This time last year

I was being rushed back to hospital.

One week after losing George, half an hour after our lovely midwife had visited, I started bleeding heavily. And then more heavily. And then clots started falling from me. And the clots got bigger.

I remember the emergency room. Tiny side rooms, no curtains, like a cabin. Sitting on a portable commode across the room from Ray trying to get on a pair of hospital string knickers, thinking that's enough now. Stop.

I remember feeling dizzy and thinking that oxygen masks smelled bad... or was it the oxygen?

I remember being wheeled to a private room off the gynaecology ward. Thank goodness I don't have to bleed in front of other women. Nurses and doctors obviously didn't count.

I remember sitting dizzily on the toilet with a cardboard pee-catcher underneath me catching huge clots of blood, being watched over by a lovely chatty nurse who told me how much relief she had gotten from a life of heavy periods by having a hysterectomy. Who then trotted of to show the doctors what I'd done.

I remember dizzy. Lots of dizzy.

I remember the gynaecologist hurting me. A lot. I HATED him right then. The next day I changed my mind.

I remember Ray being called back after leaving me for the night. I remember not wanting him bothered. Why was that nurse insisting on calling him? Why did he have to be here? I remember fear.

I remember being wheeled down to surgery late at night. I remember the anaesthetist sort of choking me to stop me choking (?).

I remember waking up in PAIN. I remember that morphine is GOOOOOOD.

I remember Ray sitting next to me. He took one of my sleeping pills when he got home because he hates sleeping alone. He sleep-walked back to the hospital. I remember sleepily loving him even more. I remember sending him home.

I remember trying to sleep but being woken many times by apologetic nurses. I remember the sun coming up.

I remember looking at my poor bruised arms with five cannulas in them. The ones in the back of the hand are the worst. And then some one else making more holes to take more blood. The side of my wrist by my thumb? Is that the only vein left?

I remember feeling weird at having someone else's blood mixing with my own. Whose? Thank you.

I remember watching visitors arrive for the woman across the hall. Six children, all boys, all redheads. It took a couple of visiting hours to count them all.

I remember wishing my visitors would go home. I didn't want to talk. The hospital food tasted like cardboard. Where was Ray? He wouldn't mind me being quiet.

I remember having my "ladyparts" washed by a 20 year old. And feeling old.

I remember the nurse removing the various tubes from my body. The final one being the catheter. I peed just as she was about to take it out. Oops.

I remember taking a shower and feeling afraid to touch my own body or even move too much.

I remember the gale blowing outside.

I remember being very glad to get home after 3 days.

This time last year I survived.


I don't know why I feel the need to write this out. It doesn't give me nightmares any more. It did for quite a while. along with dreams of the day we lost George. Dreams of blood. Dreams of umbilical cords. Dreams of death. I'm still remembering some dreams (I rarely remembered them before) but they are just normally weird now.