This experience has taught me
so much, and there will be more blogs as a result of it. But for now, here’s
what happened….
Tuesday
May 2nd 2017
0630
The
vomiting started on Sunday night. Just small amounts at first, gradually
increasing in volume and force. I told myself it wasn’t happening again, he’s
just a spilly baby, nothing to worry about.
I have just given Eric his morning
feed and am sitting in bed burping him. The vomit is huge and powerful. It
covers my neck and chest and spreads through my hair. Some hits the wall behind
our bed.
I calmly take Eric next door
and place him on the change table. Then I run to the lounge and scream for
Jeff.
“He
has it Jeff, he has it too, I can’t go through this again. I..”
I break off at this point and
run to the bathroom to do some vomiting of my own.
0715
Jeff
is on the phone to our midwife..
“Kate
thinks he might have pyloric stenosis, but I mean he can’t can he? The chances
are so… mmmhmm… ok, yeah, sure, ok, thank you, bye”
He turns to me, “she thinks we should go to ED.”
1000
The
doctor smiles down at our son.
“He’s
not dehydrated and his blood tests are all perfect, it could just be that he’s
a refluxy baby. We will do the abdominal ultrasound given the history with his
brother but he might be alright.”
As much as I want to accept
this glimmer of hope, I can’t quite bring myself to do it.
1215 Jeff
walks in to the room holding Eric, who has just had his abdominal ultrasound.
“It’s
confirmed, you were right, definitely pyloric stenosis.”
I burst into tears. Sometimes
I hate being right.
1500
Eric
is being strapped into his little ambulance bed. He is crying because he has just
had his nasogastric tube reinserted after he pulled the first one out.
“Are
you all right?” the ambulance driver asks me. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“My
son is” I reply, “it’s the
same thing.”
1630
Gazing
unseeingly out the ambulance window, this is when the bad thoughts start.
I am wondering when I will get
to see Conrad again, how long we will have to be away. If there are
complications after the surgery it could be a long time.
I
would rather Eric die than have complications, I
think, I could get back to Conrad sooner, and I would get some sleep again.
I hate myself as soon as I
think it.
And then I think maybe it
would be better if the ambulance crashed on the way to Starship and we are all
killed. I deserve to die for thinking such a horrible thing.
And dead people get to sleep.
2230
I
am lying in bed at Ronald McDonald House, but I am not sleeping. I am thinking
that I am a terrible mother. That I don’t deserve my loving husband or
beautiful sons. That perhaps they would all be better off without me.
Wednesday
3rd May
0830 “Do you want to give your Eric one last
cuddle before he goes to theatre” the nurse asks.
“No.” I
reply. “He’s fine.”
The nurse looks a little
shocked
“We’ve
been through all this before with our first” Jeff says in an
attempt to explain my behaviour.
“I
see.” Says the theatre nurse.
She doesn’t.
0945 Jeff
and I are sitting in the Auckland domain, watching a high school PE class from
the local all-boys school.
I know that one day Eric and
Conrad will be that age. I wonder what they will be like. I wonder if I’ll love
them better by then, if I’ll be good enough to deserve them.
2215
I
am thinking about Robert Lee Yates, the American serial killer who murdered
almost twenty woman and had a wife at home who never suspected a thing.
Humans have an immense
capacity for hiding things. I am doing it right now. I’m sure Eric’s nurse, who
I have been making appropriate small talk with since she came on, has no idea
that I’ve been thinking about ways to seriously hurt myself but make it look
like an accident. That way I could be in hospital for several weeks and get a
break from my children without feeling guilty about it.
I am also thinking of a
classic Pink song.
Doctor
doctor won’t you please prescribe me something? A day in the life of someone
else.
Don’t
let me get me.
Thursday
4th - Saturday 6th May
These are good days, and the
thoughts disappear for a while. Eric recovers amazingly well after his surgery
and we are allowed to go home a day early. We are reunited with Conrad and get
to sleep in our own bed.
Except I don’t sleep much,
because Eric is catching up from being nil by mouth and feeding every one – two
hours. The relief of being home and Eric being ok is keeping me going, but that
can only last so long…
Sunday
May 7th
0300
I
am dreaming I am walking up to the Tutukaka Lighthouse. The sun is shining,
it’s a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. I stand admiring the view for a
while, then I jump off the cliff.
I land on the rocks at the
bottom. It doesn’t hurt. I turn my head and there is an open coffin next to me.
The clown from Stephen King’s It (the
book I am currently trying to get through before the movie comes out in
September) is standing next to it, holding a bunch of helium balloons in one
hand, pointing to the coffin with the other. I stand up and walk towards it.
