A sobering realization

I have been reading a book this week, and in it, I have made a startling discovery. 

I was really, really sick when Liam was born.

I knew it.  Sort of.  But not really.  See…I knew I had a fever, and I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed.  But I was so focused on not being sick, on enjoying the first days of being Liam’s mom, that I kind of let a lot of it slip over my head.  I lied to my mom.  I minimized what was going on, and kind of minimized it to myself.  But the book that I am reading has brought about a sobering reality.

In this book, which is a painful memoir of a year that no one should ever have to experience, the author’s daughter went into septic shock after pneumonia.  She was in a coma for weeks, and took a long time to heal.   But the mother’s accounts of the first days in the hospital sound so like the days after Liam’s birth.  She was lethargic, her fever was spiking to 103 and 104, and so many other little things.  And I realize how very blessed I was that our small town hospital figured out how to treat me so quickly. 

I was really, really sick.

But it could have been so much worse. 

I have been googling septicemia tonight…and fungal septicemia (which was what was on my discharge papers), and it’s scary stuff.  My sister has alluded to it before, but I really didn’t know.  I really didn’t want to know.  I skipped my annual exam with my doctor after Liam was born because I didn’t want to talk about it.  My child will be two in under three months, and I haven’t been to a doctor since I was released from care after his birth (my follow up exam).  I probably need to get on that.  I will have to find a new doctor, of course, and get my records transferred.  Because I probably should talk about it with a medical professional.