In the Hospital

So last night I was pretty sick, puking and whatnot and of course I had a fever the entire time which would not go away. So once the dr's office opened, I called them and told them about my fevers and new sickness. The nurse called me back and said that the dr wanted me to go to the ER because I might be bleeding in my GI tract. Well, I asked what he said about the fevers and the nurse said he didn't even mention them so I told her to ask him. She called me back while Tony was driving me to the ER (my favorite place on earth) and said the dr said they'd evaluate my fever in the ER. Wow, he's really helpful.

Once at the ER they took me in right away and the dr was nice and helpful. She ran blood tests, a urinalysis, and did a chest xray. Basically my blood count has dropped since I had Nola, so that leads them to believe I am bleeding internally somewhere. It could be around the lung, but they can't tell that yet because it's in a bunch of fluid and collapsed. It could also be somewhere in my GI tract, but they don't want to put me under anesthesia while I'm having trouble breathing to begin with in order to do the tests to find GI bleeding.

They admitted me and told me I'd be here at least a couple of days (sat is the soonest I could go home). I talked to a pulmenologist and the GI guy. The lung guy is giving me some vitamin K supplements to get my blood level up so they can suck the fluid off of my lung in the morning. Then the lung should re-inflate pretty instantaneously. He thinks I have an infarction which means the blood clot got lodged in a vessel which caused a bit of the lung to die which was irritating and caused all the fluid to build up and collapse the lung. He said this would cause my fevers if it was the case. He also said once the fluid is gone (which he said was a LOT whereas my dr said it was hardly any) I will start feeling better almost right away. :) I don't want to get my hopes up, but yay! Also once the lung is inflated then I'll start hacking up whatever was stuck in there and they'll be able to tell from that if it was actually infected (pneumonia) or not.

Then while my lung is ok and I'm off the blood thinners, the GI guy wants to do some endo-something where they put me under and run a camera down into my stomach to check things out.

So that's what's on the agenda for today. Hopefully nothing will hurt too bad and we'll get some answers. Thanks for your prayers.

Nola is 7 Weeks old

7 Weeks Old

Taken 12/14/10


The girls with Santa on 12/13/10,
Embry wasn't very happy about it.

Well, we figured out what's wrong with me, my OB was right and deserves an award for best Dr ever because she actually gives a rip. After I left my 6 week ob appt and had told her my symptoms, she calls me right away and says that it is very unlikely but it might be a blood clot in my lung and I should have my primary dr look into it. So I called the dr and told him what she said and he replied that my symptoms did not indicate a blood clot whatsoever, but he'd send me in for a blood test which if was negative then it was unlikely I had one and if it was positive, it was probably a false positive. I had the blood test done on Thursday I believe. Yesterday the dr's office called and said it was positive and if I had any significant shortness of breath (which I'd been having for like a week already) that I should go to the ER (where of course they will do absolutely nothing). So they scheduled me for a contrast dye CT scan for 12:30 yesterday. Once it was done I was laying there and I could hear the tech whispering and then leaving and coming back in a bunch, so I figured something was up. Then he came over finally and said that their dr was on the phone with my dr discussing the results and he wanted to talk to me before I left. Then the dr came in and said that my dr would be calling me within the hour to discuss the treatment and I was like 'treatment for what? Or can you not tell me anything either?' (Because when I was talking to the tech before the test I asked if he could tell me anything afterwards and he said no). So the dr goes, 'well your right lung has a blood clot in the lower right quadrant, it has some fluid in it, and it's partially collapsed. Your doctor is going to prescribe some medications and call you with further instructions.' Then the tech made me a copy of the scan on a cd, which I just looked at, and woah, like half of my right lung is completely collapsed...no wonder I can't breath.

The dr wasn't in the office, so I talked to the nurse. The dr prescribed an oral blood thinner and a twice daily injectable blood thinner. I asked the nurse how I was spos to know how to give myself shots, so I waited for the script to get filled then took it to the dr office where the nurse injected me. Holy cow, that hurt. I was like, 'I thought they weren't spos to hurt in your stomach?!' and she said things like insulin don't but since this drug is thick, it hurts like the dickens. Great, and I'm spos to do this to myself twice a day for 10 days?

I went in to see the actual dr this morning and I made it pretty clear that I was really ticked at him. He started out saying that he was so surprised since my symptoms didn't indicate a pulmonary embolism. So I said, 'well I didn't tell you all my symptoms of shortness of breath and rapid heartbeat etc because the second time I came in here for my back pain you guys called me beforehand and asked if my pain had changed at all because if it hadn't then I didn't need to come in again. Implying that I would just come in here for the heck of it. I wouldn't come in unless there was something really wrong so there was no way I was going to call you when my symptoms started changing again.' He didn't really have anything to say about that. I also told him that I had called and talked to the nurse when I was in so much pain and crying on the phone and she told me if it was so bad, I should just go to the ER and I told him what a disaster that was. I asked if I could take percocet with these meds because I can't sleep unless I take it since I can't sleep on either side or toss at all, all my joints are in pain, and he goes, 'where'd you get percocet?' Like I'm buying it on the black market or something. I told him I had some left over from having Nola, some left over from my root canal, and that the oh-so-helpful ER dr gave me a prescription for some too. He wrote me out a prescription for more and since I can't take NSAIDS (like naproxen or ibuprofen for joint pain) while on blood thinners, he told me not to exceed 4000 mgs of tylenol per day (since percocet also has acetaminophen in it). This brought up the fact that I've had fevers over 102 everyday for at least the past week. I asked if this could cause fevers and he said only really low grade fevers so if mine persist, then I should come back in. Um, right, I can tell you're really concerned.

