Black Weekend Part II

[August 11. 2009]

Before leaving Group Health to go home and have a miscarriage we had an uncomfortable interaction with a pharmacist. Just to add insult to injury, if you will. Salt in the cut. Lemon juice in the open wound.The RX order for vicodin for some reason didn't beat us to the pharmacy. The guy there couldn't find it. He finally did and asked Carey if she'd taken it before. No, she hadn't. So he had to give us the spiel because it's a narcotic. Makes you sleepy, don't drive any machinery, don't drink while on it blah, blah, blah. But then he looked at Carey and was unsure about the dosage. The bottle itself said take 1-2 every 4-6 hours. This pharmacist suggested maybe only one or half even. Then he asked her uncomfortable question number one. "How much do you weigh?" Now, I get why he asked it. I understand that if she weighted two-ten, then the drug would have less of an effect and a higher dosage would be necessary. But we weren't thinking clearly about why he asked. When not expecting a question like that, caught off guard, the socially responsible instinct is to answer and answer truthfully. Especially in a Dr.'s office/hospital/clinic/pharmacy, right? So she did. Based on her response he decided a 1/2 a pill would be just fine. But then he reconsidered again and asked uncomfortable question number two, "What are you taking this for?" Carey faltered and quietly answered, "For a miscarriage." "Oh." he replied. "Go ahead and take a whole one." As we walked away Carey muttered through teary eyes, "That was awkward." That insensitive fuck! So much for patient privacy. Anything else you wanna know, ass-face? Haunting family secrets? How about the intimate details of our sex lives? Stupid prick.

So Friday night, dark Friday, we stayed in and waited. Carey inserted three pills into herself, had some dinner, dropped a vicodin and we watched our DVD. Three hours later, nothing was happening. She couldn't feel any reactions from the drugs so she popped another vicodin and fell asleep on the couch. At about 11 I was ready to go to bed. So I woke her to join me. That's when the pain began. The next hour and a half was excruciating. Unbearable cramps followed by the evacuation of small crooked strings of blood. It felt like it would never end. She would be in the bed writhing around holding her stomach trying to find a comfortable position. (Or at least a less painful one.) Then she'd go back to the bathroom. She would sit and push and we'd wait for more to leave her body. Always tiny amounts were expunged not even close in comparison to the amount of pain. She was suffering greatly and there was nothing I could do but rub her back while kneeling on the noticeably dirty bath mat. She got to the point where she could only swear over and over and over again rocking on the bed, holding her stomach. The pain was so intense that she threw up on top of the floating blood and clots. A hot washcloth on her stomach seemed to help a little. I burnt my hands warming and rewarming the washcloth. Towards the end, she passed it, we were pretty sure. Pretty sure we saw it. Tiny bloody tissue with a curve, maybe a once forming vertebrae. I remember thinking in complete sentences like, "I can't handle this. I am not able to handle this," and "I don't ever want to do this again. Nothing is worth this." Carey cried on and off not only from the physical pain, but also the loss. She let out fathom deep sobs. Unimaginable sorrowful crying. This was misery. This was loss. This was death. She wanted this baby so bad. I couldn't believe it was happening to us... At midnight Carey called her mom Mary Kay (3am her time). Mary Kay suggested she do the breathing like she was in labor. After Carey hung up to go back to the bathroom she called us right back. I picked up and she added that I should breathe with her. Which I did even though I felt like a fool. By then the washcloth thing wasn't working much anymore. Carey insisted I call Dan to borrow his heating pad. I didn't want to, but I finally did. I texted him and Toby hoping they were still awake. Dan called from Toby's phone saying he'd bring the pad right over. He must have ran because it didn't take long. When he rang the doorbell, for a second I thought about throwing on a robe as I know I look ridiculous in my pajama suit (black long johns and a t shirt and sox). I ran down stairs to get the pad. I thanked him. He didn't let me go without a hug. I don't remember what he said, but it was nice. I brought the pad upstairs, plugged it in and Carey and I commenced on another suggestion from Mary Kay, marching around doing the stupid breathing thing. It really did help some. Also, by 12:30 we believed the remainder of it had been evacuated. Carey fell asleep with the hot pad wrapped around her stomach. I fell asleep and had a stupid Hallmark card dream.

