Tragedy

My family has had about the worst week possible. Last Thursday Smug-Sister woke up in the middle of the night unable to use the bathroom and having massive pain. Her husband took her to the ER and they ended up sitting in the empty ER for about three hours before giving up on getting seen and left. Later that Thursday she went to see her primary care doctor and after explaining the symptoms, was told she probably had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), she was given some pills for pain and sent home.

She spent the next few days and the weekend dealing with the pain as best she could, remarking that the pills seemed to have little or no effect. On Monday, her step-son was sick and she has so many meetings (she works from home) that she felt she would not be able to care properly for him. She drove him to his grandmother's home (her mother-in law). When she was there, she noticed that the pains were worse and she went to the bathroom to see if she could go and thus relieve some of the pain. While there she passed out and when she came to she was vomiting and her mother-in-law was breaking down the door to get to her.

Her husband's aunt was there and drove Smug-Sister to the doctor's office while her Mother-in-law stayed with the sick child. Smug-Sister passed out again on the drive to the doctors office and again before they could get her in the office. The doctor came out to the car and took a quick look at her and immediately called an ambulance. The family was called and we all met up at the hospital to be with her and her husband.

Her blood pressure was 80/44 and an ultrasound revealed an ectopic pregnancy that had caused her fallopian tube to rupture and she was bleeding internally. They rushed her into emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and remove the ruptured tube. Smug-Sister almost died. She was dying for a week and the ER and her doctor did not care enough to do a quick ultrasound and figure out what was really going on.

Here is the thing, she did not really think that this was baby related, but she is not a doctor and they should have found this problem FIVE days before!! While they would not have been able to save her pregnancy, they would have been able to save her tube and keep her from filling up with puss, blood and fluid!!

She and her husband are understandably devastated and she is dealing with so much pain both physical and emotional. I don't know how to help her and I feel like my being pregnant will be like throwing her loss in her face. I did talk to her about it and we figure that we will just need to take it a day at a time. I know that when I lost my baby it was painful to see strangers that were pregnant or had little babies and at the same time I did not want people to treat me like I was broken.

She told me that she is happy to be becoming an aunt and does not want me to feel like I can't talk to her about what is going on with me and Smug-Baby. I just want to help her and not hurt her further.