ER - The Final Episode

I bet you're thinking you stumbled across the wrong blog. I don't usually write about frivolous things like the latest TV show. However, it's pertinent in this case to my healing.

I remember watching the first episode of ER. I was hooked. I loved the interplay of Dr. Greene, Dr. Ross, Dr. Benton, and Dr. Carter. So many things in my life have changed since that day, but that has been one of the constants - Thursday night at 9 pm. I haven't watched consistently in a long time, but I decided to watch last night's episode.

It started off okay. They got to the twin labor and delivery, and I was okay. (I can finally watch re-enactments of the happy deliveries without freaking out.) I watched them deliver the second baby, and I was still okay. The first gush of blood came out of mom, and I started to get a little tense, but I was okay. The second gush came, and I'm starting to think maybe I should switch to something else, and then... gush number 3, uterine inversion, mom starts losing consciousness, call for blood, start IV's... I jump off the sofa, grab my daughter, and run for the stairs. I rush to get her put to bed, and run back downstairs to change channels before the commercial is over. I'm shaking, edgy, panicking, and trying desperately to calm myself. I was up half the night crying.

Right after Peanut was born, I kept asking my husband and best friend questions about my birth. I have no visual memories after the attempted manual removal of the placenta. I have some memories of sounds, but no pictures. My nightmares were terrifying to me because I didn't have the pictures, so I kept looking for them to give them to me. I'd ask, What did they do? What did it look like? Anything to get a description of what had gone on. I've accepted this lack of visual information. I've gotten used to the missing time frame. Having that visual experience last night totally has me freaked out.

I'm achy, hollow, anxious, edgy, and exhausted. I want to hide in a small dark place, and forget what I saw. I want to forget the fear, the anger, the panic. It was like they wrote MY story into the script. The baby was in the warmer, Dad standing to one side watching, and it all falls apart.

I haven't been this bad in a long time.

I HATE feeling like this. I HATE being this new person. What did I do to deserve this?

I wrote this on Friday morning. I'm glad to say that by noon, I was feeling better. Still edgy, but not jumping out of my own skin edgy. By the time I got home, the stranglehold was gone. I could think about other things, talk about other things, be myself.

I sometimes forget how far I've come. It came in such small, baby steps that you miss where things began to change. Despite my being triggered, I'm grateful to realize that this experience doesn't control me the way it did in the past. Within 36 hours most of the intrusive thoughts were gone. I didn't have another nightmare, and the flashback was only in the immediate time frame of being triggered.

My husband wants to delete the recording from the DVR, but I won't let him. I know I have to watch the entire thing. I won't watch it today, and probably not tomorrow, but in the future I need to see it. In order for me to be free, I have to face it.

This was my story. It may have a few tweaks, but it's the story I live with everyday.