You know the term “Silence is Golden”, well in many cases , it truly is. I’ve been forced lately to take a hiatus from my every busy electronic life style as well as that of my daily on-the-go.
For those of you who do not know , I had a huge ordeal this past weekend that nearly took my life and that of my Lil’ Bun in the Oven. If you missed it , I’ll fill in the details for you.
This past Sunday(July/29th) Hubby and I went to the store for a few groceries. I was craving Brussels Sprouts badly! While walking through their produce department I slipped and fell on their wet floor. They had no signs posted about the floor being wet or anything. I felt something that I thought was wet during one step and then with the next step I took, I landed right on the floor. Now for obvious reasons this frustrates me badly after the fact. This is the 3rd time that I had slipped in their produce department. The other 2 times I managed to catch myself and not fall and then told somebody the floor was wet. But this time I was not so lucky. So, as most of you know , my pregnancy thus far has been labeled as high risk do to the 3 miscarriages I’ve had in the past. And also do to the fact that I have had chronic high blood pressure.
So when I fell , my right foot flew out from under me and kicked the shopping cart a crossed the produce area. I landed half on my tailbone and half on my left leg that had been scrunched up underneath me. Instantly I started having mild contracting/cramping pain, and felt as if I could throw up. Now , mind you, the baby is already head down and has been since my 6th month. (early I know) So when I fell her feet went directly into my stomach and made me feel like throwing up!
So at this point , I feel nauseous, I’m scared to death that something happened to the baby , I have instant fears because I couldn’t move without pain , and then all of a sudden my head began to be in the most terrible pain (migraine) that I’ve ever had, as well as a loud ringing in my ears! Since I have some experience with high blood pressure , I know when your ears ring that means your blood pressure is too high. How high it was I had no idea, but was about to be shocked!
So hubby got me off the store floor and took me down to the ER. I briefly told the receptionist what had happened and she called for a nurse to take me up to the maternity triage. When I got there , the triage nurse took my blood pressure as a precaution like normal. When she got the reading she looked at me and asked me if I felt really bad. And I explained all the things I was feeling. She asked if my head hurt bad and I said yes. I told her it felt like it was going to explode and that I felt like my brain was on fire. She then proceeded to tell me that my blood pressure was 178/117 !!!! I was very concerned at this point. Now if you don’t know much about high blood pressure , here’s a little tid-bit. When high blood pressure numbers rise above 180 for the systolic pressure or 110 for the diastolic pressure, you need emergency medical treatment. So the nurse called the on-call OB and she gave instructions to get an IV in me “stat” and to get labs (draw blood). Well .. The thing about having high blood pressure is when you are terribly stressed out it can make your veins retract and make them so small you can barely get anything in or out of them…and that’s just what happened.
The triage nurse , who also happened to be one of the leading phlebotomist, tried 4 times to draw my blood/ get an IV in me . It was a no go. So she called down another woman who was labeled as one of the best. She tried 3 times , and nope. Now yea , 7 times seems difficult for anybody . But take into account that my veins were so small to begin with and the fact that I have a hyper sensitivity to my nerve endings , yea , I thought I was being tortured. Because of my veins being so small , they were literally shoving the needles in my arms and moving them all over creation , trying desperately to catch a vein. All that happened inside of a half hour. So for 30 mins I was a living pin cushion. They finally quit and apologized . The felt terrible that they couldn’t get me. So the lead triage nurse called down a anesthesiologist do see if he could get me.
As if I didn’t feel half dead already , lol, the poor man looked at my veins and told me he’s going to have to be very mean to me to get this but he thinks he’s able. At this point I was like “go for it , it can’t be any worse than what I just went through” ……me and my big mouth…
He proceeded to turn my bed not quite upside-down , but it was close. It caused the blood to drain toward my upper torso (ask my poor head) with hopes of making my veins swell with blood. He hung my arm over the side of the bed and told me to brace myself because this is really going to hurt! He took his thumb and held down one of my veins and squeezed the life out of it to hold it still. He jammed the needle in my hand and wiggled the crap out of it till it finally poked the vein. (took almost 5 minutes :0/ ) . He finally was able to get the catheter in my little bitty vein. As soon as he did , the 3 nurses who were hovering over me started pushing lab tubes at him. The sad thing was that , even with the IV , he could barely get me to bleed. Each tube he filled was barley a 1/4th the way full. But somehow , he managed! Thankfully! As he was tilting my bed up and I was taking some blood pressure meds and a muscle relaxer, he makes the comment , “ Dear , I haven’t had a person who made me sweat in a long time. That was incredibly difficult and I’m so sorry you are going through this” . Now that coming from an Anesthesiologist kind freaked me out. Since I wasn’t truly able to grasp the gravity of my predicament , all I could think of was the worst.