Inside are pillows and a duvet.
Hop in
Kate, says the clown, you
can sleep as long as you want…
Eric’s hungry cries wake me
up.
Jeff stirs too, so I tell him
about my dream.
“Kate,
that’s a horrible thing to dream!” he says, sounding genuinely
concerned.
“But it wasn’t horrible Jeff, it was lovely, I finally got to sleep.”
0700
“Kate, that dream you had last
night, you’re not actually thinking about doing that are you?”
I can’t be alone with these
thoughts any longer, so I tell Jeff everything. I tell him the horrible
thoughts I had about Eric in the ambulance, that I’ve been thinking of hurting
myself just to get a break, that I sometimes think him and the boys would be better
off if I wasn’t here.
“That’s
ridiculous Kate! You know that’s not true.”
“To be honest Jeff I’m so exhausted I don’t know what’s true anymore.”
“But
hurting yourself, or worse… Kate surely you know that’s a terrible idea!?”
“It
doesn’t seem so terrible to me right now.”
Jeff looks terrified.
I am too.
0830
Our
midwife has arrived to complete Eric’s 6 week check and discharge us from her
care, little does she know what she is about to walk into. My husband is clearly
extremely concerned, and he tells her everything. He uses the word suicidal. I
close my eyes.
Telling a health professional
you or someone you know is suicidal has consequences. They are duty bound to
document it and follow it through. I know this will forever be a black mark
against my name. That whenever anyone looks up my health records they will see
that in May 2017 Kathleen Burson was suffering suicidal ideation.
Our midwife rings the
community mental health crisis team and arranges for me to be assessed. I have
never been so embarrassed and ashamed, but I am also extremely relieved. I know
I need help.
Monday
May 8th
The man who works for the
crisis team is lovely. He has a firm handshake and good eye contact. He is
unhurried, as if he has all the time in the world for us, and his voice is deep
and calm and slow. I immediately trust him and feel like I can tell him
everything. So I do.
I tell him that over the last
twenty months I have had two major surgeries and watched both my sons go
through surgeries of their own at Starship. I tell him about my dad dying. I
tell him about Conrad’s visits in and out of hospital, and the time he
collapsed in the middle of the lounge and we thought he might have a brain
tumour. I tell him that the longest amount of consecutive sleep I have had in
the last six weeks is three hours. I tell him that with being heavily pregnant
over the middle of summer and then having a new-born, I can’t remember the last
time I had a quality night’s sleep. I tell him that I feel as though we have
been dealt so many shitty hands that I am always a little on edge, waiting for
the next bad thing to happen.
He asks me the usual safety
questions, am I hearing voices commanding me to do things? Am I experiencing
visual hallucinations? Do I struggle to feel happy about anything?
I answer no to all of these. I
tell him that I don’t think I’m depressed, and that I don’t really want to hurt
myself, I’m just so incredibly tired.
His diagnosis is the same as
mine. He doesn’t think I need medication or treatment. Rather I have had “for
want of a better word, a bit of a meltdown” due to “significant situational
stress” and sleep deprivation.
We discuss coping strategies,
the importance of asking for and accepting help, and by the end of it all I
feel so much better.
I don’t know if writing about
something so personal and putting it on the internet is a good idea. I have a
whole folder of things I have written that I will probably never show anyone
else. Above anything else the main reason I write is for myself. There’s an old
song lyric that goes if I get it all down
on paper it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to. For
me writing is like that.
Maybe this blog should have
stayed hidden away in that folder and never seen the light of day. But I don’t
think so. I think someone needs to read it. Someone needs to know that this
stuff, these meltdowns, these ‘coffin and clown’ moments, they can happen to
anyone. It is nothing to be ashamed of, no one will think any less of you, and
there is help out there for you.
I am so glad my husband asked
me again about that dream come the morning, because it forced me to talk about
how I was feeling. I am so glad my midwife had two people go into labour on
Saturday so she had to come on Sunday morning instead, because it forced us to
get help. I don’t know what would have happened if everything had played out
differently. I’m glad I will never know.
Which brings me to my next
point. If there is someone in your life who you are concerned about, ask them
about it. If you’re not satisfied with their answer, ask them again.
Life is beautiful but it can
also be incredibly hard.
Look out for each other dear
readers.
God bless xx
Where
to get help
Lifeline – 0800 543 354
Suicide Crisis Helpline (open
24/7) – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Depression Helpline (open
24/7) – 0800 111 757
Fantastic Kate :) There are hundreds in your soes too afraid to come outside
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