My HG story: Rebecca Moore

A woman named Dr Sandra Lowe saved my life.

I was pregnant with my third child.  Just as in my previous pregnancies, I was vomiting every hour or so and nauseous 24/7.  I was at my wit’s end but hey at least I had a ‘healthy pregnancy’. Unfortunately, I did not feel at all healthy.  I was 9 weeks pregnant and I couldn’t work, couldn’t look after my other two children and was contemplating ending the pregnancy.  The day before I had been told by a kindly registrar, with whom I worked mind you, that I ‘just had to get through it’. If only she could read my mind at that moment.  I considered vomiting all over her just to make a point. Unfortunately, I had the barest of bile left to bring up after weeks and weeks of non-stop vomiting and retching.  She dutifully wrote me another script for the medications that were seemingly making no bloody difference at all. Medications that made me agitated and anxious. The agitation and the anxiety, however, were an occasional relief from the dark depression that overcame me each time I lay my exhausted head against the pillow. The blessed brief relief that followed a proper vomit. I kept taking those medications despite the hideous side-effects. Part of me believed that it would be even worse without them. I had lost kilos and kilos of weight and I had permanent petechiae (red dots) around my eyes from the ongoing and violent retching. But hey, at least I had a ‘healthy pregnancy’.  If I had the energy I would have belted the next person who said this to me. If this was healthy then fucking kill me now.  

I was a very desperate woman by this stage.  I knew from my previous pregnancies that there was no relief in sight.  I contemplated having a termination on a daily basis. At this point, the blessed promise of relief was stronger than the Catholic fear of going to hell.

The day after my kind but clueless colleague wrote me a repeat script for maxalon and stemetil I had reached my breaking point.  I told my husband that I wasn’t right and that I needed to go to the ED. I was feeling extremely agitated, almost to the point of suicidality. We headed to the local emergency department where I was efficiently and cursorily triaged and then asked to wait until someone could see me. I was dishevelled and desperate and as I clutched my vomit bag silent tears rolled down my cheeks while my poor husband held me close.  The only gesture he could offer me in the loneliest of conditions.  

At that moment a miracle occurred.  Well in retrospect it was the crisis needed to finally get some appropriate treatment.  My entire body seized up like a cramp. My jaw thrust closed and I couldn’t move. I lurched forward and collapsed.  The only sound I could make was a rigid groan of pain and fear. In the next moments, I was surrounded by health professionals who were suddenly in resuscitation mode.  I was awake and aware and literally could not move a voluntary muscle in my body. A trolley had appeared from nowhere and I was lifted onto it and at that moment I caught a glimpse of my husband at the end of the trolley.  All I could see in his eyes was cold-blooded fear.  

I had an intravenous cannula hastily inserted and next minute the IV Cogentin was doing its stuff.  I had just suffered an acute dystonic reaction. Look it up – it’s quite a spectacular sensitivity response to the medications that had been prescribed for me.  As scary and dramatic as it was it became my window into finally receiving some appropriate management of the hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) from which I had suffered through all my pregnancies.  

I was admitted to the very hospital where I worked.  I was placed on ongoing IV therapy. I was seen by my lifesaver the very next day.  Dear Dr Lowe. She brought the team in to see me. They stood around the base of my bed.  She held her very expensive looking handbag while she asked me some questions. She asked me to poke out my tongue.  She told the team that I needed some bloods done and that I was to remain in hospital. That afternoon evidently the blood results were reported because she was back to tell me that I had hyperthyroidism related to pregnancy and that this was potentially exacerbating the HG.  She was going to put me on some new medications. They would not cure the HG but they would sort my thyroid out and hopefully, I would finally feel a bit better. Finally, I allowed myself a little sliver of hope that things may improve.  

I stayed in hospital for several days and on each of those days, Dr Lowe came to see me with her handbag over one arm and her team following closely behind.  As a staff member Dr Lowe had sometimes seemed a little scary. Her wealth of knowledge and business-like manner could be a little intimidating to a junior staff member like myself.  However, as a doctor she became the angel of my recovery. She was sympathetic and kind. She was interested in helping me get better. She didn’t dismiss my extreme distress. There was no paying of lip-service to my suffering.  She meant business and she was going to help me. She showed me more compassion during that hospital admission than any doctor, midwife, nurse, friend or family member. She demonstrated more compassion than I had ever allowed myself.  Up until that point, my internal dialogue was brutal in its impatience for me to ‘just get over it’.

I was discharged several days later.  Dr Lowe advocated for me to be given the medication which was not yet on the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme for HG.  She wasn’t dismissive. She didn’t sugar-coat it. I wasn’t cured but the HG became easier to manage. The subsequent constipation from the ondansetron was a welcome side-effect.  Anything was worth it to feel better and to have a brief respite from the endless nausea. I now occasionally went hours without vomiting. I slept again. Most importantly for my family, I was able to return to work and to care for my children.  

Throughout three pregnancies where I suffered HG of the most debilitating kind (is there any other?) Dr Lowe was the first person that I felt really took me seriously.  Reactions from family, friends and colleagues had mostly always been kind. There was one Obstetrician who told me ‘it was all in my head’ but apart from him, people with the best intentions suggested ginger, soda water, crackers and acupressure.  I tried them all and when they turned out to be completely useless I just wanted to slap those people in the head. If only I had the energy to follow through with that slap.  

HG robbed me of any enjoyment of being pregnant.  It robbed me of taking in and enjoying the miracle of my body being able to grow a baby.  

With Dr Lowe’s expertise and care I somehow made it to the joyous birth of my third child.  His birth was every bit as magical as the first two. But because of the pragmatism and compassion of a special doctor, I arrived into that birth space in a much better place.