Chapter 17 Gwen #2
Gwen didn’t remember the car ride. She closed her eyes for the entirety of it, and then they were there.
Someone in scrubs opened the passenger-side door and helped her into a wheelchair while Leigh spoke in the background, her voice sounding far away, underwater.
Then Gwen was inside, and more people were talking in concerned voices around her.
It felt eerily similar to the day she’d been sliced open. Panic descended upon her body.
“What’s happening?” she said, grabbing on to the sleeve of Leigh’s sweatshirt, pulling at it.
“You’re going to be okay,” Leigh said, taking Gwen’s sweaty hand in her own. “We’re here now.”
It was only later that Gwen was told the chain of events.
She didn’t remember anything, the fever having transported her out of reality and to some holding area, an antechamber to death.
They admitted her to the hospital shortly after she arrived and started IV antibiotics.
Both breasts were infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which Gwen hadn’t heard of, though she had heard of its nefarious nickname—MRSA.
It was one of the bacterial infections you didn’t want because it was so resistant to antibiotics.
But apparently, whatever they had her hooked up to would take care of it within a couple of days.
Both breasts had abscesses, one of which was the size of a kiwi and needed to be cut open and drained. They had hoped to just aspirate it, but it was too big and required surgery. She was, apparently, someone who always required surgery, someone to cut open against her will.
On day two in the hospital, she was starting to feel okay.
Her right breast was heavily bandaged, so she couldn’t see the wound left behind by the surgery.
The left breast was sore, but softened from the rock-hard state it had been in.
The full-body chills, the fever, those were gone.
She could think clearly again, which was when it occurred to her that she hadn’t fed June since this ordeal began.
“Hey, you,” Jeff said as she stirred in bed, awakening from a midday nap or overnight sleep, she wasn’t sure.
He was sitting in a chair next to her bed, June in his arms. Gwen had been too out of it to give Leigh the unlock code for her phone, so Leigh hadn’t been able to get ahold of Jeff.
But the hospital had had him listed as Gwen’s emergency contact and called him.
He’d left court to be with her and tend to June.
“Has June eaten?” Gwen asked.
It was a stupid question. Of course they wouldn’t have let June starve until Gwen recovered.
“We gave her some food,” Jeff said.
What was he talking about? And who was “we”?
“Food? She’s not old enough for food,” Gwen said with a laugh that came out tinny and made her sound insane.
“Nutrition,” Jeff said. He cleared his throat. “We gave her nutrition.”
He was looking down at June, not meeting Gwen’s eyes. It felt so much like that day he’d told her she no longer had a womb.
“What did you give her?” she asked him.
Though, in her heart, she knew.
He sighed, heavily.
“Some formula,” he said. “I know that’s not what you would have wanted, but she needed to eat.”
The tears came suddenly and with a surprising intensity. She understood, logically, why this had to happen. Her baby was hungry. Her baby needed to eat. She was unable to feed her. But she was still upset, betrayed by her husband and these doctors who were making decisions without her . . . again.
“I know that’s upsetting for you,” Jeff said.
She resented the “for you.” It was like he was drawing attention to the fact that it wasn’t upsetting for him, that it wouldn’t be upsetting for any rational person.
He’d been pro-formula since day one, when breastfeeding had proved to be an unrelenting challenge.
He’d never truly valued the commitment she had to it, despite all the information she shared with him about why breast was truly best. He just didn’t get it.
He wasn’t saddled with the same pressures she was as a mother.
He didn’t feel the same sense of duty to their child. Must be nice, Gwen thought.
“Can I hold her?” she asked.
He placed June on her chest, and Gwen sobbed, silently apologizing to her daughter for failing her, yet again.
What kind of formula was it? Did the hospital supply it?
Did Jeff get it? In either case, it was probably standard and cheap, definitely not organic or tailored for sensitive tummies like June’s.
“So she took a bottle?” Gwen asked.
It was a stupid question. How else would June have consumed formula? But she needed confirmation of this calamity.
“She did,” Jeff said. “Like a champ!”
His celebration of this fact made her feel even more alone.
June taking a bottle hurt her feelings more than the actual contents of the bottle.
She had wanted to believe that June would reject a bottle, would turn her tiny nose up at anything that was not her mother’s body.
But no. It turned out June was completely content with this alternative to her mother.
