I thought I was going to die last Monday.
I know it's quite morbid especially since it's the start of a new year and my kids are still very young but I really thought they had to open me up. The pain was excruciating. It was like someone was poking needles and squeezing my left lung & shoulder. It was worse than giving birth (I had epidural support..so on second thought, yeah probably just as painful).
It started with the usual back pains travellers experience after carrying kids & bags at the airport. At NAIA3 they cruelly get your personal lightweight strollers & leave it with the bags on the conveyor belt lightyears away (even if they have special tags) so you wouldn't be able to use it when you need it most...When you groggilly get off the plane in a delayed red-eye flight, your kids are sleeping, you have to carry bags & kiddie snacks with their dead weight, the airport passenger assist vehicle has flat tires & you have to go through immigration in agony. Why again do they charge airport tax?!? Why? Why couldn't we use the wheelchairs on standby?
Anyhow, fastforward to two days later, I still felt sluggish so we booked a massage. The day after, I felt a little better so I went back to helping hubby clean up the house before Chinese New Year and move some of the stuff to the third floor. For some strange reason I felt lethargic after less than thirty minutes of spring cleaning. I tried to sleep it off.
But the pain just got worse. At 4am the next day, I felt like someone punched my lower left lung. "Uh, probably just acid reflux." I washed it down with a bit of warm water and cookies and headed straight to a final casting while the kids were asleep. I had to finish this before a taping in the afternoon.
On the road, the pain worsened. It came to a point that heavy breathing and gulping made it worse.
I was determined to go to the casting since it's my first this 2020. Sadly, I wasn't able to do it. After like an hour or so of waiting for my turn, I had to excuse myself and run to the ER just to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. I couldn't even stand straight at this point; the guards came to the rescue and hailed a cab for me to Cardinal Santos. Grab Car seemed to take forever.
The driver looked a lot like my great grandfather in heaven. Same Moroccan profile. He was so kind to drive like we were in a drag race so he could alleviate my pain. I didn't know a guy his age could drive like that; it was awesome.
I was wheeled right in. As they were putting on my IV, I prayed: "Lord, if I'm going to die today please make my husband healthy so he can take care of the kids and get a younger and healthier wife before he reaches 60."
They performed an ECG & pregnancy test right away (I'm two months delayed and they had to make sure I wasn't preggo before all the x-rays). Negative.
They checked my chest and abs for broken bones. Negative. They checked my kidneys for possible stones. Negative again.
I know these are all reasons for rejoicing if not for the toe-twisting pain which got worse when I lay in bed or breathed. I dreaded I missed a taping in ABS for this afternoon of agony we're not even sure what the cause was after all the tests.
Their theory was it was UTI-induced pain. But even Tramadol, Norgesic, Buscopan and Pregabalin weren't enough to drive it away.
I begged my husband to take me straight to the acupuncturist. But the ER doctors said the pain management center was closed and you have to schedule in advance. Ugh.
My parents took my kids in for three days and my in-laws took us in for another three while we dealt with my unresolved pain. Any movement and shift in position made it worse. I was already nearing overdose of Paracetamol and I still couldn't sleep, eat, and walk properly.
Dr Jake (in Whiteplains) and Dr Philip Nino Tan-Gatue (in Maginhawa) are heaven-sent. I'm not a fan of the scent of burnt mugwort grass (it makes me cough actually) but I guess it helped. They managed to flush the bad cold air out of my system. It took me three acupuncture sessions to make the pain tolerable. I had to avoid cold food, drinks, places and showers for a week. I had to put socks on all the time because my feet were often ice cold.
I wasn't allowed to breastfeed Leon the entire time I was on meds and antibiotics. Despite the pain and muscle contractions, I pumped at least once each day. I have so little milk to begin with & I get so much less when I'm stressed but I stubbornly want to continue on with comfort feeding at naptime/ night for as long as he wants so I treaded on.
On the fourth day I weaned myself off Pregabalin and Norgesic. On the fifth, I stopped taking Paracetamol. 18hrs after my last dose of antibiotic, I allowed him to latch even if there wasn't any milk coming out just so he would be able to sleep & he would send a signal to my brain that I should start producing more milk the next day. Some say I should have waited three days before I started feeding him again, but I was in graver danger of losing my milk as I noticed I barely produced an ounce (both sides combined). Believe me, it's just harder to put him to sleep and make him eat table food when he doesn't get his dose of breastmilk.
It's more than a week now. I'm not bitter anymore with NAIA3 or with the pain's nasty timing. Our parents babied us this week and I'm more than grateful for their prayers and concern. I'm just praying for more projects this 2020 & that my husband will get a younger-looking, healthier wife (still me!)
