Placenta Accreta- Surgery 9 months After C-Section

If you are reading this blog and have been diagnosed with Accreta or Percreta, my heart goes out to you.  My story is not typical- it's close to worst-case scenerio.  So-- don't let my story scare you!

We are lucky to live in this modern-age of medical advances, but actually experiencing the miracle is hard.  I try to laugh my way through and take one day at a time.  I know God holds you and your little ones close.

My baby is 9 months old.

He is beautiful, happy, and a bit delayed even if one uses his adjusted preemie age.  

We have full confidence that he'll catch up soon.

When I chose to not abort my little guy, I was very naive as to how hard my journey to get him here would be.  

Today, I know how hard it was and I would make the exact same choice again tomorrow.  Life is worth the sacrifice.

I feel better than I have in a year.

I can walk, sit on the ground, perform normal tasks like grocery shopping, laundry, and sex.  (Just the essential tasks for us "non-working" mothers.)

I have had a stent in my left ureter for over six months.  It has been changed twice.  I have had numerous cystoscopies, CT Scans, urine analysis, kidney tests, blood tests, etc..  

I pee my pants often.  

No, I'm not talking about a gentle leak when I cough.  I'm talking about a soothing, warm, "good thing I'm wearing depends" pee.  I love it.  ;)

I almost always have a kidney infection, bladder infection, or a yeast infection.

My legs are tingly and numb at times.  

The hair that fell out after my delivery is just growing back in, so I'm a complete fuzz head (not chemo-like, just regrowth).

My pain is manageable.

Aside from my almost constant antibiotics and vesicare (to relax my bladder), I don't take any medication.

Follow-up issues...

1- I have a stitch in the bottom of my left ureter (the tiny tube that brings urine from your kidney to your bladder).  My surgeon is planning to cut that part off my ureter and reattach it to my bladder.  This is kind of tricky because my bladder is pretty scarred.  

The problem with the stitch is that my ureter gets clogged and my kidney gets infected (and even septic).  One side-effect of reattaching a ureter is urine reflux, that causes kidney infections.  Nice.

As doctors were working frantically to save my life they made only two small mistakes, they cut my right illiac artery (oops!) and caught my left ureter in a stitch.  I absolutely love and appreciate my miracle working doctors.  They are my heros.  If it weren't for them, I'd be dead.  It really bugs me when people are critical of the work that they did.  Just so you know.  I can't even imagine trying to sew someone closed in the midst of a blood bath.  I am nothing but grateful and in awe of brave, brave surgeons.

2- I have a fistula that goes from my bladder to my vaginal opening.  A fistula is a tube that forms when two stitched areas sit on top of each other- it's the easiest way for urine to get out, so it just forms a tunnel.  In my case, my stitched bladder was near my stitched cervix and a little tube was created.  Urine comes out where I used to bleed.  Interesting, huh?

Fistulas are hard to fix.  You have to actually place a barrier (like a piece of intestinal wall) between the two open wounds to stop a fistula from reforming.  Lovely.  A side-effect of this surgery is that it might not work and could cause future issues with my intestines.  Lovely.

3- I have some yucky stitches and that fistula opening where my cervix used to be.  I think they are going to clean that up.

4- I have a pretty large, scary hernia near my belly button at the top of my vertical incision scar.  (How I wish I had worn my stomach binder faithfully for at least six months post surgery.  Not that it would have changed things- but maybe it could have.)  

You have a lot of layers on your stomach- skin, fat, muscle.  The top of my scar didn't heal right, so I have skin and then intestines.  Yuck!  If I hold my baby too long or don't wear my binder, my intestines pop out like a painful bubble.  It's awful.

My doctor says there is only 3mm of skin covering my intestines. Gross.  My intestines are actually adhered to my skin.  So-- they have to do a bowel resection to fix my hernia.  Ugh. Yes, I could still end up with a poop bag.  I hope not!

I have surgery scheduled for Monday, St. Patty's day.  My surgeon better be wearing green!! 

I'm sad, scared and nervous.  Mostly I'm just distracted.  I really can't focus on my normal life because I have this impending cliff getting closer quickly...

Right now, they are planning to do a laparoscopic surgery to repair my innards.  (Six two inch slices around my stomach).  They don't think they can fix my hernia at the same time which makes me a bit crazy.  I really don't want to go through this again!

And- that's all.

I wish I could organize my basement, decorate my house, play with my kids, or file away my overflowing box of "papers to save".

Next week I'll focus on plumbing issues and return to life as a lady of leisure soon enough.

Sigh.  I receive many Facebook, blog and email messages from woman dealing with Accreta.  I'm hesitant to continue to share my details because frankly, this is rough.  

I wish my blog could let you feel, for a moment, how really hard this has been AND how genuinely beautiful it has been.

I am alive because hundreds of people have learned and trained and practiced and served and prayed and laughed and cried and worked to keep me alive.  It is humbling and empowering.

The veil between life and death is thin.  It is a veil any of us could cross any moment.

One of my heros, Elder Russell M. Nelson was a world renown heart surgeon.  He was a pioneer of open heart surgery.  One evening, as they were folding laundry together watching television, his own wife had a heart attack and died in his arms.  Can you imagine?  He was a heart surgeon!!  Death is beautifully, tragically, inevitable sometimes.  

Both life and death are passageways.  They are both gifts necessary for our eternal progression.  Trials mold our souls and refine us.  I am full of gratitude that my hard had purpose!  We all have hard-- I feel lucky to have a beautiful, chubby, delicious baby to motivate me onward.

(What I get to wake up to...)

Life, even with messy insides, is good!

Today is a great day to be alive.

So is Tuesday, by the way.

Thanks for reading!