Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning at 6:00am I had to ask S to double check me in the morning. Like what?! 0.69 ANC?! I hit it?! Overnight!? Yassss! I can go home to my babies! F*cking finally!!! I can breathe these children into me. OMG, I can’t believe it. I’m going to pass out of excitement!

And what do I do? I make a poor life choice and get a celebratory coffee. Hello Poop. I haven’t seen you in a while…let’s reintroduce ourselves. I am literally unable to make it to the toilet (thank you adult diapers) – this is good, self esteem fully intact. My celebratory coffee was however delicious. After that Dr. St and NP Ja came in…this woman grates on me; she feels so anti me going home. I hated her positioning with my care when I had Dr. S and even more so now with Dr. St. I got out of the bathroom and they were both ready to shoot questions at me. How do I feel? I feel like I want to go home. How are your stools? I just shat myself…I had coffee. My ANC is above .50 which is what Dr. P required. “Well your diarrhea is going to be an issue for release.” is what NP Ja starts with. I snap back “Dr. P said to me, sugar doesn’t matter and poop doesn’t matter – neither of them are a condition to prevent release.” She hits me with “Well that’s not what he told me.” And of course the a*shole in me at this point is on fire. “Let’s have a family meeting them and get this all straighten out.” She starts typing and I have my stank face on with my curled lip and flared nostril – it’s oh so VERY attractive.

I learned a day earlier through patient advocacy that “family meeting” was a tool to use to get the rounding doctor, NP and your own doctor into a meeting to discuss care collectively, or air out grievances. One thing my current company has taught me and that is to use every tool in your arsenal. They leave and I’m left to go about my day…I start packing throwing away the hoarded stuff for the last 25 days. You know, 18 salt packets, 7 forks, 3 butters and 10 straws. We have a rolling suitcase and a small bag along with the mattress and bedsheet; S has her carryon luggage and backpack. So we are pretty coordinated at this point on what we have left to bring down to the car. I exchanged numbers with four of my favorite nurses that I can actually see being friends with. I am really excited to be home with the kids, taking a shower in my own bathroom, and not being woken up by vitals at 12:00am, 6:00am and 8:00am – last nights PCA drove me nuts she came in at 10. Like…um, it’s midnight can we relax please?

It wasn’t Ja today, it was Je…I tried to butter her up – really glad it wasn’t the grumpy face Ja today. Ugh. But now I’m in hot water because my “caregiver” is currently on a trip, aka J isn’t here. So I have M pretend to be my sister-in-law and be my “caregiver” – personally I think this is all such bullsh*t. Like if I didn’t have family what the f*ck were you going to do. Not release me? Keep me here for insurance to pay forever? Like I have to have someone “care for me” but what if I didn’t have someone to “care for me” ….you’re just sh*t out of luck? Whatever, I’ll play the stupid game just to get the f*ck out of this place and again at least it’s not Ja grumpy a*s today. I have about another two hours of just sitting here waiting to go home. Mindless swiping of IG and maybe another nap.