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MAMA-KANGAROO 169
I delivered the baby on June 24, 2008 in OB/GYN Clinic in Visegradska ( Street) I arrived to the Hospital on June 23, 2008 at 9:30AM, after my water broke (clear amniotic fluid). I had no idea that my child and I would be discharged to go home forty days later, on August 8th, 2008. Here is my horror story: During the routine examination, my doctor found out that my amniotic fluid was leaking and that I was 1,5 fingers dilated which made her decide to send me to the operating room. After they gave me a night gown and administered enema in the preparation room, I waited there for three hours while the amniotic fluid kept on sliding down my legs. At 12:30PM they began monitoring the heart beat (hooked me to the fetal monitor machine) and they started with pain killer injections at about every two hours during the whole day and the following night, for 22 hours while I lay on the operating table until the “EMERGENCY” C-section. In the delivery section of the operating room, without anyone trying to induce my labor (unless one counts the pain killers) while I lay on the bed soaked in my own amniotic fluid, the pain became excruciating. The midwife suggested that I tried to sleep since I wasn’t dilated enough. The women in labor who were screaming in pain around me made me anxious and besides, I was hungry. I had an early morning scare when the baby’s heartbeat became weaker (the midwife and the doctor suggested that I should find a better position which could be helpful for the baby) Then, after I was checked by the doctor Glisic on duty that day and night, I overheard the two midwives giving a comment about me not being dilated as much as the doctor Glisic had stated in my chart (their measuring parameters were their fingers which seemed to be thicker than the doctor’s although they weren’t large; measure of the dilation is compared to the width of the finger through the entire text) The next day, June 6 2008, with the arrival of the new group of doctors, I fainted and the midwives placed oxygen mask. They were commanding me to inhale until they rushed me for the emergency C-section. During the commotion, they slipped a piece of paper with a consent form for me to sign (I still don’t know the content of the form). C-section was performed 25 hours from the admission to the hospital (06/24/08) (this is how much time they needed to figure out that 3-finger dilation weren’t enough for the baby to be delivered) I asked to see my baby after waking up from anesthesia while being wheeled back to the ward. The nurses denied knowing anything about my baby with the explanation that they were in charge of C-section only, and that I should ask the pediatric nurses. They moved me to the room with another three women whose babies were brought to them for the first time. They told me though that there was no information about my child since the baby was still upstairs in another word. I found out from my husband with whom I talked over the phone that I gave birth to the baby boy whose weight was 3.750 gr. The baby had swallowed the green amniotic fluid filled with the baby’s own fecal matter formed after the baby had straggled. The baby got only one point at birth since he had to be reanimated and was still on respirator suffering a severe lung infection. He was born with the facial hemangioma and the one on the left side of his body (the cause for this is unknown according to the doctors). What made the clear amniotic fluid turn green and how the well developed, a healthy baby almost died? I wonder if I should have bribed someone to prevent all the troubles from happening. The same evening when they were about to change the bandages, they noticed that the two stitches came off. The doctor on duty came to stitch me without the anesthesia. My troubles had only started: 1) On the third day of my hospital stay, Dr. Dukanac discovered a small hematoma in my stomach, which, according to her, would be dissolved by itself. She also told me that I could go home (to save trouble and avoid big crowds of patients, the hospital administration prepared the dismissal papers in advance regardless of the patient’s specific health problems); 2) Dr. Glisic, who was making his rounds, met me in the hospital hallway to ask me about my profession and school education, and why my husband couldn’t understand why the doctor, couldn’t have delivered my baby earlier, to avoid the complication with the infection, when it was obvious that the natural birth was impossible. Dr. Glisic than explained that all the procedures were “ethical, “that I was fit to be released from the hospital, and that my complaint about his work was unfounded (he wasn’t at all concerned about my baby, who was still on the respirator). 3) During the fourth day, after the release form had been issued (the content of the form was identical for every patient: attempted induction, an immediate C-section performed, what, in my case, was far away from the truth), my wound started bleeding and they decided to keep me longer in the hospital; 4) For the following three days, they drained the blood from my stomach, without an anesthetic, and performed another more than six-hour surgery, because of the treath from sepsis. During the surgery, I began to wake up only to hear the doctor asking for “some sterilized instrument” which nobody there was able to provide. I was afraid that they would poke around my stomach and talk around me while I would be unable to move, open my eyes and say something . . . Fortunately, I blacked out (they increased the anesthesia.) I woke up in the intensive care where I spent the following two days surrounded by the bottles filled with blood, plasma, infusion, with the inserted catheter, tree drains coming from my stomach and the whole bunch of medication. (According to the medical team I should have considered myself lucky for being “fed” with a lot of the most expensive medication for the whole two weeks). During those two days, I had no news about my child’s progress and