EP 159 Our Recent Hospital Stay and Words of Wisdom

So many of you have reached out to follow up about the recent hospital stay my family experienced while my youngest daughter was treated for a severe bout of stomach illness. 

Here I'm recounting those events as a way of educating what to be on the lookout for when it comes to managing illness at home and when to decide to receive medical intervention. 

In this episode, I'm sharing: 

• How I knew it was time to seek medical attention at the hospital (3:50)
• Why we knew we had made the right decision and the aspects of the appropriate care we received. (9:22)
• How we handled advocating and refusing recommendations that we felt would be harmful or unnecessary. (10:19)
• The systems I use within our home and lifestyle that allow me to manage when a crisis situation like this occurs and the homeopathic remedies we use to treat illness at home. (15:39)
• What we're doing to manage the mental and emotional trauma of the whole situation for the entire family. (18:47)

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Chapters

• 1:21 Postpartum Recovery and Child Illness
• 5:12 Life-Saving Advocacy in Medical Crisis
• 19:43 Healing and Self-Care Practices

Transcript

Hey everyone. I want to connect and share with you a recent story of mine. 

I know that so many of you have been asking about my daughter, Sophie, and how her recent experience in the hospital was, and how we're doing and recovering. 

I just want to take some time to share our experience, because I feel like so many of us have gone through this. 

This is a really important story about what we need to do as mothers in terms of being prepared, about how our systems are going, and how we need to show up in our lives to be ready for these kinds of situations. 

We were not necessarily ready, but I'm so grateful for what we do have in place that really prepared us for such an event. 

So I’ll share briefly with you what happened.

Maranda Bower: 1:42

My daughter is four. She woke up at five o'clock in the morning saying her tummy hurt and began throwing up and continued all day Friday. 

She had thrown up over 20 times the poor little thing. 

It was absolutely awful. 

It so happened to be my eight-year-old's birthday and she had this big sleepover plan and we had this huge celebration and birthday party planned and we had to cancel everything. It was awful but thankfully she was super worried about her sister and said, “Ah yeah, I understand, let's, let's do it another time Mommy.”

I'm so grateful for her and, her love and appreciation for her sister and what was happening.

Maranda Bower: 2:32

So fast forward the next day the vomiting had stopped but it turned into the opposite end and it was extreme diarrhea. 

This is not something to mess with. Diarrhea is a really serious issue. 

It's still one of the number one killers in our entire world, mainly in other underdeveloped countries across the world. 

Obviously, it's not something that we normally see as a death rate here in the United States and in more developed countries. 

Maranda Bower: 3:12

She was doing just fine, she was walking to the bathroom, and she was able to manage. 

She was not necessarily in the greatest of spirits, obviously, because things were not going so well. Her tummy was cramping all the time. 

She was drinking so well, she was drinking so much and constantly thirsty. 

As the day progressed, though, she got more thirsty and we were still able to feed her just a little bit, but it started to increase. 

The diarrhea was increasing every time she was drinking, it was like sliding out of her and she was in the bathroom every 10 to 15 minutes, which was a significant amount.

Maranda Bower: 3:53

At eight o'clock at night, she laid down and her eyes were just almost rolling and she looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I am so scared.” 

I'm telling you listen to your babies. 

That was my defining moment because I heard her say that and it was like whoa, wait a second. 

I have to reassess this entire situation. What's happening? Where is she? What have we experienced? When was the last time that she had peed? How dehydrated is she?

Maranda Bower: 4:29

When I started to assess the situation in a different light, I noticed that her heart rate was over 180. She had shallow breathing at the moment. 

I know that she had just told me that she was scared. But even a scared babe is not gonna have that kind of heart rate. 

I got her to kind of calm down and relax and let her know that everything was okay and mommy's here, I'm gonna take good care of her. And her eyes are just rolling and she's going to sleep as I'm saying this and she's like out like a light.

Maranda Bower: 5:05

I turned to my husband. I was like, “We got to go. This is not okay. We have to go to the hospital. We have to do this now because this is taking a turn for the worse.” 

We were in the hospital for well over eight hours. We didn't get home until four, five o'clock in the morning and it was brutal. 

It was such a brutal experience of advocating for her and what she needed in those moments. It was during a shift change. 

We had eight different medical providers and nurses who were all like, oh, she needs this, she needs that. 

They weren't communicating with each other, which was probably the hardest part. 