The nurse came back in a few minutes after dropping off my blood vials and said the doctor has emitted me and that if my blood pressure won’t go down I am to have an emergency C-Section that night. Ok .. Somehow .. Believe it or not.. That news did not help my blood pressure go down any … (go figure) It stayed at 165/101 for several hours after that. Now of course, that was several points down from when I went in earlier. But this was several hours later AND several pills later.
And to think… all this over Brussels Sprouts!
Ok , up to the maternity ward I go. Now they are semi prepping me for a C-Section. I received a steroid shot ( 1 of a 2 series) so that If I had to deliver the baby , her lungs would get a fighting chance. I had fetal monitors strapped over my belly. Contraction monitors too..
But , not to depress you completely , because there is some really good news during all this too( yea we could use some , right).
While I was gong through all this , so many people were praying for me and the baby. Now , the awesome part was during my whole ordeal the baby’s heart beat stayed at a comfortable 145!!!! I continued to feel her kick , roll, have hiccups , you name it . She acted as if nothing was going on and she was in La-La land! Lol My little trooper! Now rather you believe in G-d or not I still strongly believe He put His hand on her and she was surviving because of Him. Because , according to the doctor and nurses, she shouldn’t had been doing as well as she was . Not even close. How amazing, right?
The rest of the story is a long ,grueling ,overnight session of blood pressure test ,medicine , more craziness from doctor referrals to no sleep! But we’ll skip that part.
My actual OB cam in and saw me the next day and said she was waiting on a urine analysis to come back to see if I had any protein in there. She said my blood work came back squeaky clean and she was pleased with that! However , that night , my urine analysis came back that my protein levels were at 345. Which means that I am now Pre Eclamptic .
This surprised my doctor . She said from my medical records and all the test she has ran over the last few months , this news shocked her.
Since Eclampsia is brought on by high blood pressure and that is what causes you to have protein in your urine, hubby and I wonder if the trauma of the fall caused my blood pressure to raise too fast and so violently that it pushed me into Pre Eclampsia. We don’t know , but its something we are discussing with the doctor.
Ok , so how are you doing? Did I wear you out completely ? I am! Retelling this is making me remember and it seems to have a post traumatic stress effect on me . But anyway, doctors orders are now strict bed rest ( not allowed to get out of bed except to use the restroom and to take a shower). Which its hard since hubby works full time. I need to eat , right? And then have to take 3 blood pressure pills, as well as eat a low sodium diet (nearly vegan) to maintain low Edema so it keeps my blood pressure down . And a few other minor restrictions like no electronics, stressful conversations, and so on…. WHEW..I’m exhausted after all that, you? Lol
We have a dr appointment on Tuesday to check in and see where our progress is . I’m praying for great news! Any good news will lift my spirits and make this ordeal a little easier to handle! So for now I’ll be limiting how often I converse period. My little girls life is so precious to me that I will do anything to keep her in there till its time! Thank you for all your prayers as well as kind words! We have a around 8-12 weeks left , and I intend to make the most of it. Bonding with this little love , even more so now, is what I am doing with my days . Letting her know , Momma and Pappa are here for her and are doing what we can so she has the best fighting chance !!!
For those of you who do not know , I had a huge ordeal this past weekend that nearly took my life and that of my Lil’ Bun in the Oven. If you missed it , I’ll fill in the details for you.
