If you are new here, you can read the rest of this story here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.
I discovered next morning, I had a new complication. My feet were swollen beyond anything I had seen before. And I had a horrible headache each time I tried to stand. Just when I was beginning to feel better, I started feeling like I was crashing. My midwife had warned me that by day 4 I would probably take a downward turn again. And just when I thought it was over, my body would crash and burn. And I would ask myself - will I ever feel like myself again?
Spoiler - I do feel like myself again. So what if it took nearly six months?
I called the midwife and based on my symptoms she suggested that I should check my blood pressure. I didn’t have a machine. Because even though I was in a hospital, they refused to check it for me unless I went to emergency. I then requested the nurse to wheel me to maternity so I could ask them since I had been a patient there only 24 hours ago. They refused.
I was in tears but sucked in all the anger I was feeling and used it to find strength to wobble my way to maternity. Once I got there I shakily asked a nurse if they could help me. I explained to her what I had gone through.
She simply said hospital policy was that post discharge I had to go through emergency to get any care for myself. At this point I nearly howled. Nearly, because in reality I just turned around and silent-cried my way back to paediatrics.
So I called my mom. She and Angad got in a car and drove from home with a BP instrument in tow. She took my pressure and lo-and-behold it was elevated. At this point we called the midwives and mom left for home. Next step was for me to visit emergency. I thought this time I would get some empathy out of the nurses and they may actually take me to emergency since I had checked my pressure.
I was wrong. They flat out refused, again. Thankfully mom wasn’t too far away and she turned back. Her doula ID came to our rescue yet again and they allowed her to take me to emergency.
Little knowledge is a bad thing they say. I knew what swelling in my feet, breathlessness, high BP could mean. I knew it could mean a clot. I knew that was a medical emergency. Couple this background anxiety with my physical symptoms and I was clearly losing it.
They don’t warn you about visiting an emergency in a pandemic - it is utter mayhem. And you feel like you are in hell - a very infectious one at that. The next few hours were the most exhausting and draining ones I have ever spent. Sitting while every part of me hurt - scared to touch anything - scared to sit close to anyone - scared even to breathe. And yet there I was.
(I learnt much later that average wait times at emergency are 6 hours for Canadian Healthcare. I had no idea or I would have just stayed put in paediatrics with my swollen feet and headache.)
The nurse was frantically doing her best through the whirlwind of managing trauma patients. She met me, examined me. Quite surprisingly she even allowed me to go back to paediatrics and come later to collect my reports. This was against protocol. But turns out there was some humanity even in the darkest of places.
An hour later I was back to collect my reports. As I sat cautiously in the middle of this hell - there was a loud screech. A sound that still gives me the jitters when I think of it. I couldn’t bring myself to turn and see where it came from. But my head said it was either someone who had been cut up badly themselves or someone who had just discovered that the person they loved most in the world was dead. Not sure which one it was. But I remember feeling such an urge to flee the scene. I called Lohit and asked him to get me out of there immediately. Thankfully they did manage to give me a diagnosis just in time for my grand escape. I needed medicines to control my blood pressure. (And to make things even more complicated - they wouldn’t just give me the medicine. I had to find a way to get to a pharmacy outside of the hospital to actually get the drugs).
The moment we got back, Rumi was awake, crying for a feed. I immediately got down to feeding him. And just as he settled I looked up and caught Lohit’s face as he lost all colour and looked at me as if the world had ended. I asked him what??? He quietly reminded me that I hadn’t sanitised or changed my clothes before feeding Rumi.
So here I was, unwell, shaken, and potentially infectious. And the worst possibility flashed through my head. Had I managed to give Rumi Covid?
Oh my god! While reading it made me feel as I am watching all of this. Thank you for sharing
You really do make me go through it again ...... 😍🥰...... but considering everything we sailed through rather well ..... all of us