She ended up with three bags of IV fluids, three solid bags, and it just kept flowing, every time she would get a bag. 

It was just like flowing out of her and at one point she was unresponsive to us. 

It was incredibly scary when she started coming back, just a little bit. 

She wouldn't look at our eyes, she started babbling. 

This is my baby girl, who can talk well, she has a massive vocabulary, she's already reading, and it was just a really unfortunate event.

Maranda Bower: 7:12

The crazy thing is that they had all of these boxes to check off.  

You need to give her Tylenol. 

Well, why do we need to give her Tylenol? We just gave her ibuprofen and it's working. Her fever is being reduced. Why do we need that? 

Well, why do you not want it? What's your objection to it? Why don't you like it? I think you should listen to my medical opinion. I mean, these are things that we were legit told.

Maranda Bower: 7:45

We were told that we needed to cath her because they needed a clean urine sample.

I kept asking, “Why do we need to do that?” 

They wanted to make sure that she didn't have a UTI or some other thing that was causing this whole scenario and my husband and I were like, well, that's a really big deal. 

Putting a cath into this child is no small feat, and one of the nurses was like she's four, she's not gonna remember, she's not gonna remember this. I just have a couple of my other nurse friends come in here. We'll hold her down and be done in 30 seconds. 

I was just absolutely blown away by the lack of understanding. 

To be honest with you, when I was four and three and two, from birth to probably about five years old, I was hospitalized constantly, and so this was my first encounter with this again and I remember those experiences very, very well. 

They were incredibly traumatic for me and I started to experience that again. 

I was pacing. I couldn't stop shaking my legs when I was sitting. 

This is several days later. My daughter's still recovering. She's still not even able to go to school yet. She's still so weak and I am recovering from the physical stress that the trauma of being in that scenario was causing.

Maranda Bower: 9:22

It was super intense and we kept saying no, or maybe we'll think about it. 

I'm telling you this because I want you to really understand the medical system and it's there for a purpose. We needed the medical system. I don't know what we would have done if my daughter didn't go in. 

It was the best choice ever to bring her in and give her those fluids. 

There's nothing that I could have done at home that would have given her what she needed. We were doing all the right things. 

Everything that we could have done at home, we did, and more, and it still wasn't working. 

It was so necessary for us to take her in and it was almost still like they were like you were just on time, you were just on time. I've kept thinking to myself like no, I was, I'm too late, like she should have been here earlier. And they're like no, no, no, you did the right thing bringing her in and it was perfect timing.

Maranda Bower: 10:19

But there were so many things that were still not okay that we still had to press for and advocate for. 

We were actually threatened multiple times that if we did not agree they were just going to keep us there longer and they were going to admit us and they were making threats about other things and it was literally absolutely awful. 

In order to get out of the hospital I had to walk out of our room and go tag some people and be like no, we're out, we're done. 

There's no other reason for us to be here. If you're not helping anymore, we need to go and you need to sign those papers. There was eye rolling and saying, “Fine. I guess you seem like decent parents who care.” 

I'm telling you this because we have such a beautiful system set up in my home. We have family that is close by, we have people in our lives that we can count on.

Maranda Bower: 11:24

My sister-in-law was here to watch the other kids while they were sleeping and to handle all of the Easter goodies for the morning, and they were able to take my other children to the Easter egg hunt and big Sunday brunch for the morning with the family, and all of that without us having to do anything. 

We were so exhausted we pulled a whole all-nighter and then some, because there was still no rest after we got home because she was still so sick and we were not in the clear. 

She was still in danger because she was still not keeping any fluids in her. Thankfully, we were able to stop it and get it under wraps and we used homeopathy. That was a huge factor in it.

Maranda Bower: 12:16

I was looking for the right homeopathic remedy in my home and I couldn't find any. 

One of my friends said hey, do you have this one? I was like no, I already looked. 

The next day, after the whole experience, I was like I have to look again because I don't have the option. 

It's not like Sunday Easter, I can go out to my local store and go get some homeopathic and it's certainly not going to be delivered to my house here in Alaska. 

I had no options to get any. Everything was closed and there it was. 

It was right there. It was a God-given gift. I'm going to use it. 

Then we used my Healy. 

If you're not familiar with Healy, I highly recommend you look it up. 

It's a frequency system and it immediately what it does is it tracks your frequency. 

So I was able to scan her frequency and it told me immediately that she needed help with her large intestine and then her small intestine. 

