On December 17th, 2012 at 10:01am my husband, Neil, and I welcome our 4th child into the world, a beautiful 8lb 4.6oz baby girl who we named Cheyanne Elizabeth. We knew that we were done having children and so I made the choice that ended up changing out lives forever, I got a tubal ligation done. There were no abailable ORs that day, so my tubal was done on December 19th, 2012. That day we were told that everything went great and that I could go home that afternoon. As the day went on something didn't feel right to me, something was wrong, something serious. I told the OBGYN on that night that I didn't want to go home that night, that I needed to stay, so she agreed to let me. I was in a lot of pain, I couldn't sit up, get up off of something or even really walk on my own. They had me on Ibuprofen and dilauded for the pain, so those masked all the other symptoms you would get with the infection.
On December 20th, 2012 I was sent home against my wishes. I continued to tell the dr that I didn't feel right, that something was wrong, but she chose not to listen to me. 2 hours after being discharged I started to ache from head to toe, got the chills, and ran a fever of 102 degrees. I called the dr's office and she was on call and told me to rest and take my medication. If I was still like this in 2 days, to return to the ER or the Dr's office.
On December 22nd, 2012 we went to urgent care. Nothing stopped, it got worse, my stomach was swollen, red and very hot. The Dr took one look at it and said it was an infection and to go straight to the ER, so we did. The Dr at the ER took me in for an ultrasound and told me I had a few pus pockets, gave me IV antibiotics and sent me home with antibiotics and pain medication, told me it would go away in a few days, but it didn't, it only got worse.
On Christmas Eve I felt well enough to take a shower, so after all the kids were asleep I took one. When I got out it was Christmas morning. I sat on the edge of our bed getting dressed, when I smelled something so disgusting and fowl, a smell that I will never forget. I went into the bathroom to check everything out and as I bent down there was pus and blood all over the floor, my incision site ruptured open. I called for Neil and grabbed a towel. I told him to wake the kids up, we had to rush to the ER. As he got the kids up, I called my mother-in-law to tell her what was going on & she sent my sister-in-laws boyfriend to meet us at the hospital and get the kids. They get me into a room, start an IV and the Dr ordered a CT scan and my records from the last ER I went to. When he got all the results back he told us I had necrotizing faciitis, that the last ER should NOT have sent me home as the infection was very noticable in the ultrasound he did. He told us that I will be going in for surgery within the house, we were waiting for the General Surgeon to come in. As soon as he arrived he looked me over and sent us up to surgery. A few hours later everything was done. He told my husband that a day, maybe 2 and it would have gotten toxic and they wouldn't have been able to do anything but give me IV pain medication to keep me comfortable till I passed away. I missed my children opening their presents and seeing their faces light up, my baby girl was just a week old.
On the 26th, an amazing plastic surgeon did another surgery, he put in a wound van in hopes to be able to clean it all out and close me up for good with no skin grafts or more surgeries. They took out a total of 30x15x10cm area of my abdomen and part of my abdominal cavity. I had the wound vac in for 3 days. On the 29th I went in for what we hoped would be my last surgery. The Dr called Neil after the surgery to tell him it went great. They didn't have to do a skin graft and was able to close me up all the way. He put a drain tube in. On New Year's Eve I was discharged from the hospital and got to start off a new year at hom with my husband and kids.
**Pictures**
This was right after the first surgery. Under all the gauze I am totally opened up, you can see all my insides.
This was after the 2nd surgery with the wound vac in. It shows how much they really took out of my abdomen.
This was taken on January 1st, 2013, only 3 days after the very last surgery.
This was taken 1 month after the last surgery.
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