Hard times

It took us months to get pregnant. Presley wanted a biological child, and he needed surgery to make that happen. My own family was going through one of the hardest thing a parent can go through. A very sick child. My step daughter whom I helped raise since the early age of three was diagnosed with Crohns disease. An autoimmune disorder that affects the whole GI tract, her mouth would be covered in sores, she would have fierce stomach pains, the bathroom was her most visited room. We spent a great deal of time at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield Ma., the doctors decided to perform a colectomy on her. Which meant they were removing her large colon. She would have to have an ostomy, a man made passage to create another passage for stool. I realize this is pretty harsh stuff to read, imagine now if you were an eighteen year old girl. I spent the month at Baystate with her, I was concerned with her health but also concerned with her mental state. This was a major event in her life and she was at risk for depression.
   It was during that hospital stay that I found out I was pregnant. I called the guys to share the news. Everyone was happy of course but the focus was on our child, we knew that the time would come where she was stable and we could celebrate.
  I was so proud of her. She went through the three hour surgery without incident. We paced and paced. The surgeon came out and said things went well and the ostomy may be temorary. I was concerned with how she would respond to it. She would have to take care of it, where do we start? As a nurse I worked maternity, I had no idea (except for a few lectures) how to take care of an ostomy. Once she was out of recovery we went back to her hospital room, now as familiar to me as my own home, she woke up and looked under her gown. Her response was suttle. A bit of a tear formed in the corner of her eye, she seemed to notice that all eyes were on her reaction and she smiled. She knew that she had been sick for some time and this may be the start to some freedom. I watched the ostomy nurse give us instructions thinking I would be the one taking care of it for her. She insisted on doing it, and she did.
My pregnancy was in the early stages, it was a light during a dark time.