Appe, Peri and Morphi

I had a Skype conference with Topacio*.  Topacio used to live in Holland and she’s been living in Spain for the past three years but still she wanted to tell her story for Paracetamolland.  After we greeted each other, she began with her story:

“I woke up one morning with abdominal pain and I was puking.  I went to the “huisarts” (General Doctor) and he diagnosed Gastroenteritis so he gave me Paracetamol.  After one day, I was not feeling better so I went to the Emergency Department at the hospital.  They took a long time to see me and when they did, they examined me by touching my abdomen and they took a blood test.  They did not take any ultrasound or any other kind of test. 

They told me that I had some infection parameters and they let me go with antibiotics.  What the antibiotics did was to disguise the symptoms.  I was at home with abdominal pain.  After three days I went back to work but I was not feeling much better.  The pain persisted and I was not able to walk straight anymore.  When I finished work, I was in the bus going backing home and this bus line has a stop next to one of the biggest hospitals in Amsterdam.  I don’t know what got into me but I stepped out of the bus and went to the Emergency Department at the hospital.  I was walking very slowly and bending from the pain.  They wanted to make the same kind of tests that they had already done three days ago.  I told them that those tests were already performed so I requested an ultrasound.  When they got the results from the ultrasound they could see that I had Appendicitis.  They told me that they were not going to operate but they were going to give me some antibiotics and they were going to keep me there for observation”.

WHAT?  They were not going to operate you?  That is the first thing that needs to be done!  Where on Earth do they not operate you if there is Appendicitis?

“Well, in that hospital in Amsterdam!  As I had just come from work, I was with my working clothes and they didn’t even give me a pajama or something to sleep on.  I slept on my own clothes! As it was late I couldn’t even ask my roommate to bring me some till the next day. I was getting the antibiotics intravenously. I called my parents who were living in Spain; my mother was very worried.  I was still in a lot of pain.  The second night I spent at the hospital I woke up at around two or three in the morning with a pain that I cannot even describe.  I believe pregnant women get the same pain when they are delivering the baby.  I’m almost sure it is from when my Appendix got perforated. And this is when my addiction to morphine started!”

Topacio said these last words with an ironic tone, frustrated and laughing at the same time.  I just cannot imagine how you must feel on situations like this one.

“When my mom heard that I was getting morphine she booked immediately a flight to Amsterdam. In Spain they give morphine to terminal patients, here it seems to be a common practice.  They made a CT-Scan to see why had the pain increased on that night and they couldn’t find anything. They just continued giving me antibiotics and controlling the fever.  Each day I had a different doctor.  Each day I had to tell my story to a new doctor with a bunch of students following him around.  It was so tiring.  As I didn’t have enough fever they were not doing much more than what it had been done.  In the meantime I was feeling very bad, I was not hungry and the abdominal pain increased and spread.  My mother told me that in order to get some attention I must make some drama, so the next time a doctor passed by with his students I cried and complained a lot.  He told me that they were going to make another CT-scan-as a favor to me- as my fever was only 37.5 and not high enough.

When they made the CT-scan, they found out that my abdomen was infected but they didn’t know what had been the cause of the infection.  By abdomen I mean my intestines, ovaries, stomach, etc.  As they didn’t know what had caused the infection, they were going to perform an Emergency surgery.  My mother, who is normally a sweet person and who doesn’t say much, got really angry and started to shout in Spanish.  She was angry on how I was being treated and why they hadn’t taken any action before.  She said that she would only allow the operation on two conditions:  That the head of the Surgery Department was the one to perform the surgery and that they had to make a pre-operation plan.  Of course, I had to translate all this while I was weak and in pain.  There was also a friend’s husband, who is Dutch, and he was also translating and talking to them in their language.  I believe that helped a lot to get what my mother demanded”. 

I was in shock to hear all this.  How can that be possible?  Was it because she was not Dutch that she had a different treatment or what?

“I had the surgery and it was a success.  They realized that I had Peritonitis. The appendix had been perforated, and as a result I had infected fluid in my abdomen. Luckily, none of my organs had been infected. They left me with a horrible big scar.  In the surgery they took a sample from the infected fluid and found out that I had some rests of E. Coli. They isolated me for ten more days after surgery because it could be contagious.   In total I spent almost three weeks with antibiotics and I lost seven kilos.  You know what they told me?  That it was an atypical case of Appendicitis”.

Atypical case?  All of these could have been avoided if they would have had performed the surgery on the first place! What’s atypical is NOT to perform surgery when a person has Appendicitis!

 "I got three teddy bears at the hospital from my friends.  Even though this was really tough for me my friends tried their best to make me feel comfortable and loved.  We named the teddy bears:  Appe (for Appendicitis), Peri (from Peritonitis) and Morphi (from Morphine).  I still have them in my room”.

