Why I missed most of Wynter's first year

I haven’t written anything for a while. This is due to a combination of having a new job and actually spending time working instead of blogging and that thinking back to this time in mine and Wynter’s life makes me really sad and a bit angry. I’m going to try and write it down just for my own benefit, but I might decide not to post this because it’s so depressing compared to my usual stuff.

As you all know, Wynter was hard work compared with Elise, she liked to be carried everywhere so when she was about 4 months old I started to have a twinge in my back. I assumed I’d pulled something lugging her round and carried on with my life. When it got worse I went the GP and was told to do pilates. So I carried on with life. By week 3 of backache I couldn’t stand up straight, the house stank of deep heat and Wynter was spending most of her time with my mother in law because I was in too much pain to function. I was referred to physios and prescribed painkillers, and then stronger painkillers and muscle relaxants and nerve blockers until I was permanently as high as a kite and wheelchair bound because I couldn’t stand up straight.

Certainly not able to cope with a tiny baby either physically or mentally.

Poor Ste had to do all the housework, all the childcare and work full time. I cannot stress how good he was, I take the piss out of him but honestly, I wouldn’t have gotten through this all without his support.

It continued this way until just before Christmas, when I woke up one Saturday morning and my legs wouldn’t work at all. I also had the happy side effect of not being able to feel that I needed to pee- fortunately all the kegels paid off and I managed not to piss the bed with my husband still in it.

Emergency trip to hospital and transfer to the Neuro hospital, long story short was that my labour had fucked my back and I needed emergency surgery before my 3 ruptured discs completely crushed the nerves that control my bladder, bowels, legs and sensation in the whole undercracker area.

Brilliant.

I spent a week in the Neuro Hospital following emergency spinal surgery, poor Elise and Wynter got farmed out to my mum and mother in law while Ste shuttled back and forth to the hospital, worked and attempted to keep the house running.

I get released from the hospital with Oramorph and instructions not to lift anything heavier than a brew. Wynter and Elise spend 6 weeks at my mums while I recover from surgery. By now I have started to get blinding headaches, I can’t keep food down and begin to lose weight, I assume it’s because of my back and take even more painkillers. The only thing that eases the headaches is to lay flat…why is this you ask? Apparently the first surgery left me with a hole in the covering of the spinal cord, the headache is because the fluid that usually cushions the brain is leaking out of said hole into my lower back.

So back to the neuro hospital I go. This time my surgery is more intrusive and I have to spend the following week flat, in bed, in hospital.

I had a funny reaction to the anaesthetic and woke up from surgery fighting- you haven’t lived until a surgeon bellows “get the Ketamine in her” about you.

Another fun point about staying in hospital- if you’re on any type of painkiller they dose you with laxatives at every opportunity. I can’t get out of bed….you see where I’m headed with this? By day 4 in bed I am extremely uncomfortable and have stopped eating. Day 5 I drop off to sleep and wake up looking like Spud in Trainspotting. I’m duly hosed off and my husband arrives to find his wife wearing a hospital issue granny nightie and a nappy. Fun fucking times.

The recovery from this surgery was actually easier than the first and I was able to have the kids back home fairly soon after.

I’ve recovered as much as I’m going to now. I feel cheated though, I missed so much of Wynter’s first year and I won’t ever get that time back. Elise was incredibly brave, but she shouldn’t have to have been. It makes me angry, even though there’s not really anyone to blame. Most of all I feel guilty because I couldn’t be a proper mum to them for so long.

God, I’m a barrel of laughs aren’t I?