I wasn’t allowed to use my cell phone (my personal belongings were locked). The surgeon explained that I had a bacterial infection which was “eating” a fascia-the holder of the stomach tissue (surely it wasn’t contracted at home), and that I should stop lactating because of the strong medication. The neo natal practicing nurses were supposed to pump my milk which should have prevented the possible infection. Both my hands had needles from infusion in them, and I could only move my head. Of course, the nurses didn’t show up. Just upon my return to the C-section ward, the doctor, who was on duty while I was in the maternity ward, took away my chart (I was convinced that the doctor tried to change the content of the chart so that none of them could be blamed for the baby’s and mine infection.) He came back and put the chart on the table saying, “You are in trouble too!” 5) I got back to the C-section ward and I tried to walk with the therapist’s help, while connected to all the gadgets that had to be pulled (I had only two hands). A week later, my stitches started splitting (after the second surgery, I was left with two scars: horizontal, and a vertical one, my stomach achieved an irregular shape since (they rushed to save my life neglecting to pay attention to the esthetics.) The cavity in my stomach became enlarged (5cm*6cm), big enough for the fingers. The tissue of the hole in my stomach was cut daily, without the anesthetics, for the prevention of necrosis (it didn’t hurt, but it was terrible for me to see the blade cutting into the part of my stomach). Fifteen days later, the wound still hadn’t healed in spite of the healing ointments. The doctors suggested that I should go home, and besides the baby was better and was “waiting for his mom.” “The only thing” that I was supposed to do was to find, preferably professional medical help, someone to assist me in everything without feeling sick when looking in my disgusting wound: from changing the baby’s diapers (I couldn’t lift anything), to changing my dressing, four times a day (in the hospital they did it twice a day) and do the cooking (the combination of the bad hospital diet and the medication made me feel unsteady and I finally washed my hair after 40 days.) I was to get some supplies of disposable gloves, sterile bandages, ointments, on my own. After talking to the director of the hospital when I insisted not to leave the hospital, they decided to keep me in the hospital and to close my wound with the few stitches so that it could heal faster (as I was told); 6) One month later from the labor, I had to undergo yet another surgery after which I woke up with the stitched naval and the two more scars (it seemed as if the gynecologists took the roles of plastic surgeons without my consent; I was shocked to see my stitch naval). After this latest intervention, I was transported (my wound had nothing to do with the C-section) to the 16-times worse ward from the ones from before, where I stayed for the next seven days. 7) After the release from the hospital, when I came to have my stitches taken, the wound opened for the third time. They took the discharge from the wound for the analysis in Torlak (Institute of Immunology and Virusology) where it was determined that I had staphylococcal infection (it was probably contracted during the surgical procedures what indicated that the results of the previous analyses were wrong. The doctor blamed the misdiagnosed results on the lack of the transporting medium which hindered the isolation of bacteria????) 8) I kept on going to the hospital for the change of dressing until the wound healed (my stomach was covered in scars and my doctor teased me referring to my bad luck). Taking a shower free from bandages after the two months and washing the hair after forty days is impossible to explain. The rest of the situation during the hospital stay: Food: During the first day after the surgery one is fed intravenously through infusion, on the second, one gets some light food, and on the third day a slice of bread was given with every meal. The menu was repeated after four days, and luckily, my family was allowed to start bringing me food prepared at home; Hygiene: Going to the bathroom was such an ordeal. The old bathroom was being renovated and all the patients had to go to the only one available, in the apartment located at the end of the corridor. It was impossible for that bathroom to remain clean for even an hour time since so many of us waited in line to use it. The bathroom situation in the post operative ward was even worse: dirty lavatory, overflown stools (floors covered in feces and urine), jammed bathroom doors, no hangers... The rest: Not even once was I given an objective report on my own, or my child’s progress. There was no one who bothered to bring my child to me when the baby was moved from the incubator to the crib, and someone from my family had to wheel me to see him (the nurses didn’t have time with the exception of a few who would take me to see my child). I also noticed that the nurses filled out the charts, which hang from the bed posts, with the wrong information concerning the temperature taking (they took temperature in the morning only, and around two in the afternoon, but not in the evening, as stated on the chart, since the temperature usually tends to go up at that time). One of the nurses commented: “I hope you don’t wont me to record your temperature so they should increase your already fit-for-horse therapy!” When I drew the attention to the wrong blood type on the chart, the nurse explained that it didn’t matter since the only information considered was the one on the paper from the Institute ( I had the blood transfusion around that time, and the nurse corrected the mistake: “So, you shouldn’t complain,” she said.) I thank all my room mates and some nurses, who were the exception, who slightly eased my hospital staying.
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STORIES FROM MATERNITY WARDS Mama-Kangaroo 002
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