. So I wasn’t crazy! I’d known that something wasn’t right, and now there was proof to back me up. Even if it meant another stay in the hospital, and a painful procedure to endure, I was relieved to finally have some answers.

  My relief was short-lived. I had to report back to the hospital the next morning for a CT-guided drain of the abscess. They would use the CT machine to find the infection, and then the radiologist would use a very long needle to get the liquid out. I would be awake the entire time, and they would not be able to give me a lot for the pain because I had to be awake and alert for the procedure.

  Fabulous.

  I was already in a lot of pain. But I was told not to eat or drink anything after midnight, so I went in, having had no pain medication. I was really hurting. The nurse who was going to be with me for the procedure was apparently having a bad day. She shuffled her feet slowly to complete her tasks, taking her sweet time. I was in agony. She then told me to lie down on the cot and to not move. This was unreal to me—since the pain in my collarbone had arrived, I’d been sleeping in the recliner again, unable to lie flat because of the pain. Now she wanted me to lie there and not move a muscle. Excruciating.

  So I lay there while she did a bunch of stuff. And I lay there while she talked to some people. And I lay there while she disappeared for a while. With tears streaming down my face, I asked her, when she came back, what we were waiting for, and she said we were waiting for the radiologist to arrive. I asked her if I could get up until he got there, just to stretch and try to relieve some of the pain, but she said no—it was very important that I keep the same position. I really thought I would die, I hurt so much.

  Another fifteen minutes or so went by. She then breezed in and told me that after the procedure I would be going to a step-down unit to be monitored, and then I would be sent home. What? I told her that my doctor said I would be in the hospital for several days—that he wanted to make sure this time there were no more complications. Believe me, even though I now hated hospitals with a passion, I wholly supported that idea, after all I’d been through. But this nurse told me that my doctor wasn’t in charge of the whole hospital and that there simply weren’t enough beds for me to stay. I was going home, and that was that. I cried even more. She then told me that if I wanted to, I could go call my doctor for confirmation. This time I couldn’t hold back. “Oh! Now you’ll let me get down? I’ve been writhing in pain for more than an hour, begging you to let me move, and you said no, I had to stay in the same position! Now you’re going to let me get down?” I didn’t know how to call my doctor—it wasn’t like I carried his phone number with me. I just cried harder, scared and in pain, not knowing what to do. The nurse left me there.

  I’d made up my mind to put a stop to the whole thing when the radiologist walked in the door. He looked at me and knew I was in pain and was very kind. He told me he was sorry that things were taking so long, that he’d been conferencing with my surgeon and wanted to make sure he had all he needed before the procedure. He promised it wouldn’t be long before he was finished and I could have something for the pain.

  It was the worst experience of my life. It hurt so much, and it made me nauseous. I lay on that table, begging for it to be over. The nurse who’d been so unkind to me held my hand and looked a bit remorseful. Finally the procedure was complete. The doctor would later tell my husband that they took out more than a liter of fluid.

  The radiologist made sure I got pain medication as soon as the procedure was over. They brought Michael in, and I told him what the nurse said about my leaving the hospital. He was as mad as I was, and he went to find my doctor. As I lay on the cot, I started to shiver uncontrollably, and the previously unkind nurse went to get me more blankets. When my doctor came in, I was shaking so hard it was difficult to talk. But he assured me I had a room and that I wasn’t going anywhere. Had I felt any better, I would have smirked at the nurse when I was wheeled away.

  The hope was that I would start to improve right away once the liquid had been drained. But my fever came back, and my oxygen levels were not great. Also, I was starting to have difficulty breathing—shortness of breath when I got up to go to the bathroom and some pain when I was asked to breathe deeply. The doctor ordered a chest X-ray, and a pulmonologist was called.