She didn’t really need her mother, after all.
Gwen kept sobbing, and Jeff put his hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, honey,” he said.
He sounded less like he was heartbroken on her behalf, and more like he was impatient with her being heartbroken.
“You’re coming off a pretty serious medical event,” he said in his lawyerly tone. “You’re going to feel better about everything once your body is recovered.”
He’d said something similar after June’s birth, after the hysterectomy, and he was wrong; she didn’t feel better. And now this, compounding it all.
“When can I feed her?” she asked.
“I don’t know, hon,” he said. “We can ask the doctor.”
She had a feeling he did know, though; he just didn’t want to be the messenger.
The doctor explained to her that breastfeeding with her right boob was not possible until the incision healed. She would be able to breastfeed from the left boob.
“What about the medications I’m on?” she asked him.
“Perfectly safe while you’re breastfeeding,” he assured her.
She didn’t trust him, though. She would never again trust doctors.
“What’s it called?”
“The IV antibiotic?”
She nodded.
“Vancomycin,” he said. “I’ll be sending you home with ten days of Bactrim. That’s also safe while breastfeeding.”
She made a mental note to do her own Google research.
“Okay, so that’s promising,” Jeff said when the doctor left.
“Can I have my phone?” she asked.
Vancomycin, Bactrim, vancomycin, Bactrim. She repeated the names to herself so she wouldn’t forget.
He handed the phone to her, and she began her research.
At first glance, both medications appeared safe-ish for breastfeeding, but then she saw that Bactrim was discouraged for babies under two months because it can raise bilirubin levels.
She didn’t know what bilirubin levels were, which led to another Google search.
They were related to the liver. June was older than two months, but Gwen couldn’t risk messing with her liver.
“Maybe you can feed her from the left breast, and we can just use formula as a little boost,” Jeff said.
He sounded entirely too chipper.
“I don’t know if I feel good about feeding her while I’m on these meds,” she said.
“Okay, then formula it is. Easy enough.”
Sometimes she felt like he didn’t understand her at all.
When she’d been really struggling with breastfeeding, he’d brought a Costco pack of formula home “just in case.” She’d told him to throw it away, but he hadn’t.
He’d just put it in the garage. She’d seen it on their “home goods” shelf, next to the batteries and light bulbs.
He was just waiting for her to officially fail so he could swoop in, the hero.
“I think I should just pump and dump for now, then resume breastfeeding when I’m done with the antibiotics,” she said.
“Pump and dump?”
“Pump my milk . . . with a breast pump,” she said. Did he not even know what that was? Was it her fault for shielding him from so much of her mental load, or his fault for not making more inquiries? “And then dump it because it may not be safe.”
He looked confused.
“So that my body keeps making milk,” she explained.
“Oh,” he said, still looking confused. “Okay. Yeah. Whatever you think is best, hon.”
“Can you bring my pump from home?” she asked.
She rubbed her left breast, felt its increasing fullness.
“Sure. Where would that be?”
She thought of him rummaging in the cabinet for the Tylenol, clueless.
“It’s in the nursery closet, next to the box of diapers,” she said.
“Okay, yeah, sure.”
He stood, glanced at his phone. “Oh, Leigh just texted. She’ll be back with her daughter to visit soon.”
This bothered Gwen—that they’d exchanged numbers, that Leigh wasn’t wholly Gwen’s anymore. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to see Leigh, with her perfectly healthy tits and her nonpoison milk and her nipple-loving baby.
Jeff must have perceived her hesitation, because he said, “I can tell her not to come if you’re not up for it.”
“No, it’s okay.” Maybe Leigh’s company would be nice. Leigh would get it, better than Jeff ever would. Leigh would make her feel sane.
Jeff glanced again at his phone, no doubt checking messages from his firm. In their line of work, nobody cared about medical emergencies.
“Work piling up?” she asked.
He jammed his phone into his pocket and said, “Work is not important right now.”
It was a kind lie.
“All right, I’ll get the pump and some food and then come back?” he said. “Do you want me to leave June with you?”
She nodded. Of course she wanted him to leave June with her. The fact that this medical emergency had presented the possibility of June being away from her was a trauma in itself.
“Okay, I’ll be back with burritos from Lupe’s. Sound good?”
Nothing sounded good, but she nodded.
“Okay, love you,” he said with a hurried kiss on her cheek.