So I am able to send her the positive frequency associated with the large intestine and then again with the small intestine. I rotated those back and forth within a couple of hours between the homeopathic that I thought I didn't have, that I did have, which is just a simple gift, and my Healy, which you know.

Maranda Bower: 13:39

If I were to tell the medical world you know, in the ER that that's what we were using or planning on using, it would have been an absolute bigger disaster than what it was. 

We wouldn't have been able to stop it. We probably would have been back in the ER. Her body was just going and going, and going. It really was quite a nightmare. 

I'm telling you this because I want you to be so prepared. 

Prepare yourself, get community support, find someone who can support you if something like that ever does happen, and make sure your pantries are stocked, make sure that your medicines are stocked, that you've got what you need.

Maranda Bower: 15:39

Another key component for me was it's what I call life systems and I provide it for people in my membership. But it's like here's how I handle, like certain things in my life. Because here's the thing I was on empty. 

My husband and I had zero sleep for 24 hours. 

She was up, throwing up all day into the night and then it was diarrhea into the night, and so we already had no sleep for over 24 hours. 

We were going 48 hours of solid, almost wakefulness and then going into the ER and spending the entire evening in the ER. So now we're at 30, you know 48 and then you know 56, whatever hours, like we're going days without sleep, your brain changes and you're not able to think of the things. 

Maranda Bower: 16:32

I know that I have the things at home, I know I have the tools, but I don't know what those tools are, because you just don't have the brain capacity for it. 

Having this written out for me I legit have this written out. 

I have everything written out where it says here's how you help diarrhea. 

Here's the tools for an illness. Here's the tools for strep. Here's the tools for an illness. Here's the tools for strep. 

These are the basic things that I have on hand and my home at all times, and they're usually really, really basic stuff. 

We use so many herbs and homeopathic remedies in my house. That's what we have and I felt a little unprepared going in, but also so, so stinking grateful that actually I did have it together.

Maranda Bower: 17:31

I actually have to get a better system because I have all of my homeopathics in like a bag. Obviously, in very serious moments, when you don't have time to just like power through a bag, I need another way of organizing that so I can just like maybe put them in alphabetical order in a special container or something you know, where I can be able to physically see what it is that I'm looking for so much easier, not have to shuffle through all that and then potentially not have it. 

So I'm telling you all of this in an effort to support you and help you, while also sharing this story because I know so many of you. 

God bless, thank you for all of your support and your prayers and your messages has been absolutely amazing and I couldn't have done this without my team and having systems in place so that we can still function and answer your emails and help you with support and make sure that you're getting your needs met while I'm out, not able to be present in my business and 100% on my family and then in my own healing too.

Maranda Bower: 18:47

You know this was a huge event and I mentioned it brought up a lot of trauma in my own experience. I was hospitalized a lot for gastrointestinal bleeding. That happened often right after I received immunization, my regular immunization childhood shots. 

I would end up in the ER very shortly after with an internal intestinal bleeding and so I've had all the tubes, all of the you know things up all crevices of my body, exploratory things. I've had surgery in my stomach when I was five. 

I've had quite a bit and I remember so much of it and there were times that I was hospitalized even simply for not eating. I didn't eat for a week straight because I was terrified of food. Food was awful, I associated food with pain and I remember that.

Maranda Bower: 19:41

It was just rough and that needed so much healing and I'm and I'm not there yet.  

I'm taking extra time out of my days to really focus on healing my own body. 

I'll tell you a few things that I'm doing to really help. 

Journaling is one of them. 

Making sure that I'm communicating in some way, especially through my journal, my own thoughts and feelings, and the things that have come up. 

It's really helping me process, being able to talk about it with everyone. 

And communicating with my mom and my parents and talking to my husband like did you remember when they said this and this? You know? 

Like just all of a sudden, like something comes to me and I'm like, oh, I can't believe it, or like that, that voice that she had when you know she wasn't well and she said this and it was heartbreaking, and like just processing all of the things and allowing my body to do that.

Maranda Bower: 20:57

I'm also doing a ton of TRE therapy. 

So if you're not familiar with that, I share a lot of it in my book, Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, about how we store trauma within our bodies. 

Physically, they are stored in the cellular structure of our bodies and there's so much science, there's so much evidence on it. 

I just saw an article that came out about how this generation is still experiencing trauma that has been passed down from the potato famine, from the generations before, many generations before those in Europe and Ireland and things like that. 