  I also had trouble with my IV. That came as no surprise to me; in addition to my earlier problems, I was sure I was quite dehydrated at this point. This was now the weekend, and another doctor instead of my surgeon was on call. He told me they would have to put in a cen
tral line because my IV kept blowing out. Honestly, I felt so crummy at that point, I didn’t really care. Michael stepped out of the room while the doctor tried to put in the line, but he was having trouble. It hurt so much, but I tried not to cry—I could feel this doctor’s unease, and I didn’t want to shake his confidence. He said he was taking a break and would be back in a minute to try the other side. The nurse said she was going to change my bedding, and she wanted me not to look down at my sheets. Michael, who came to be with me while the doctor was out, told me later that my bed had been full of blood.

  The doctor was finally able to establish the central line, and I suppose that was one less thing I had to worry about. Of course, I had blood in my hair—and no prospects of a shower anytime soon—but I really didn’t care. I was so demoralized at that point; it was difficult for me to get upset about anything.

  The pulmonologist said my left lung was filled with fluid and that I had to do around-the-clock breathing treatments to get it under control. I couldn’t be bothered. I lived to take the pain medicine every four hours. That pain medicine made me sleepy, and sleep helped me escape the situation. All I wanted was to not be conscious, not have to live this nightmare. Michael was by my side, trying to force me to do what the doctor said. I gave it a halfhearted try, but I really didn’t care. Michael was starting to feel guilty. He was blaming himself for what was happening to me, wondering if he hadn’t raised the idea of gastric bypass surgery, would we even be in this situation. I tried to reassure him, but honestly I was too sick. I couldn’t do much of anything.

  On Monday my doctor was back, and he told me I’d have to have a chest tube inserted. My lung was partially collapsed from all the fluid underneath. All I could think about was that it sounded like another painful procedure; if it was anything like the CT-guided drain of the abscess, then I didn’t think I’d survive. The doctor said I did, in fact, have to be awake for the chest tube insertion. I just started bawling. I couldn’t face it, couldn’t take any more pain. My doctor assured Michael that I would be fine—and he was right. They gave me something that left me with no memory of the procedure. Michael said I came back, loopy and happy. I also had a tube coming out of my side, attached to a ten-pound box that would carry the drainage. It made getting out of bed very tricky, and painful. Over the next few days, I learned to time my visits to the bathroom around my pain medication. And I had to make sure the nurse also gave me nausea medicine with the pain meds, because I certainly wasn’t eating. Every mealtime a tray of food was delivered to my room, and every time it sat, untouched. The doctor asked how I was eating, and I told him I was fine. I certainly wasn’t hungry, and now, almost twenty days after the surgery, I was almost used to not eating. Michael kept gently reminding me that I would never get better if my body didn’t have nourishment, but he didn’t push too hard. He knew I felt like crap, and he still felt guilty. I just figured I’d eat eventually … or … not. I still didn’t care.

  At one point the kids came back. My mother-in-law snuck Eli into the hospital to see me, but I was wracked with pain and could barely enjoy the visit. Michael had to go back to work, and my mother-in-law took the kids to school, picked them up, and stayed with them at my house until Michael got home. I felt as though life was going on without me, and that just added fuel to my self-pity fire. It was hard to get better when I felt so miserable.

  I’m pretty sure I was a difficult patient, and I couldn’t have been that much fun to be around. But I must say, the way some of the nurses treated me was appalling. I’d heard this was the case with gastric bypass patients, and I have to admit, in my experience, it was true. For the most part I found them to be unsympathetic and sometimes downright rude. My chest tube was inserted on my left side, but I had to get out of bed on the right. When I had to go to the bathroom, I had to call a nurse in and have her hold both of my hands while I pulled myself up, slowly. I then had the nurse stay while I swung my legs around and lifted myself out of bed, negotiating the ten-pound box attached to the tube, plus all my surgical wounds. It was an ordeal. I had one nurse say to me, “I can’t help you. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk hurting myself.” What? I wasn’t asking her to lift me out of bed, for goodness’ sake! Plus, could she have told me this before I was half hanging off the bed? I struggled to get up without her help, in incredible pain. It was a nightmare.

  There were a couple of exceptions—mostly nursing assistants whose job it was to take my blood pressure, temperature, and so on. There was one in particular who always took the time to ask how I was doing, to see if she could get anything for me. One day, while I was asleep, she left me some shampoo that can be used without water. She knew it had been a week since I’d bathed, and I still had blood stuck in my hair from when they had to establish the central line for my IV. I later found out that this nursing assistant had gone to the drugstore on her own time to get me that shampoo. That meant a lot.

