Monday 15 May 2017

HG Awareness day

I am stuck in a prison. 

It is a prison with several rooms, a flat screen TV, private showering facilities and high speed internet. But it is a prison no less. 

I am 30 weeks pregnant and suffering from hyperemesis. Not diagnosed until week 13, I suffered from extreme nausea from week 7. 

I have avoided admittance to hospital as I have largely been able to keep fluids down. But I have periods of being sick ten plus times a day, everyday. 

What I have not avoided is the relentless, debilitating, soul destroying nausea. The type is that is there when you go to bed and there when you wake up and doesn't once leave your side for a moment in between. 

The lack of support I have received for this illness is truly shocking. From healthcare professionals to family members I have been dismissed, ignored and left to fight largely on my own. 

The tiredness that comes along with both being sick and feeling sick all day as well as that associated with growing a human has made work almost impossible. 

Work is a place I hate but am forced to stay in because I am pregnant and unable to find a new job. It is the worst job I have ever had and spend my lunchtime crying in the toilets or wondering the streets aimlessly in a bid to escape the toxic environment. Yet, even being at work is more appealing than being off sick with hyperemesis. Still, as this isn't possible, at home I sit. 

So, back to the prison. As everyone I know has a job, people are not available to keep me company, so instead I sit at home. All day, everyday, just me, the couch and my frequent trips to the toilet to be sick. 

The loneliness and isolation I experience is utterly horrific. I am now 30 weeks and have spent probably 22 of those at home, on my own. 

I have an unpleasant mental health condition which only exacerbates how completely dejected I feel. It is very hard for me to see a time I wont be ill, stuck on my own wishing I was dead. 

Yes, shocking and perhaps irresponsible as that sounds considering I am pregnant, I have on occasion wished I was dead. My current outlook is so bleak it is hard to imagine ever feeling well or happy again. 

Yet I pretend I do or I can. The truth is that I am not coping at all. I have to suffer the terror of an amniotic leak and the indignity of wetting myself due to how violently I am often sick. 

I have to weigh up unbearable constipation as a side effect of the medicine I am taking, compared to being sick every, single day. 

I have to endure people telling me 'it will be worth it in the end' or 'not long to go now' as though these empty platitudes cure the nausea or the loneliness. 

I have to grit my teeth through countless suggestions of 'eating ginger' or 'eating little and often' or 'making sure I drink enough water'. As if I have somehow made it to the third trimester without attempting the basic remedies of run of the mil morning sickness.

I am tired. Tired of being pregnant, tired of feeling ill and frankly, at times, tired of life. Due to hyperemesis, I will never be pregnant again and I have been robbed of the opportunity to enjoy this one time life experience. 

My life consists of desperately wanting to get to Wednesday, when I am a week further along and feeling desperately crushed on a Thursday as I am so far away from the next weeks milestone. I have been pretty much depressed since December and come July will have wished 9 months of my life away. 

This is the horror of hyperemesis and what it has done to me. Not quite sick enough to be admitted to hospital, yet too sick to lead any sort of normal life. 

Oh well, only another 10 weeks to go eh?