She laughs nervously and nostalgic.  She dissimulates a little bit the irony from the teddy bears names.

“And guess what?  I went afterwards to Spain to rest and to be with my family.  I needed it.  When I was there I got problems and went to the hospital again.  I had something called abdominal adhesions.  Basically when I was operated the intestines moved from their original position and it was painful when they were trying to put themselves back into the correct position.  I was on a diet and observation for a few days in order to see if the intestines could position themselves correctly. Luckily, they did it for themselves, but otherwise I would have needed to go again into surgery…”

There was a question that was at my head when I was listening to this story and I needed to ask:  Did you move to Spain because of this?  She responded:

“Yes, part of it was that.  I had enough from Holland and I had some rejection to the country after this experience.  But partly is because in the meantime I had a very good job offer in Madrid which made me take the decision.  If I wouldn’t have had that job offer probably I would still be there.  Who knows?”

I would like to thank Topacio for sharing this story even tough she doesn’t live in the Netherlands anymore.

I also would like to thank Caterina for helping me to correct my so faulty English.

*Topacio is a fictitious name.

Baby Born, bloody hell!

WE NEED STORIES TO KEEP THIS BLOG.  PLEASE CONTACT ME TO TELL ME YOUR STORY.

I met Vanessa* for lunch time in Amstelveen Centrum. After ordering some lunch, she started to tell me her story: 

“Never have kids in Holland.  Try to have them at your own country”.   

Why?  I asked with curiosity. And then her story begins: 

“I was 41 years old when I had my second child. That was in 2008.  Of course, because of my age, I needed extra care.  I come from Italy and in Italy if the water breaks or you have pain, you are transported immediately to the hospital and receive urgent attention.  Here in the Netherlands that is not the case.    

When you are pregnant you have to go to a “verloskundige vrouw” (Midwife).  She checks you in all your pregnancy.  The Dutch women prefer to deliver at home.  That was not what I wanted.  My first kid was delivered in the hospital and I wanted the second one to be delivered there as well.  I felt more comfortable knowing that. 

On a cold day in October, one week before the delivery date, the water broke. It was around 19:30 Hrs.  I called the midwife and told her about it.  Do you know what did she asked me?”

I have no idea!  I said...somehow I knew the story was going to get interesting.   

“She asked me what color the water was”.  What? Was it because maybe it was blood? I couldn’t believe it! 

“I was wearing a black sport pants and blue underwear.   How did I know the color didn’t get mixed up?  She told me not to worry, that nothing was going to happened at least till next day.   I had cramps, but no contractions. I’ve called her another time after dinner but she told me not to worry.  Later at night I couldn’t sleep.  My husband called her again and told her what I was feeling.  My body was asking me to push.  I had the sensation that I wanted to go to the toilet.  She finally show up around 3:00 in the morning.  

The funny thing is that I was sitting at the toilet.  I just felt that I had to shit.  Till now I didn’t have any contractions, just felt bad and had cramps.  She told me to get the hell out of the toilet.  The baby’s head was already showing and I didn’t know.  I almost had him at the toilet!” 

I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard this, I wonder why she didn’t have the normal contractions. I asked her to continue her story: 

“The Midwife told me that I couldn’t deliver at the hospital.  It was almost delivery time and if I was going to the hospital probably I will deliver at the car.  The thing is:  I wasn’t prepare to deliver at home. I had the luggage ready to go. My insurance company sent a package a few months earlier to deliver at home  and I didn’t have any idea where I left it.  We had to call the neighbor to help since my other kid was there as well.  So in less than ten minutes we got everything ready to deliver at home. It was so crazy!  I had to push three times and PLUCK!  There he was.” 

I’ve noticed that Vanessa didn’t called the Midwife by her name.  Apparently there was no connection?  Is there a good connection between Midwives and patients around the Netherlands I wonder?  I guess I have to get pregnant to figure it out. 

“But the story doesn’t end here.  My baby was born but the Placenta remained inside.  And that is when I started to have the contractions. I was pushing and pushing and after fifteen minutes the Midwife called the Ambulance.  I was at my bedroom at the second floor.  When the ambulance came, they couldn’t get the stretcher upstairs.  I was loosing a lot of blood and had to walk downstairs to be able to go to the hospital.  I had so much pain at my belly and all around that area.” 

Was the Placenta still inside after you walked? I asked.  She replied: 

“Yes, it was still inside.  Did you know the doctors only work till 17:00 Hrs in the Netherlands?”  

No, I guess not all of them, right? 

