Last night my hubby and I walked home from our friends’ house following a very fun joint birthday celebration for my husband and friend. Now, the sidewalks in town here are pretty to look at, but not so great to walk on in the daylight, let alone at night when it’s dark. In our neighborhood, they’re mostly uneven or loose cobblestones, combined with some parts of the sidewalk that have been raised by tree roots. I broke my big toe on one of those several years ago, so for our walk home last night, we stuck to the street which is slightly better. Unfortunately, that plan didn’t work. I fell down hard after tripping on a pothole that I missed, even with a flashlight.
I mostly landed on my hands, knee, and elbow, so at least I didn’t clock it directly onto my abdomen. It’s possible I hit my side on the way down (or when I hit the ground), but my hands and knee hurt a whole lot more than anything else, and I was tired, so after I managed to get back up from the ground (my husband helped collect my things which had sprayed out a bit), we continued the remaining 3 homes to our house, I went inside and washed all the scrapes/abrasions with soap and water, and went to sleep.
In the morning, I woke up really sore in most places (I really did hit the ground hard), and on the advice of one of my IVF Pregnancy Support groups, I called the midwife on call to see what she recommended. She said as long as I wasn’t bleeding or having terrible cramping, everything was probably okay, but it couldn’t hurt to go to the ER to get fully checked out.
So after waking my husband just enough to tell him where I was going as a preventive measure, off to the ER I went at 8:45am. Once I was put in a room, they checked for the heartbeat, which was where and what it should be. Then they did a pelvic exam (ouch) to make sure all was okay internally (it was), and then checked back with the OB on call who said to do an ultrasound just to make sure all was okay with the placenta and to see things visually. The ultrasound tech said everything looked good, but I’d have to wait for the official radiologist report.
All of that took about 2-1/2 hours, which I thought was pretty good. The ER staff was very responsive, understood why I was anxious, and the ER doctor connected with the OB on call at least twice to make sure they were doing all the tests needed for something like this. Again, the likelihood that something was wrong was slim since I wasn’t having any bleeding or bad cramping, but since I’m a high-risk pregnancy due to IVF and my age, they wanted to be thorough.
Since all the previous tests had happened quickly, I thought that the radiology report would come back in a similar timeframe and I’d be able to get out of there. However, I watched the clock tick by and it get later and later. After about 2 hours post-ultrasound, I pressed for a nurse and asked if I could get something to eat if it would be a lot longer (it was almost 1:30pm and I’d only had a glass of orange juice before driving over at 8:45am). I don’t do well normally when I haven’t eaten, and now that I’m pregnant I need to be careful to eat at regular intervals, even if I’m not hungry.
Unfortunately, they didn’t want to let me eat anything until the official report came back just in case there was something wrong and more tests needed to be done. I was less than thrilled with that, but kinda stuck. They promised to try to push to get the results in, as they had also expected them by then.
About an hour later, one of the nurses came into the room apologizing that they had to move me into the hallway because there was a critical patient coming in who needed a room. I get it — I wasn’t critically injured — and so they put my clothes, pocketbook, and shoes on the bed and wheeled me out into the hallway because the ER had filled up since I’d arrived 5 hours prior. It was a bit awkward to just be lying (uncomfortably) on a hospital bed against a wall in the hallway and watching staff walk up and down the hallway and in and out of rooms, not to mention I was wearing an open-back hospital gown and two blankets, so I had to be careful of how I moved around to get comfortable.
Finally, about an hour after that, the radiologist report came through. Apparently the ER doctor had to call Radiology directly and raise some heck to get it released. (To be fair to Radiology, they had one person for all of the reports today in the system.) As expected, everything looked fine and I could be discharged.
However, that was easier said than done. Since there was zero privacy where I was in the hallway, I needed to get to a bathroom to get changed, but getting there without putting on a show for the whole ER was a bit tricky. After a bit of maneuvering, some well-wrapped blankets, and one nurse helping to hold it all together, I successfully made it to the bathroom without flashing anyone , got dressed, and finally headed home 6 hours after arriving.
I had sort of dozed on and off while in the ER, so after eating a freshly-made egg sandwich, my husband kept to our original plans and headed out to see the D&D movie (I highly recommend it). I’m still super sore from falling, and probably will be for a few days, but the Gilgamesh is fine and that’s what counts.