I know it's quite morbid especially since it's the start of a new year and my kids are still very young but I really thought they had to open me up. The pain was excruciating. It was like someone was poking needles and squeezing my left lung & shoulder. It was worse than giving birth (I had epidural support..so on second thought, yeah probably just as painful).
It started with the usual back pains travellers experience after carrying kids & bags at the airport. At NAIA3 they cruelly get your personal lightweight strollers & leave it with the bags on the conveyor belt lightyears away (even if they have special tags) so you wouldn't be able to use it when you need it most...When you groggilly get off the plane in a delayed red-eye flight, your kids are sleeping, you have to carry bags & kiddie snacks with their dead weight, the airport passenger assist vehicle has flat tires & you have to go through immigration in agony. Why again do they charge airport tax?!? Why? Why couldn't we use the wheelchairs on standby?
Anyhow, fastforward to two days later, I still felt sluggish so we booked a massage. The day after, I felt a little better so I went back to helping hubby clean up the house before Chinese New Year and move some of the stuff to the third floor. For some strange reason I felt lethargic after less than thirty minutes of spring cleaning. I tried to sleep it off.
But the pain just got worse. At 4am the next day, I felt like someone punched my lower left lung. "Uh, probably just acid reflux." I washed it down with a bit of warm water and cookies and headed straight to a final casting while the kids were asleep. I had to finish this before a taping in the afternoon.
On the road, the pain worsened. It came to a point that heavy breathing and gulping made it worse.
I was determined to go to the casting since it's my first this 2020. Sadly, I wasn't able to do it. After like an hour or so of waiting for my turn, I had to excuse myself and run to the ER just to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. I couldn't even stand straight at this point; the guards came to the rescue and hailed a cab for me to Cardinal Santos. Grab Car seemed to take forever.
The driver looked a lot like my great grandfather in heaven. Same Moroccan profile. He was so kind to drive like we were in a drag race so he could alleviate my pain. I didn't know a guy his age could drive like that; it was awesome.
I was wheeled right in. As they were putting on my IV, I prayed: "Lord, if I'm going to die today please make my husband healthy so he can take care of the kids and get a younger and healthier wife before he reaches 60."
They performed an ECG & pregnancy test right away (I'm two months delayed and they had to make sure I wasn't preggo before all the x-rays). Negative.
They checked my chest and abs for broken bones. Negative. They checked my kidneys for possible stones. Negative again.
I know these are all reasons for rejoicing if not for the toe-twisting pain which got worse when I lay in bed or breathed. I dreaded I missed a taping in ABS for this afternoon of agony we're not even sure what the cause was after all the tests.
Their theory was it was UTI-induced pain. But even Tramadol, Norgesic, Buscopan and Pregabalin weren't enough to drive it away.
I begged my husband to take me straight to the acupuncturist. But the ER doctors said the pain management center was closed and you have to schedule in advance. Ugh.
My parents took my kids in for three days and my in-laws took us in for another three while we dealt with my unresolved pain. Any movement and shift in position made it worse. I was already nearing overdose of Paracetamol and I still couldn't sleep, eat, and walk properly.
Dr Jake (in Whiteplains) and Dr Philip Nino Tan-Gatue (in Maginhawa) are heaven-sent. I'm not a fan of the scent of burnt mugwort grass (it makes me cough actually) but I guess it helped. They managed to flush the bad cold air out of my system. It took me three acupuncture sessions to make the pain tolerable. I had to avoid cold food, drinks, places and showers for a week. I had to put socks on all the time because my feet were often ice cold.
I wasn't allowed to breastfeed Leon the entire time I was on meds and antibiotics. Despite the pain and muscle contractions, I pumped at least once each day. I have so little milk to begin with & I get so much less when I'm stressed but I stubbornly want to continue on with comfort feeding at naptime/ night for as long as he wants so I treaded on.
On the fourth day I weaned myself off Pregabalin and Norgesic. On the fifth, I stopped taking Paracetamol. 18hrs after my last dose of antibiotic, I allowed him to latch even if there wasn't any milk coming out just so he would be able to sleep & he would send a signal to my brain that I should start producing more milk the next day. Some say I should have waited three days before I started feeding him again, but I was in graver danger of losing my milk as I noticed I barely produced an ounce (both sides combined). Believe me, it's just harder to put him to sleep and make him eat table food when he doesn't get his dose of breastmilk.
It's more than a week now. I'm not bitter anymore with NAIA3 or with the pain's nasty timing. Our parents babied us this week and I'm more than grateful for their prayers and concern. I'm just praying for more projects this 2020 & that my husband will get a younger-looking, healthier wife (still me!)
