When Life Throws You a Gigantic Curveball

My Journey with Hyperemesis Gravidarum

My doctor said he has been in practice for more than 35 years and this has been the worst case of Hyperemesis Gravidarum he has ever had to deal with. He said I was brave and he was proud of me. I cried. I really needed to hear that.

My husband and I have an amazing three year old son. With the demands of work and ministry, it was difficult to plan for another child but God was gracious to us and we were elated to find out we were pregnant in November 2018. The joy however, was short lived. Just a few days later I was rushed to hospital where I would spend most of the next two months.

“Oh, so, it’s basically a case of severe morning sickness.” That statement flowing out the mouths of friends and strangers made me cringe every time.

Hyperemesis Gravidarum or HG is nothing compared to morning sickness. Likening the two is like comparing a paper cut to a stab wound or a wave to a tsunami.

It’s hard to blame people for not understanding though. HG affects only 1-2 percent of pregnant women. Although many have been suffering for decades gone by, the condition was only thrust into the spotlight in recent years when Kate Middleton announced that she had battled through it. If not treated correctly it is potentially life threatening.

A woman suffering with HG can keep nothing in her system. Food and even water are luxuries we cannot enjoy. The bodies of HG sufferers literally reject food, and it feels like it also rejects the very existence of the mother. With this condition it is normal to throw up 16 to 18 times a day without a single ounce of food or drink in your body. The situation is highly traumatic to say the least.

Smells, no matter how subtle, are completely off putting. I haven’t been able to go anywhere near the stove since December 2018. In fact even looking at a picture of food, or glancing at my usually favourite food channels on TV makes me sick. I walk away when people talk about food in front of me.

Ironically food which is meant to sustain the baby and myself is the enemy.

My claustrophobia has also got worse. Hugging my dear husband and even my baby boy is a struggle for me. I am uncomfortable in my own clothes. The smell of fabric softener or perfume on clothing and bedding is  unbearable. The worst part of HG is the constant horrid taste in your mouth. No matter what I’ve tried to do to get rid of it, nothing works. The medication simply alters it and makes it even worse. There is no escape. During my worst stages I was constantly physically weak and could be found sitting in bed at home or in hospital, curtains closed, praying and wondering when it all would end. During the few trips out of the house to the doctor or hospital my first priority was simple – I had to find out where the bathrooms were so I had easy access when I needed it.

HG removes all traces of humanness. The woman who would never walk out of the house without make-up and washing her hair to make sure the curls set, disappeared.

Nothing mattered anymore. I was sick, anxious, miserable, desperate for it all to go away. In my search for some reprieve I joined a group on Facebook where other women from around the world with HG shared their stories. At first it made me feel even more ill to read about their experiences. Later I clung to it in hope. This was especially when women would share that it was all over; they had made it through. They would post pictures of their beautiful babies to show the miracles that were waiting on the other side of the trauma. Other stories they shared were heart breaking.

Many women couldn’t handle it anymore and terminated their pregnancies. I cried when I read their posts. I understood how they felt.

I messaged those I could to urge them to hang on. It was tough.

Every one of those women was desperate. Every one of those women was strong. Every one of those women was deeply concerned about the well-being of the baby growing inside them. So was I. Yet we were helpless.

Many spoke of how they’d caught their partners texting other women and cheating on them while they endured HG. Many husbands fought with their wives for not being able to fulfil their spousal role, like making them lunch! I am so grateful for my husband, who despite taking great strain has supported me each step of the way.

My husband continued his Pastoral duties diligently throughout my illness and hospital stays. He never missed a church service.

Even for Saturday prayer at 7:30am when only a handful of people would attend, he would bathe, dress and feed our three-year old son before taking him along to the meeting. During the weekdays he also continued with growth groups, counselling sessions and Bible study. He always joked that when people thought about missing church they should ask WWJD – What would Justin do?

I felt bad that I wasn’t there to support him. I wished he would slow down a bit, but he has never been one to shy away from his responsibilities. While he carried our burden, he also carried the burdens of many others within our local church. He had broad shoulders.

We had an important function at our church one Sunday morning. It was the launch of our Vision for 2019, and it was hosted by my husband and myself. I had planned everything with a caterer who thankfully is also my friend – from my hospital bed. She also set up a little party table for my son as we had wanted to celebrate his birthday with our Church family. I was in hospital but managed to convince the kind doctor to give me a pass out for 3 hours. I took an Uber to Church and was so glad I was there to stand by my boy as he blew out the candles. It was also so good to see the families at church after my few weeks away. 

