Waiting for the Cure

I am an artist, among other things, and I figured most people wouldn't appreciate a picture of the bloody placenta, so this drawing somehow captures the feeling post-miscarriage...

I always get from people, after explaining that I am using hookworms to control my Crohn’s disease, that I am very, very brave. I usually reply that it was scarier going to the oncology department of my local hospital and being hooked up to my first infusion of Remicade. Especially after almost dying from neutropenia caused by 6MP, after having tolerated it previously. There’s nothing like experts at UCSF shaking their heads, consulting with Cedars in LA and saying I was their first patient to react that way after doing fine with 6MP for years, and having been on it for months without issue. That was years ago, I’m sure there have been many cases since.

Kind of scews the whole percentage thing. I realized after that lovely episode that you either react to something or you don’t. It makes trying new things a little frightening.

And of course, I had a very unusual reaction to my first dose of 10 hookworms. First fever, increased diarrhea (though we’ll never know if it was a stomach flu I picked up on route to Tijuana, and all the disgusting bathrooms I had to stop at along the way.) Then, at week 3, I got edema in my ankles and such bad reactive arthritis that I could barely walk. I also had no medical support, as my doctor had never heard of using hookworms for IBD, and his parting words were, “Who knows what you’ll pick up in Mexico?” So I suffered in silence, getting through Christmas, the New Year, and being the first person to react so horribly to so few hookworms. I’m sure there’ll be many after me, again.

So what does this have to do with miscarriage? I finally had mine on Sunday night, and let me tell you, it is rough being a woman sometimes. It makes the edema and arthritis look easy in comparison. I’d been having a little blood and cramping the few days preceding it, so I knew a miscarriage was immenent, and an ultrasound a few weeks ago showed I never had a baby – I was the proud parent of a yolk sack and a fetal pole that had already started to dissolve.

So I started to bleed and put a pad in. We were ready – Recharge, even Gatorade on hand, lots of menstrual pads, and the phone number for the Ob/Gyn on call just in case. Neighbor’s car to borrow if needed. Mom staying in the RV.

First the contractions began, and they were contractions. I’ve had two children – natural childbirth, so I know contractions when I feel them, and these were 3 minutes apart, and about the severity of labor halfway to birth. I did the low aaaahhhs that helped me get through my second child, but finally gave in and took 3 Tylenol after my husband asked me, “why suffer?”

And then the bleeding began. And it was gushes of blood, no measly period like trickle. I had a towel under my butt in the bed, and a heating pad across my abdomen. It soon became apparent that I had crossed the “soak a pad in one hour go to the hospital” rule, and I started to shake and get nervous, since my last miscarriage ended up in the hospital, with a D&C that required an antibiotic in the IV that flared my Crohn’s, beginning the 3 year spiral into hell which resulted in me trying hookworms. I didn’t want to repeat that experience, and had already talked to the OB/GYN and said IF I needed a D&C I was going to take my chances and sign a waver, get no antibiotic, and if I ended up with a uterine infection, I’d deal with that later. I had almost fainted in the office when she discussed what could go wrong, so I wasn’t very brave about that option.

The bleeding got so bad I told my husband that we probably should just go to the hospital. But at that point, I felt a blob against my vagina, and got up to go to the bathroom.

“Holy shit!” my poor husband cried as blood spilled out onto the floor, across the hallway, marking a path as grissly as the CSI movies you see of someone stabbed to death. We joked later that the crime techs would pick up lots of splatter marks. I read too many murder mysteries.

The bathroom floor is painted an unfortunate white, and I continued to mark my path to the toilet. Like a horror show, I reached and pulled fetal tissue from my vagina, blood pouring down my hand, all down my legs, pooled into my soft “miscarriage socks” I had bought especially for the occasion. My husband brought a plastic container for the pieces of placenta, so we could bring them to the hospital if needed, or bury them under a newly planted bush if not. We like to put placentas under trees and have little ceremonies of life. We’re hippies that way, I guess.

My husband had called the doctor on call when the gushing had begun, and she talked to both of us, letting us know that if I wasn’t dizzy or passing out, and as long as the blood wasn’t continuous, that it was normal to have a lot of blood when the pieces were coming out, so I cleaned up as best I could, got the leftover Depends adult diapers I had from my bad Crohn’s episodes, and returned to the bed.

The process repeated itself several times, although this time I held the diaper under my vagina so I wouldn’t stain the freshly cleaned hallway. The trashcan quickly filled up with blood soaked diapers, as we had stopped with the underwear after several were stained and tossed in the sink for later washing. I made my husband come with me every bathroom trip, in case I fainted during the whole process. We had kept a heater going, so it was nice and warm. The plastic cup slowly filled up with disgusting pieces. At one point I took a shower and had to rinse off my legs and vagina, but as I was dripping a continuous bloody mess, it was hard to clean it up, and then the shower looked like a crime scene.

I finally stopped around 2 Am – about 4 hours of on and off goriness. I licked salt the whole time, drank lots of recharge, tried to drink Gatorade but I haven’t had corn syrup in over a decade, and it was disgusting. At one point I stopped for a bowl of yogurt and bananas to replenish. I have a homeopathic anti-anxiety pill that I kept putting under my tongue so I wouldn’t freak out that I was bleeding to death. It helped.

It took a while to go to sleep, my husband snoring at my side. The blood had died down somewhat, and I tried not to move. My diaper was uncomfortable, but I got used to that the months preceding hookworm infection.

The cramping has continued, like afterbirth pains. I’ve had to take tylenol every day and use my heating pad, since it hurts. My gut is a little unhappy being next to all of this action, but I’ve had some solid stools mixed in, just going more often, and I’m trying not to worry about it. I’m barely bleeding now, but feel like I’ve been through quite an ordeal. Tomorrow I do an ultrasound to make sure all of the tissue is out, and it better be out, is all I can say.

I think I traumatized my husband. Men don’t have to deal with blood every month. We’ve gone through so much together, between the horrible Crohn’s, the near fatal drug reactions, the hookworms. Two births. The real births were way less messy than a miscarriage, and we had a midwife who brought a level of competence to the whole situation. All he had to do was support me.

But I’m glad we didn’t go to the hospital. I’m relieved we made it through. I’m happy it happened after my girls went to bed, since I don’t really want to introduce the horrors of being a woman to them quite yet.

My daughter woke up and used the bathroom before I could warn her that there was plastic container full of bloody pieces on the counter. She said, “Oh, it’s no big deal, Mom. It’s much better than poo sitting on the counter. It doesn’t smell as bad.”

I’m raising such brave girls. This was just another Mommy ordeal, one in a series of strangeness that they accept as part of my life. I’ve done enough egg counts that they’re used to Mom playing with her stool. I show them the hookworm eggs under the microscope, enough times that they’re bored with the experience.

My God, though I’m glad that is over. I hope I never go through another miscarriage again. Getting infected with some measly hookworms seems like nothing.