Patient’s perspective

From being so happy from the birth of my child to being fearful of losing my life and being hospitalised, this is my story: imagine you are feeling on top of the world with all the joy and happiness because you just had your first child. However, as soon as you are home, you start having pain to where you can not even sleep in your own bed. Two days later, your living room becomes your bedroom and it’s hard for you to breathe. Five days later, you would not even be able to walk to the bathroom or hold a breath.

Seven days after I delivered my child, I sat on the bathroom floor for over an hour unable to attend to my newborn child who was in the living room by himself. I knew I had to go to the hospital and eventually I was able to. Shortly after getting there, I could hardly move and when I had to get a CT scan, it took two people to move me every time. Following the CT scan, I learned that I had a blood clot in my lung along with some fluid. But that was not it, I had also developed abscesses in my stomach. By the time I got into a room around midnight, I was being told I had to move to the intensive care unit (ICU) because I was in critical condition at that point.

I arrived at the ICU where I stayed for over a week, not able to move and not able to see my child because of the pandemic. I never had any appetite, but I knew I had to fight to keep living. I forced myself to drink water, and eventually, I was able to eat some fruit about a week in.

By the second week, I had drains coming out of me while still needing oxygen. Doctors were able to remove the fluid from my lung and placed the drains for the first abbesses. My fever had gone away, and I felt like I was getting close to going home in a few days. But, then like magic they came back. Since I had started having fever again, I ended up getting another CT scan, which showed that there were more abscesses within my body, but this time, there was a dangerous area that if the doctors made a mistake, I could have a lot of bleeding and possibly die. After the second set of drains were put in, it took the doctors what felt like forever to make a final plan, but while they are planning, I was losing hope, finding myself filled with anger and being depressed. All I wanted to do during this time was to see my child and because I could not, it broke me down even more. Every day I had over 20 people come in my room and it felt like I heard something different each time. Eventually, all the drains came out but even then, the doctors wanted to keep me in the hospital for a few more days to be monitored. Finally, almost 3 weeks after being admitted, I was discharged home, but I still had to do intravenous therapy at home for another month to make sure the infections were cleared.

Because of my stay at the hospital, I went into a deep depression to where I did nothing but cry for hours every day for 2 weeks after I got home. It really messed with me mentally. I feel like all the things that happened to me in that one stay, would not happen to someone in their lifetime. I did improve and I finished my treatment. I got another scan, and it showed the abscess was gone but I still have to follow-up with doctors often. To this day, I still wonder why this happened to me and I am worried that this will happen again if I have another child.

Learning points

• Pelvic abscesses after endometritis most commonly occur in the broad ligament, posterior cul-de-sac and anterior to the uterine wall.

• Due to its resistance to common antimicrobial drugs, it is important to bear mycoplasma in mind in the lack of clinical improvement, as it can prevent the potential spread and abscess formation in other organs.