This past Sunday(July/29th) Hubby and I went to the store for a few groceries. I was craving Brussels Sprouts badly! While walking through their produce department I slipped and fell on their wet floor. They had no signs posted about the floor being wet or anything. I felt something that I thought was wet during one step and then with the next step I took, I landed right on the floor. Now for obvious reasons this frustrates me badly after the fact. This is the 3rd time that I had slipped in their produce department. The other 2 times I managed to catch myself and not fall and then told somebody the floor was wet. But this time I was not so lucky. So, as most of you know , my pregnancy thus far has been labeled as high risk do to the 3 miscarriages I’ve had in the past. And also do to the fact that I have had chronic high blood pressure.
So when I fell , my right foot flew out from under me and kicked the shopping cart a crossed the produce area. I landed half on my tailbone and half on my left leg that had been scrunched up underneath me. Instantly I started having mild contracting/cramping pain, and felt as if I could throw up. Now , mind you, the baby is already head down and has been since my 6th month. (early I know) So when I fell her feet went directly into my stomach and made me feel like throwing up!
So at this point , I feel nauseous, I’m scared to death that something happened to the baby , I have instant fears because I couldn’t move without pain , and then all of a sudden my head began to be in the most terrible pain (migraine) that I’ve ever had, as well as a loud ringing in my ears! Since I have some experience with high blood pressure , I know when your ears ring that means your blood pressure is too high. How high it was I had no idea, but was about to be shocked!
So hubby got me off the store floor and took me down to the ER. I briefly told the receptionist what had happened and she called for a nurse to take me up to the maternity triage. When I got there , the triage nurse took my blood pressure as a precaution like normal. When she got the reading she looked at me and asked me if I felt really bad. And I explained all the things I was feeling. She asked if my head hurt bad and I said yes. I told her it felt like it was going to explode and that I felt like my brain was on fire. She then proceeded to tell me that my blood pressure was 178/117 !!!! I was very concerned at this point. Now if you don’t know much about high blood pressure , here’s a little tid-bit. When high blood pressure numbers rise above 180 for the systolic pressure or 110 for the diastolic pressure, you need emergency medical treatment. So the nurse called the on-call OB and she gave instructions to get an IV in me “stat” and to get labs (draw blood). Well .. The thing about having high blood pressure is when you are terribly stressed out it can make your veins retract and make them so small you can barely get anything in or out of them…and that’s just what happened.
The triage nurse , who also happened to be one of the leading phlebotomist, tried 4 times to draw my blood/ get an IV in me . It was a no go. So she called down another woman who was labeled as one of the best. She tried 3 times , and nope. Now yea , 7 times seems difficult for anybody . But take into account that my veins were so small to begin with and the fact that I have a hyper sensitivity to my nerve endings , yea , I thought I was being tortured. Because of my veins being so small , they were literally shoving the needles in my arms and moving them all over creation , trying desperately to catch a vein. All that happened inside of a half hour. So for 30 mins I was a living pin cushion. They finally quit and apologized . The felt terrible that they couldn’t get me. So the lead triage nurse called down a anesthesiologist do see if he could get me.
As if I didn’t feel half dead already , lol, the poor man looked at my veins and told me he’s going to have to be very mean to me to get this but he thinks he’s able. At this point I was like “go for it , it can’t be any worse than what I just went through” ……me and my big mouth…
He proceeded to turn my bed not quite upside-down , but it was close. It caused the blood to drain toward my upper torso (ask my poor head) with hopes of making my veins swell with blood. He hung my arm over the side of the bed and told me to brace myself because this is really going to hurt! He took his thumb and held down one of my veins and squeezed the life out of it to hold it still. He jammed the needle in my hand and wiggled the crap out of it till it finally poked the vein. (took almost 5 minutes :0/ ) . He finally was able to get the catheter in my little bitty vein. As soon as he did , the 3 nurses who were hovering over me started pushing lab tubes at him. The sad thing was that , even with the IV , he could barely get me to bleed. Each tube he filled was barley a 1/4th the way full. But somehow , he managed! Thankfully! As he was tilting my bed up and I was taking some blood pressure meds and a muscle relaxer, he makes the comment , “ Dear , I haven’t had a person who made me sweat in a long time. That was incredibly difficult and I’m so sorry you are going through this” . Now that coming from an Anesthesiologist kind freaked me out. Since I wasn’t truly able to grasp the gravity of my predicament , all I could think of was the worst.