It was quite unlike the dream Carey had Thursday night before we knew for sure. In her dream, she pulled out a full fetus from herself and showed it to me. Prophetic, as it turns out and completely free of mystery. My dream, there was something, a bird/book amalgam flying in place in front of me. The flapping wings outspread from the binding. After a moment it turned to reveal it was two dimensional only showing a black horizontal line in the sky. Then from the line a giant burst of fluttering birds, an upward V of rising doves. In the dream, the awe was so intense that I fell to my knees. (Wow, that sounds cheesy. The dream felt beautiful while I was in it, but explaining in words is all kinds of embarrassing.) The flock flew straight up into the sky into a rough square hole in the clouds exposing bare sky where bright streams of sunlight fell. It sounds like bad writing. Like something from the Lifetime network. I'm disappointed that this is the "meaningful" dream that my mind up with. Such obvious symbolism. Stupid brain.

Saturday morning I woke up with extreme stomach pain and nausea. I reasoned that my food surely had digested by that point. So what was going on? My last meal was like 10 hours previous. I scanned my memory for the list of ingredients to make sure there was no gluten. It hurt really bad. Then it got worse. I ran to the bathroom and puked out my gut fluids. Nothing but bile. My throat stung from the toxic mess. My stomach started a wave of rising and settling pain. I contemplated not going to work trying to fall back asleep. Carey suggested I go to get my mind off of things. Dan already promised to come over to be with her while I worked. Oh, and I also had the rhea. Acid blasts. We walked over to Safeway to get ginger ale for my upset stomach and orange juice for Carey. I had two bottles of cold ginger ale in my arms because they were too cold for my hands (which if you'll remember went through the heat wringer the night before with the hot washcloth action). I must have looked like I was hurtin' for the needle stumbling around like that. I dropped a bottle and it shattered spilling ginger ale everywhere on the floor in the produce section. The cute chick employee just gave me the look like "whatever" after I apologized. I was a wreck, but I still drove to work. One block from the house I actually turned the car around because my stomach hurt so bad, but I doubled back and tried to tough it out. I made it an hour and a half at work before I puked up my banana and ginger ale in the staff only bathroom. I felt better for a few seconds right after I hurled. But that did it. I called my boss at the Magnolia branch and explained that I just launched my breakfast and I needed to go home. He sounded a little perturbed, but relented anyway. I told the librarian on duty and took off in the car. When I got home I checked on Carey reclining on the living room couch and then went to the bedroom hoping to get some sleep. No luck. I was in bed for a couple of hours, but couldn't sleep. Dan had come over, I heard. Carey came up and encouraged me to come down and talk it out. I felt nasty with a cramped stomach though, and stayed put. I didn't want to see anyone anyway. A little while later Dan brought up a dry piece of gluten-free toast. I ate it slowly counting how many times I chewed each bite. That way, the food would be mashed up, mostly dissolved before it hit my weakling stomach. I decided 50 chews would be good, but I made it to around 100 times on several bites. I finally came down stairs. Jennifer was there too. And we hung out. Becky showed up a little later. We just talked in our living room. I slumped in one of our chairs occasionally laughing at whatever funny comment my friends made. It momentarily relieved the pain. Stupid pain.

Carey came to the conclusion that my sickness was my body's reaction to the horror of what I had witnessed the night before. Made me think of in the movies when after someone witnesses a murder or kills someone for the first time or finds a dead body they throw up. Carey told our friends and our families that I was strong during the ordeal. I am not strong. I may have acted strong. But my body is weak. I cannot cry. I got teary eyed a few times, but I am not really able to completely let go of control. So I smothered the hurt and stuffed it down in my digestive system until it couldn't handle it anymore and burst out of both ends of my body. I didn't have a fever. There's really no other explanation. I admitted to Carey that I felt guilty for being sick when I should have been taking care of her. She even got me some Pepto Bismol and Tums. They didn't help, but it was a nice gesture. I could barely down water. Anything entering my stomach immediately turned to hurt. Even the stupid Pepto gave me heartburn. The whole day my stomach writhed. Her pain had subsided into a constant dull cramp. The vicodin sort of helped her. At one point when all our friends were over, Carey looked pail. In pain. She realized her discomfort, took another pill, and sunk back into the couch.