Hospitalization #7

Scott Kuglin (my hubby) seems to be the opposite of a good luck charm when it comes to me spending time in the hospital. Let me explain. . .

Six months after we started dating we were involved in a car crash and I was his human cushion. He walked away with a little bloody nose and I got an ambulance ride because my left arm broke clean in half.

This broken arm refused to heal and I could bend my arm in a place it shouldn't be able to bend for 8 months, when I finally decided it was enough and scheduled some surgery to have them repair it.

I kept the substantial hardware in my arm for a year, but one of the screws that have nasty cutting tips on them was all the way through the bone and poked in my arm on the other side. It caused me enough grief that I had surgery again to remove it.

A few years later I was pregnant with our first daughter Erin, and at 33 weeks I went into labor. I spent a week in the hospital on a magnesium drip to keep the little punkin in.

Four weeks later I gave birth to that punkin. Granted this was a planned hospital stay, it still was a result of having Scott Kuglin in my life.

Three years later, I was pregnant with our second daughter Izzy, and made it to 36 weeks of pregnancy and went into labor. I was far enough along that they didn't stop later, even if my midwife would have preferred to.

Three months later, what I thought was the stomach flu turned out to be gallbladder attacks. On our way home from a vacation in the Dells, the pain became overwhelming and even brought me to tears! I tried to hold on until we could make it to Rochester, but we ended up in the Lacrosse ER where they gave me some pain medication. Finally some relief. I guess generally once they get the attack to stop they send people home and let them decide on whether or not to have their gallbladder out. Generally they are able to prevent additional attacks by limiting fat in their diet. However, in my case the pain was not going away and the attack was not stopping. So they sent the surgeon my way and we decided to go for it and just get it out.

Lo and behold a sneaky little gallstone had escaped the gallbladder and become lodged in my bile duct. Most likely the culprit of the ongoing pain. So instead of being an outpatient, I was fortunate enough to undergo an additional procedure the next day to dislodge the sneaky little gallstone. With the endoscopic procedure that was used there was a 1 in 100 chance of me developing pancreatitis. Apparently I should play the lottery more often because I did develop it. Normal numbers for pancreatic enzymes are from 40 to 100, and my levels were in the thousands. Let me just tell you that the pancreas is NOT an organ that you want to anger. It is extremely painful and pain medication isn't always that helpful!!!

So by my count that is number seven. Seven hospitalizations in 6 years of marriage. A few planned, most not. Maybe I should get out while I can!!! If I didn't adore him so much I could consider it.