“Well, there was no doctor at the hospital to attend me.  I was there around 4:15 in the morning.  There was this nurse that I hated with all my heart.  She started to push really hard on my belly leaving me without breath.  I was so weak because I was still loosing a lot of blood.  My belly was hurting so much. She continued pushing and pushing and in one moment she wanted me to hold the baby while she continued pushing. What the fuck?  I don’t want to hold no baby!  Leave me alone!  She told me:  “Poor baby, he needs to eat” I was bleeding so much, she was pushing so hard, and still wanted me to breast feed my baby?  There was a moment I couldn’t anymore and I shouted:  Genoeg is Genoeg! (Enough is Enough!).  

Then the doctor came and checked me. He said that they will try with one more push and if the Placenta didn’t come out by then, he had to operate.  After that last push I was rush to the operation room.  All this time I had my glasses on.  The horrible nurse wanted to remove them as I was going to be put to sleep while I was operated.  I was so annoyed that I said:  Leave the glasses on! And she did.

It was a fast operation.  I woke up around 5:15 Hrs and  immediately after went to sleep a couple of hours more.  They gave me a probe to avoid going to the toilet.  They gave me a painkiller, something stronger than Paracetamol.  The doctor came and told me that they needed to make a blood transfusion because I’ve lost a lot of blood.  I answered:  As long as is tested I don’t have any problem.” 

I’ve asked about the baby.  She responded: 

“He was coming and going. I couldn’t take care or breast feed him.  Do you want to know what happened next?  They made the blood transfusion and immediately after I had fever.  They were putting a thermometer on my ass every half of hour.  The fever didn’t dissapeared.  They gave me some antibiotics and some kind of liquid coming from the blood.  My blood pressure went down.  After sometime they told me  that I had an infection, probably from moving from my house to the hospital.  They didn’t know exactly why.  They took a sample and sent it to the laboratory. 

The doctor came and told me that I needed another blood transfusion (from the same donor).  I was suspicious that the blood was the one that provoked the infection.  The doctor said: ‘I assure you that in the Netherlands everything is checked and cleaned’.  I requested the doctor a nurse to stay with me when the second infusion was done. I was scared that something happen to me and nobody was there to rescue me.  

The second blood transfusion was done.  Sometime after I wanted to walk a little.  I was laying in the bed for three days and was tired of it.  I told the nurse (which was different than the first one) to remove the probe as I was going to try to pee on my own.  I went slowly to the toilet while she was busy doing something with the probe and some other stuff.  When I came out from the toilet she was gone.  It took me a long time to go back to the bed.  When she came back I was upset.  I’ve asked her: ‘How could you leave me alone when you know I am weak and walking for the first time in days?  Couldn’t you wait?  What about if I fainted or something else happened?’. 

I was a little bit concerned about the nurses.  Did Vanessa only had bad experiences with them? I have asked her and she responded: 

“No, not all of them were bad.  There were some of them that really showed sympathy and came to ask me how I was.  Some of them even had a coffee while chatting with me.  The first nurse that was pushing my belly so hard at the first day came to apologize.  I guess the doctor told her to do so. 

I stayed there for a week.  There were sometimes I was feeling really hot and I thought I had fever again.  The nurses told me that I needed to sleep, to rest.  On Saturday, six days after the delivery, they told me that I could go.  They had had the results of the sample and everything was okay.  They didn’t tell me the reason why I had the infection and since I just wanted to go home I didn’t ask.

In the meantime, I was weak but recovering very slowly.  I have lost a lot of weight and people told me I looked very pale.   

Forty days after being in the hospital I went for a check.  They had me waiting for a very long time. When they finally attended me, they told me that they lost my file.  I’ve found it a bit weird but what could I do?  They asked me how I felt and if I was feeling better.  As I was, they sent me home. 

Four days later, I’ve received a phone call.  It was Saturday around 17:00 Hrs  and I was having a chat with a friend of mine.  It was a nurse from the hospital.  She apologized for loosing my file and said: ‘We have found the reason why you had the infection.  The first blood transfusion that we performed was infected by a virus.  Probably that day the donor had something because the second blood transfusion from the same donor didn’t have it and help to stabilize you. We apologize for any inconvenience caused’. 

I got so angry after this phone call.  They’ve told me many times that probably it was my fault.  Why they were not honest with me when I was at the appointment and tell me on my face?  Was that too hard to do?”

Few months after, Vanessa’s health and weight was back to normal.  The baby was always in good health and growing up strong.  Many persons advised Vanessa to sue the hospital but she didn’t feel like doing it.   

Vanessa read this article before it was published.  She told me the Midwife’s name which I will keep for myself.  During her pregnancy midwives were rotated for her consultations. 

*Vanessa is a fictitious name.

LINK:  Blood Transfusion:  Knowing your options http://www.bloodtransfusion.com/