It's passed down quite a bit and so I am using TRE therapy to remove that physically from my body.

Maranda Bower: 21:43

So I have been doing that twice a day, morning and night, and any other time that I just feel like I need extra support. 

I have a Reiki appointment scheduled and some cranial sacral work scheduled as well. 

My husband is amazing at giving me massages all the time. I think he actually enjoys it just as much as I do. 

So that has been working out to my benefit, of course, and just taking some extra time away to breathe, to be in nature. 

The weather is turning for the better most of the time, like we're seeing some snow here and there, but then all of a sudden it's like 40 degrees or 45 degrees and the sun is out, and I'm just making sure that I get out there as much as I possibly can to really enjoy that weather and nature and all the birds singing coming out. 

This spring has been so beautiful. 

So, again, take some time out to really make sure that you are all set for the crazy things that happen in life that we don't really have control over.

Maranda Bower: 22:52

I am not going to sit here and beat myself up and tell myself that I could have avoided this or if I did X, y, z, it would have been a better scenario. 

I'm telling you that's all BS. It's not true, and I know that, and the old me would have done exactly that. And if that's you, I get it. I feel your pain, but please don't do that to yourself. Things happen all the time and we're not gonna beat ourselves up for it.

Maranda Bower: 23:19

Actually, one of the ladies that I know very well her daughter has been experiencing some serious conditions. She's been in and out of the hospital for a long time. 

They haven't been able to figure out what's going on I was chatting with her very recently and she was beating herself up. I should have done this sooner. I, you know I I should have. Just I didn't do my best.

Maranda Bower: 23:57

And it's like are you kidding me? 

We are doing everything that we can with what we have and it's not us that's failing. Truly it is the medical community that is failing us. It is the lack of support that we have that is failing us, and we're going to have to team up. 

We're going to have to do this together and we're going to have to prepare ourselves better in ways in which we haven't had to before because our community healthcare right now is awful. 

We're only as healthy as our communities. We are only as healthy as our communities and right now, our communities are not helpful and they're not healthy and they are struggling immensely. 

Maranda Bower: 24:39

I mean, this stomach bug was a catastrophe. I've never experienced anything like it and, looking back at my own childhood, I don't ever remember stomach bugs like this. I was talking to my mom about it the other day and she was like, this did not happen when we were young. 

It was usually, you know you had the flu or you ate something bad, but it was rare, it wasn't something that happened. 

We have full-blown wipes out communities all the time, kind of stomach bugs or other viral things that are going around that are just so disgusting and nasty and at levels that we've never experienced. 

Thanks to antibiotics, thanks to new, you know, experimental shots that are people are taking, thanks to all the lab testing. 

It's just awful and what we're having to deal with is unprecedented.

Maranda Bower: 25:43

We need to make sure that we are prepared. So, again, thank you all, prepare yourselves so that you don't have to go through scenarios like that or when you do, and the rare times that you do that, you are prepared and you're able to say no and stand up. 

I would tell you I was on the brink of not following through, or saying no. 

You can cath my daughter and find out if she has the UTI, which I knew that she didn't simply because I wanted out of the hospital because I hadn't slept and going on 72 hours and it was awful and I wanted my daughter home and by the time she had three bag of IVs. She was begging to go home. She was finally able to communicate and speak and she was like I just want to go, I want to go, I want out.

Maranda Bower: 26:34

And it was hard, it was very, very hard, and the one thing that was so significant was one having my husband by my side to help advocate and be there and and also saying I need time to think about it. 

Can you give us five minutes, can you give us 10 minutes? Then somebody else would come in and they would try to say the same thing and we'd be like give us five minutes or give us 10 minutes, and they'd leave the room all huffy and puffy that we didn't quite say yes yet, and then they'd come back with you know, they came back with a different cath sizes and they were showing us like this is how it'll be done and this is all it is, and we won't even have to shove the whole thing up. 

Those are the words that were being used just absolutely horrifying, and be prepared for those things. All right, thank you all. Keep sending your love and blessings, because it is still a road of recovery.

Maranda Bower: 27:28

She's struggling with energy and I'm telling you we're doing all the right things. We are doing all the right things. We're working with providers, chiropractic care she's on, you know, probiotics. We've got it down. We know exactly what we're doing. It's just a long road and we're giving her as much grace and as much time as she needs and I'm so grateful for the privilege and the opportunity and the ability to do that as her mother. So thank you all, keep sending all the love.