i gave birth… then my tummy blew up!
32-year-old Lauren Hicken, from Redditch, had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. So why was her bump still growing..?
I was prescribed hardcore painkillers, such as tramadol
Lying on the sofa, my pregnant belly rose like a mountain before me.
‘Any day now,’ I grinned to my mum Jeanette, 56, as we drank tea in front of the telly. I wasn’t wrong.
Two days later, on 10 October 2015, I was cradling my daughter Niyah.
I’d needed an emergency Caesarean after I wasn’t dilating properly.
But all the drama was forgotten with that first cuddle. ‘Hello, little one,’ I cooed. Back home, two days on,
I felt tender and sore.
I knew that was normal after a Caesarean, knew I’d have to take things easy for a while.
But, as the weeks passed, the pain still roared.
My tummy seemed to be swelling, too – it grew hard and round like a football.
‘It should be getting smaller, not bigger,’ I said to the nurse at my six-week postnatal check.
By now, the pain was so bad, I’d wince whenever I cuddled Niyah.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he assured me.
My doctor agreed, and prescribed strong painkillers. I hoped things would soon settle down.
But my stomach kept getting bigger – and bigger.
What the heck is going on?
I thought, concerned.
I definitely wasn’t pregnant again and, if anything, I’d been eating less since having Niyah. So why was my belly still getting fatter? ‘Something’s wrong, I know it,’ I told Mum.
So, in January 2016, I went back to the doctor – and, a few weeks later, was sent for an ultrasound scan. ‘I hope they find out what’s wrong with Mummy’s tummy,’
I told Niyah. Though I was still in agony, it hadn’t stopped me from bonding with her. So smiley and gorgeous, she took my mind off the pain. But, deep down, I was worried, knew my own body, and could tell something wasn’t right. The scans were inconclusive. ‘It just looks like a build-up of fluid,’ my doctor said.
I was referred for a more detailed CT scan and, three weeks later, I got the results.
‘You have an incisional hernia,’ my doctor said.
He explained it was something that could occur when an incision was made in the abdominal wall and sometimes happened following a Caesarean.
‘I knew it!’ I said.
I was referred to a specialist consultant. But I was miserable waiting for my appointment. The pain in my stomach was excruciating and constant.
Every two weeks, I’d be back at the doctor’s, being prescribed hardcore painkillers, such as tramadol.
Mum helped me with Niyah when the pain became too much.
Finally, that September I saw a consultant.
‘The hernia is 38cm long,’ he told me.
I was stunned. How on earth was it not spotted at the first scan?
Again, I was told to wait for an appointment from another department – for an operation to remove it,
I assumed.
Sure enough, in the December
I got a letter telling me I had an appointment to see a bariatric consultant in
January 2017.
Confused, I
Googled ‘ bariatric’, and realised they were doctors who dealt with obesity.
Eh? I thought, shocked. OK, I was overweight, wore a dress size-22.
But what did that have to do with my hernia?
‘I guess you’ll find out in January,’ Mum said.
By now, Niyah had just turned 1.
I’d been bearing the pain of this hernia for just over a year.
All I cared about right now was getting rid of it and getting my life back.
I’d always been a bubbly girl, with loads of mates.
Now I felt like an old woman. Three nights later, with Niyah in bed, I decided to cook myself a pizza.
I’d just popped it in the oven when I was suddenly bent
double d with agonising pain.
Grabbing the kitchen counter, I let out a cry.
I’d never experienced agony like it, could barely walk.
Staggering, I grabbed my phone from the table and dialled Mum.
‘Come quick!’ I screamed. Then I felt my stomach churn horribly. I just managed to make it to the loo before I vomited violently.
I was lying on the bathroom floor when Mum rushed in. Thankfully, an ambulance was just behind her.
‘Stay with Niyah,’ I croaked in pain to Mum as the paramedics stretchered me to an ambulance.
I was taken to hospital, then down to theatre.
The last thing I remember is the sheer terror I felt. Would I ever wake up again? When I came round, I was in Intensive Care. I could feel a plastic tube in my mouth. I’d been put on a ventilator. Then a surgeon came and told me that the hernia had strangulated my bowel, cutting off my blood supply.
He’d had to push the hernia back in and it was now being held in place with mesh and over 600 staples.
I’d also had 90cm of my small intestine removed because it had been affected by gangrene.
My insides had been rotting!
‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ the surgeon told me.
I was kept in for three days.
Once home, Mum rallied round, but
I felt really awful, lay exhausted on the sofa.
The next day, a nurse arrived
t to dress m my wound. It leaked so much fluid, it soaked through two towels.
‘I feel so weak,’ I told her. ‘You should go to A&E,’ she said to me firmly.
Mum took me to hospital where doctors suspected I had sepsis – a complication of an infection that can lead to organ failure, even death.
Before I knew it, I was back in theatre, this time to remove infected tissue.
Afterwards, when I saw my butchered stomach, I gasped. I’d been left with a monstrous hole that stretched right across my abdomen.
Every 48 hours, I’d be taken to have the wound packed and cleaned. And I had countless blood transfusions and operations. Throughout all the pain, the worst thing was missing Niyah terribly. Though Mum would bring her to visit, or Facetime me so I could wish her goodnight, it wasn’t the same. ‘She took her first steps today,’ Mum told me in February 2017. I’d missed them. Heartbreaking! Finally, in April 2017, I was allowed home. I still hadn’t healed properly but I was just relieved to be back with my girl. Now, almost a year on, the wound is a lot better. But there’s still a small hole above my m pubic bone.
I complained to the NHS, asking a why I hadn’t had an operation o when the hernia was w first found.
But it was found that it’d t treated me appropriately. I disagree. I think a simple o operation could have saved me so much pain.
But, according to the legal paperwork, the reason I was referred to the bariatric team was because I was deemed too fat to have surgery, due to my BMI being too high.
It turns out I should have slimmed down from my size-22 to about a size-16.
I was furious. No-one had ever told me that. If they had, maybe I could have done something about it.
But would that have changed what happened to me? I doubt it.
Now I’m still on morphine each day and doctors say my body is rejecting the mesh. Who knows what will happen next?
I try not to think about that too much and just focus on Niyah, who’s now 2.
She’s so lucky that she didn’t lose her mummy.
I just hope that, one day, I’ll be back on my feet, and enjoying life again.
And the beastly hole in my tummy will all be just a horrid memory.