Despite my illness, I still have to fulfil all the duties of a Pastors wife. We host Pastors at our home, strategically plan for church events and have to keep up with everything that is happening in the lives of our congregants, praying for them and supporting them.

I am grateful to those in church who constantly kept in touch with me and offered us their assistance during this trying time.

For our first child, we had a wonderful gynaecologist at Sunninghill hospital in Johannesburg. He was funny and light-hearted. We left smiling after every appointment, and so for this baby, despite our misgivings about the service at the hospital, we decided to stick with our gynae. I also suffered with HG for my first child. I was hospitalised twice, including on my birthday. However that experience pales in comparison to this time around. At my very first appointment I was admitted for HG and severe dehydration. It had been two days without anything staying in my system and I needed to be put on a drip. I was also put on Zofran, a drug generally used for treating or preventing nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. The side effects were awful. I had that constant terrible taste in my mouth. I felt like a zombie and it had a serious effect on my appetite. I still could not eat anything.

The doctor kept me in hospital for 3 or 4 days at a time. I hated it. The Geranium ward at Sunninghill hospital was my worst nightmare. The nurses were slow and most appeared reluctant to do their jobs.

It was not uncommon for patients to wait more than an hour to be admitted, and up to four hours for a drip.

It didn’t help that my veins were difficult to find. I was constantly injected by lab assistants and various nurses until a vein could be found. Each tried up to three to four times. It was absolute torture and I shed many tears.

I also couldn’t bear to be away from my son who had just started school. Mum was not there to make his lunch or to wipe away his tears as he struggled to settle in. The one day I fetched him straight after hospital. He ran into my arms and burst into tears. It was heart breaking.

My husband had his hands full keeping the home running while I was ill. We had very little support as all our family is in Durban – 600 kilometers away. Our parents also work so couldn’t easily come to Jo’burg when we needed them.

The cycle continued and before long it was Christmas. My husband, a Pastor, was scheduled to preach at a church in Durban on Christmas day. It was also the only time of the year we got to spend with all our family in one city. The gynae who usually refused to give me any medication outside of hospital, decided to give me five Zofran pills to help me through the Christmas week. I was to take one a day and once they were over I needed to find a gynae in Durban who would admit me to hospital.

I guarded those five pills with my life. I even managed to hide and save one extra from hospital. This meant I would be home for 6 days. It would just include my son’s birthday.

He was so excited, he spoke about it for months and I couldn’t imagine not being there for this important day. I was in a predicament though. The tablet was only effective for around 6 hours. So, depending on the time I took it, I would be sick for the rest of the day or night. Effectively, I stayed in our parent’s home for all those days, except to go out for church on Christmas day and to my son’s 3^rd birthday party for 3 hours one Thursday morning.

By New Year’s day I was a mess. I had not eaten for days and was weak and ill.

A local GP referred me to a gynae at Umhlanga hospital in Durban and I was admitted the same day. He was amazing. The doctor spent more than an hour chatting to me finding out my history. Clearly my mum’s pregnancy record didn’t help my situation. When she was pregnant with me in 1980, she also suffered with HG and spent 3 months in hospital. The doctor notified me that I had a cyst which was probably making the HG worse. I was shocked as it was the first time I’d heard of this, and I had done a scan with my gynae just the week before. He also couldn’t believe that my gynae had allowed me to take a flight to Durban within 3 months of pregnancy. He urged us to hire a car and drive back to Jo’burg for the safely of the baby. During my stay in hospital I went through different types of medication including Kytril which was taken intravenously and Maxalon. We then moved on to Stemetil – the strongest available drug.

Safety in pregnancy has not been tested, however doctors have to make a decision based on each situation.

The Stemetil was amazing. He gave me a bottle of pills and I had to take one before every meal. For a day and a half after I was discharged I felt almost normal. I ate a little and the food stayed down. That is, until we reached Johannesburg. I got sick the minute we arrived home.

It was back to hospital for me for the 5^th time the very next morning. My gynae back in Johannesburg said he didn’t think it was important to mention the cyst as it would disappear in time anyway and he didn’t want to alarm me.

He explained that he was not in favour of Stemetil as he had seen it cause severe liver damage in one of his patients and he didn’t want to take the chance. I was back in hospital on the only medication he was prepared to give me – the dreaded Zofran. I was back to being a zombie.

You would think that all this time in hospital provided me with some much needed rest. However I assure you that there is no such thing for an HG sufferer.

When you are in zombie mode you cannot rest, you cannot think, you cannot write, you basically cannot function. You feel miserable around the clock. There is no relief.  You sit, you stare, you cry, you try to pray, you merely exist.