  Finally, after eight days, it was time to go home. My lung had reinflated, and all the follow-up testing said the abscess had abated. I was scared to death of having the chest tube taken out, and my doctor’s physician’s assistant made no bones about it when she told me it was going to hurt. But she looked at my orders and discovered my doctor had authorized morphine. With my central line still in place, it was no time before the nurse had given me a morphine shot, on top of the pain meds I had just taken. The chest tube came out with little discomfort, and I was finally ready to go home.

  I had mixed feelings. I missed my children so much; they’d never spent a night away from home, and Michael and I both felt bad that they’d had to go live with their grandparents for a week. Of course they had a blast, and that certainly made me feel better. I wanted to touch them and hug them and let them know that Mommy was home and going to be better. But was I? I was so weak, I not only had to wait for the wheelchair to take me out of the hospital, I had trouble getting into the car. My muscles had atrophied, and I had no strength whatsoever. And of course that wasn’t helped by the fact that I still wasn’t eating. When I was discharged, the physician’s assistant gave me the go-ahead to slowly introduce soft solids into my diet. Little did she know I still wasn’t past the liquid stage! No vitamins, no protein shakes, and very little water. I was a mess.

  As we walked in the front door and my children ran over to me, I closed my eyes and took in their smell. “Mommy’s home,” I said to them, getting gentle hugs and kisses. But will I ever feel the same? I wondered.

  12

  Shipwrecked

  I spend my thirty-sixth birthday in a ratty old recliner in our den, wearing the same pajamas from two days before and not bothering to brush my hair or wash my face. Beside me is my son’s Lego table, which has become my medical nightstand: It holds all my pills, a barely touched bottle of water, and a fan to help me deal with the crippling nausea. May 3 has always been the perfect time of year to me: The yard is bursting with signs of spring, and it’s warm but not hot or humid. In the air you smell the respite from a long, cold winter, and the time is filled with hope. But on May 3, 2008, I don’t see any of the hope, any of the promise. Sure my den chair sits beside the French doors that open into our backyard, and my two small kids scamper in and out of those doors at least a hundred times a day. Most of the time they beg me to come with them, to look at the gardenia bush about to bloom or to check out the cool bubble launcher their grandmother has brought them. Each time, I tell them I’ll join them in a minute, never intending to make good on the promise. Eventually they stop asking, and I’m left to sit in the recliner, watching movies on Lifetime, dozing in and out of the fog of painkillers, listening to my children’s laughter as they play outside.

  Mom is visiting for my birthday, and she tries several times to talk me into coming out into the backyard to enjoy the day. I don’t even try to fake it with her; I tell her I don’t feel like it and that it should be my choice how I spend my birthday. She eventually gives up, too. Michael doesn’t even really try. He’s spent the last week
or so working to get me out of my funk, to no avail. He is done. My husband, my mom, and my kids celebrate my birthday without me.

  It has been about seven weeks since my gastric bypass surgery. I should be well on my way to finding a new normal in terms of how to eat. But the complications have set me back, both physically and psychologically. Here I am almost two months out, and I’m barely consuming two hundred calories a day. Nothing tastes right. Nothing sounds good. And I don’t even want to deal with it, so I usually just don’t. Because of that, I’m not getting any better. My body is weak and malnourished, and my soul needs feeding like nobody’s business. I desperately need to know that one day I will feel better again, but no matter how many times my family and friends try to tell me that, I can’t hear it. I won’t believe it. I am as miserable as I’ve ever been.

  I was constantly reminded of what bad shape my body was in. My muscles were so weak, I quickly learned to avoid steps. Our sunken den only has two steps into the kitchen, but in order to climb them, I had to hang on to the wall and go one at a time. Once, I decided a soak in the tub sounded nice, and it did feel good, until I realized I couldn’t climb out of it! I was unable to put my weight on my legs and pull myself out. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to call Michael in to help me.