The nurse came back in a few minutes after dropping off my blood vials and said the doctor has emitted me and that if my blood pressure won’t go down I am to have an emergency C-Section that night. Ok .. Somehow .. Believe it or not.. That news did not help my blood pressure go down any … (go figure) It stayed at 165/101 for several hours after that. Now of course, that was several points down from when I went in earlier. But this was several hours later AND several pills later.
And to think… all this over Brussels Sprouts!
Ok , up to the maternity ward I go. Now they are semi prepping me for a C-Section. I received a steroid shot ( 1 of a 2 series) so that If I had to deliver the baby , her lungs would get a fighting chance. I had fetal monitors strapped over my belly. Contraction monitors too..
But , not to depress you completely , because there is some really good news during all this too( yea we could use some , right).
While I was gong through all this , so many people were praying for me and the baby. Now , the awesome part was during my whole ordeal the baby’s heart beat stayed at a comfortable 145!!!! I continued to feel her kick , roll, have hiccups , you name it . She acted as if nothing was going on and she was in La-La land! Lol My little trooper! Now rather you believe in G-d or not I still strongly believe He put His hand on her and she was surviving because of Him. Because , according to the doctor and nurses, she shouldn’t had been doing as well as she was . Not even close. How amazing, right?
The rest of the story is a long ,grueling ,overnight session of blood pressure test ,medicine , more craziness from doctor referrals to no sleep! But we’ll skip that part.
My actual OB cam in and saw me the next day and said she was waiting on a urine analysis to come back to see if I had any protein in there. She said my blood work came back squeaky clean and she was pleased with that! However , that night , my urine analysis came back that my protein levels were at 345. Which means that I am now Pre Eclamptic .
This surprised my doctor . She said from my medical records and all the test she has ran over the last few months , this news shocked her.
Since Eclampsia is brought on by high blood pressure and that is what causes you to have protein in your urine, hubby and I wonder if the trauma of the fall caused my blood pressure to raise too fast and so violently that it pushed me into Pre Eclampsia. We don’t know , but its something we are discussing with the doctor.
Ok , so how are you doing? Did I wear you out completely ? I am! Retelling this is making me remember and it seems to have a post traumatic stress effect on me . But anyway, doctors orders are now strict bed rest ( not allowed to get out of bed except to use the restroom and to take a shower). Which its hard since hubby works full time. I need to eat , right? And then have to take 3 blood pressure pills, as well as eat a low sodium diet (nearly vegan) to maintain low Edema so it keeps my blood pressure down . And a few other minor restrictions like no electronics, stressful conversations, and so on…. WHEW..I’m exhausted after all that, you? Lol
We have a dr appointment on Tuesday to check in and see where our progress is . I’m praying for great news! Any good news will lift my spirits and make this ordeal a little easier to handle! So for now I’ll be limiting how often I converse period. My little girls life is so precious to me that I will do anything to keep her in there till its time! Thank you for all your prayers as well as kind words! We have a around 8-12 weeks left , and I intend to make the most of it. Bonding with this little love , even more so now, is what I am doing with my days . Letting her know , Momma and Pappa are here for her and are doing what we can so she has the best fighting chance !!!
*hugs*
ReplyDeleteStill praying!
Thanks so much Kris! <3
ReplyDeleteOh Honey! I am soo sorry that you had to have this happen! I've been praying for you and will continue! Good tho that you did not have to have a c-section! Love you and can't wait to meet this lil babe!! This is TRULY TRULY a labor of love for you!!! :) xoxoxox
ReplyDeleteAww thanks Brittney. We can so use the prayers!!!! And yea, I was thrilled not to have to deliver her then. At that point she was only 2lbs 7oz . Very small! But yea, this 'lalor of love' is truly wearing me out. It's amazing how your maternal instinct kicks in and you'll do anything for the life of your Lil Sugar! ;0) thanks for all the love and prayers!!! <3
Delete