When my gynae discharged me and jovially said he would see me back in hospital in two days, I got home and broke down. I couldn’t deal with it any longer. I could no longer handle the light-heartedness while I was feeling close to death. The nurses didn’t help either. Twice on that stay they had given me the wrong medication on my drip. Often the hand with the drip was badly swollen. The communal showers in the ward were ancient and needed pressure cleaning and I needed to psych myself up every time I needed to go to the toilet or shower.

By this time I had been poked for suitable veins more than 70 times by around 20 different nurses. I was at my wits end.

I decided to find another gynae and never to return to Sunninghill hospital again. My husband, also taking strain, understood and supported me.

Upon advice from a few friends I went to a new gynae at Sandton Medi-clinic. Fortunately he understood my predicament and empathised. He immediately had a plan of action.  Renewed hope welled up inside me. At this point I was 11 weeks pregnant – hoping due to the severity it would be over by 12 weeks. The doctor wrote out a script for three items. I tried them, but sadly they failed and the nausea and vomiting continued. I was admitted to hospital twice for 10 days. This time the nurses were on call in minutes. They were astonishingly fast and before I knew it I was on a drip. After trying out more meds, he put me on Stemetil injections – one every six hours.

Time seemed to go by so quickly and it seemed the nurses enjoyed giving me those painful injections around the clock – basically four times a day. By day three I begged the doctor if I could rather take it in tablet form.

The side effects were also affecting me badly.

My speech was slurring and I was permanently drowsy (though unable to sleep) to a point where no one understood what I was saying. I stopped taking calls and tried my own form of sign language when people came to visit.

One night my husband asked the nurses to call the doctor to stop all medication immediately because I was so badly affected. The doctor agreed and changed tactic, although it took two full days for the medication to wear off and my speech to return.

He explained that his medicine artillery was now empty.

For my first child the HG wore off at 14 weeks. We now had to wait hoping history would repeat itself. Each day was an agonising wait. He sent me home with more medication – this time Nexium and Asic which I had to take three times a day. We had to wait and pray.

My mum, mum in law and any well-meaning person I came across suggested a host of things I should try. These ranged from crackers, ginger biscuits, ginger-ale, figs and china fruit to plain toast, avocado, white rice and pap.

The china fruit helped for two days. In fact I slept with one in my mouth for a night – much to my doctor’s dismay (he was afraid I would choke). One of my closest friends who is also pregnant suggested I eat consistently so as not to give the nausea a chance to set in. Eating even a single bite of a biscuit is so difficult for me. When my worried mums came over to stay for a few days I received a scolding several times and warned to eat for the good of both myself and the baby. They tried to force feed me – literally putting a spoon of food in my mouth.

All I could do was stare at them and the food blankly, wishing they knew how I felt.  I didn’t want to disappoint them, yet I had no desire for anything.

Friends and colleagues sent messages asking how I was feeling. The answer was the same every single day – horrible, awful, sick. Some gave up asking. Others reassured me of their prayers and support. I asked them to pray harder.

My cousin’s word of consolation was that pregnancy only lasts 10 months. I haven’t spoken to her since. HG removes all traces of humour.

We had the most heart-warming experience soon after the start of school. The mums in my son’s class found out that I was in hospital. They arranged for my husband and son to have a whole week of meals.

Each cooked for a day from Monday to Friday and delivered the meals to school or to our home. These mums had never met us.

They simply have my number on watsapp. We instinctively felt like we were being a burden and my husband initially asked me to tell them that his mum had suddenly come over and cooked up a storm. However we finally resolved that we needed the help and we should accept their generous gesture. We will eternally be grateful to them and are determined to pay the kindness forward.

It was such a relief to get home on January 28^th 2019 after more than 30 days in hospital over a period of two months.

Both my husband and child were over the moon. It felt amazing to shower without a drip stand. I washed my hair and put on make-up. For the first time in a long time I felt like a woman again. At 14 weeks pregnant there was some improvement and although I was not completely well, I was doing so much better. I went back to work this week, but unfortunately was sick again after three days. My son still asks me if I’m going back to the hospital and I have to constantly reassure him. I haven’t cooked in almost three months, and my husband is hoping I will get back to making his favourite curries soon. I’ve lost 10kgs and my hands still hurt from all the needles. However, I am slowly getting my strength back and am optimistic that soon I will be back in full action as the Pastor’s wife, Mum, News Editor and friend.

More than anything I thank God that our baby growing inside of me is healthy and well, and we pray for a safe delivery in July 2019.