THE INCIDENT

Last Thursday, I was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital for emergency surgery to stop me from internally bleeding to death after an ectopic pregnancy ruptured my fallopian tube. From there, I was immediately taken to the operating room to have open surgery to remove my tube. During surgery, I lost over a liter of blood, later receiving multiple blood transfusions. I stayed multiple nights in the hospital, and had to use a walker to get around since it was impossible to walk on my own.

THE NUMBERS

I am unable to work until mid January and will not receive disability until the end of December. I have no income to live off, and the amount of disability I will receive will be only a fraction of my regular income. I need help covering a small portion of my monthly expenses and enough of the medical costs to keep my health insurance going into the New Year.

The costs I am trying to cover - 

MY STORY

For the entire month of November, I had been secretly dealing with an ectopic pregnancy - which is where, instead of traveling and implanting itself in the uterus, my embryo (which I was so unbelievably filled with joy to learn about) decided to stop short and implant itself in my fallopian tube. After several long nights in and out of the hospital, dealing with excruciating grief over the loss of my pregnancy, I was given two options - either get surgery and be out for several weeks of work OR get a shot that will take several weeks to work - BUT I would only miss a few days of work. As most of you know, I live alone and fully take care of myself financially. I work in a restaurant waiting tables, and it is a very physically demanding job. And truth be told, I didn’t want to lose my right tube.

I decided to take the least invasive route to recovery and take the methotrexate shot - I couldn’t afford to miss work. methotrexate is the same drug used in chemotherapy. It targets rapidly developing cells in the body like cancer, or in this case - my pregnancy. Initially the pregnancy will swell right after the first shot, and then start to dissolve/shrink. I was on bed rest that first week, missing several days of work, getting my blood checked every few days to make sure the shot was working. My second round of bloodwork showed pregnancy hormones weren’t falling fast enough from the first shot, so I ended up going back to the hospital for a second shot.

Finally, my body started to respond to the second shot. Besides the awful grief from losing my pregnancy and the insane crashing of hormones, my symptoms were starting to resolve themselves. A couple weeks went by, and life was starting to feel normal again. It would take several weeks to fully resolve, but I was slowly returning to activities I loved - taking long walks with my dog and laughing with my coworkers. I kept telling myself this would all be behind me soon.

And then the rupture happened.

On Thursday, December 4th, slightly after 6AM, I woke up to increasingly severe pelvic cramping. My heart sunk. Shaking, I dragged myself to the bathroom in hopes of it just being a dramatic case of gas. As I sat, the pain I was feeling started worsening. The room became sweltering hot. My skin started burning, and all I wanted was to rip it off to stop the heat. Sweat started pouring from every pore in my body, and my head became lighter and dizzier with each breath. Panic slowly started creeping in. Painfully, I made my way back to the bedroom, starting to black out as I lowered back onto the bed. I did the only thing a girl knows to do when something feels wrong - I called my mom.

She begged me to call 911, but I was too scared of an ambulance bill. I started calling everyone who I knew lived close by. The only person to answer her phone at that hour was my former partner’s mother who told me she was on her way. As I hung up, I realized that I was running out of time. Reluctantly, I dialed 911.

They told me they’d send an ambulance over right away, all they needed was for me to unlock the door.

“Crap. Stairs.”

I had to figure out a way to get down the stairs from my bedroom to the front door. And to this day, I have no idea how I did it. The only evidence left behind were my slippers that I abandoned on the third step down.

Finally, by the grace of God, I made it to the front door. Unlocking it from the ground, I sat next to the front door incapable of moving anywhere else. Not too long after, I heard the sirens. Firemen, I don’t know how many, burst through my front door. Immediately they started checking my vitals and getting to work.

Dragging me away from the front door, one kept trying to poke me with an IV. I felt him panicking since my veins were all pretty busted, already, due to the multiple blood draws I was doing every week. Shortly after, I was strapped to a stretcher to be carried, screaming in agony, out my front door and down my very steep apartment steps. I could feel their hands struggling under the board, and I just kept telling them, “Please don’t drop me.”

Instead of taking me to my in network Kaiser hospital on Sunset and Vermont, they insisted on rushing me to the closest hospital (thank God), Glendale Memorial. From there, the nurses and on site OBGYN immediately began undressing me to place me in a hospital gown, plugging me with IV’s and blood draws, and asking me questions that I was too incoherent to respond to. They performed a quick ultrasound and instantly found nothing but free-floating blood swirling in my stomach. It was official. I ruptured.

During surgery, my right fallopian tube was removed, and doctors drained over a liter of blood from my abdomen.

Hospitalization & Recovery

I spent several days in the hospital, unable to walk and in significant pain. My blood levels continued to drop after surgery, and I ultimately required multiple blood transfusions. Watching someone else’s blood slowly flow into my body was surreal, like a science fiction movie. Slowly, my color and strength began to return.

The surgery was successful, and I am deeply grateful to the medical team who saved my life. I was discharged from the hospital using a walker and with strict instructions to avoid all physical activity beyond light walking.

The doctors later confirmed the most grimacing thought, before the surgery - I was almost minutes from losing my life.

The Financial Reality

Because of the rupture, surgery, and recovery, I am unable to return to work until at least January 8th. I work in a physically demanding restaurant job, and I will have no income until then. I will not receive disability benefits until the end of December, and even then, the amount will be only a fraction of my normal earnings.

I had already used all of my PTO and sick leave in November while dealing with the initial diagnosis and treatment. Now, medical bills from my out-of-network emergency hospitalization are arriving, on top of rent, utilities, insurance, and basic living expenses. I am doing everything I can to recover, but the financial stress is overwhelming.

Why I’m Asking for Help

In a matter of weeks, I lost my pregnancy, survived a life-threatening medical emergency, and lost my income over night. I am asking for help to cover basic living expenses for December and to manage essential medical costs so I can keep my health insurance and continue my follow-up care into the new year.

Any donation, or even a reshare, truly helps. Thank you for taking the time to read my story and for supporting me during one of the most frightening and vulnerable moments of my life. I am endlessly grateful.

— Brooke Hayley Martin