He acted like I might be on the oral blood thinner for a long time, but he's sending me to a hematologist to test me for blood clotting disorders. He said the hematologist would go over the risks of stopping the oral meds in order to run the tests, like if I'm off the meds then I'll suddenly develop more clots. Oh and the meds don't help the current clot to dissolve, supposedly it will do that on it's own, the fluid will be reabsorbed, and the lung will re-inflate. The meds are just so I don't produce anymore clots.

Oooh we also had a nice convo where my mom says, 'how is she supposed to take care of 2 kids like this?' and he goes 'you should be able to take care of them just fine.' So I say, 'umm for 3 weeks I've been telling you how much pain I'm in and now I can barely breath on top of it, it's a little hard to take care of my kids.' I mean really, is he even listening at all?! I get my blood retested on Fri to see if I can stop the injections, then again on Monday. I'm really hoping I can stop them sooner than 10 days.

Oh, Nola's face/chest/back all have that rash which I thought was baby acne. Apparently it's something dermatitis which is a type of eczema and we're supposed to put Eucerin cream on it every night and it should get better.

So in other events, I took the girls to the mom's group Christmas party with the help of my mom. Luckily we were in the first group to see Santa cuz I really wasn't feeling too well and we left right after that. Embry was very excited to see santa while waiting in line, but once she got up to him, she put on her 'sad face' and tried to get away. Nola was perfectly content probably cuz she didn't know what was going on. I got a picture and that's all I cared about, so whatever.

Nola is 6 Weeks Old!

6 Weeks Old

Yep, I'm late, I know. Although this time it's not due to laziness, it's because I've been sick. Went in for the HIDA scan yesterday which was ok except it took 4 hours instead of 2 hours because they needed to prove that I wasn't pregnant. I told them there was no way I could be seeing as I just had my 6 week OB appt on Monday, but they needed a blood test. The lab took forever to process it. Then it took quite a while to find a vein for the IV since I had been fasting they were all collapsed. They had me lay flat on my back on this hard plastic thing for the 1.5 hour test and it was excruciatingly painful. Plus, I was freezing and when I finally got home my fever was 102.4. I've been getting fevers like that everyday for the past week. This morning I called my mom around 7 to see if she could come over to help me since I was feeling so horrible and I ended up puking and taking quite a few percocet to make it through the day. The problem with taking percocet when I don't have anyone here to help me is that it makes me so tired I have to go to bed. So I spent half the day sleeping and half the day sitting downstairs feeding Nola and pumping. Oh, bonus is that I have to pump and dump until Saturday because of the radiation they put in my IV for the HIDA scan. I just want to know what's wrong with me and get it fixed. I'm very scared that they're just going to say something like, 'oh it's arthritis, you just have to deal with it.' I can't possibly imagine living the rest of my life like this.

So, onto Nola. She's doing good. She's not fighting about taking the bottle or drinking formula which is a relief since we have no other options for a few days. She has developed quite the case of baby acne, but it probably didn't help that we didn't bathe her for like 2 weeks since I can't do it by myself with 2 kids while I'm sick. She seems more interested in her bouncer and her swing and particularly likes the vibrating feature on the bouncer, but then it broke. We replaced it with one from craigslist for $15.

Nola is 5 Weeks Old!

5 Weeks old
Taken 12/1/10

Oy, this week has been one for the books. There is something wrong with me. First it was just my back, then it was only the right side of my back and right shoulder with something weird going all spazzy when I ate. Then since I could only sleep on my left side, that whole side ended up getting very sore from arthritis. The dr sent me in for an ultrasound of my gallbladder which looked totally normal and now is trying to get me in for a HIDA scan which checks the functionality of the gallbladder instead of just looking for stones and infection. Problem is, we have to wait for the insurance to authorize it and in the meantime, I'm in pain. Lots of pain. I've tried ice, I've tried heat, I've tried stretching, I've tried massage...anything is just a temporary fix, if a fix at all. Yesterday out of desperation, I went to the ER. The dr there pretty much sucked. He said he didn't think it was my gallbladder so he wouldn't do the HIDA scan and he thought it was muscular. Basically they did blood work and a urinalysis (which just showed my potassium and sodium are low) and sent me home. It was rather infuriating.

I can't believe Nola is over a month old already. I swear, I feel like I just got home from the hospital with her. Nola seems to be sleeping slightly better and we're trying out a new plan. Tony gets up with her once during the night to feed her formula because I'm thinking she might sleep longer that way. Last night was the first night trying it out and it went fine, so we'll see if my plan has any merit. Either way, I'll be getting more sleep because I'll be skipping a feeding during the night and that alone is a huge blessing. Weird thing is that since having Nola, Embry has been waking up screaming at night, like she's having a nightmare. She probably gets that from me because I have nightmares all the time...poor thing.

The first month or so that Nola was home, she was pretty easy going. She hardly ever cried and just kinda whimpered when she needed something. I thought maybe she'd be the laid-back baby that Embry wasn't...I was wrong. She's started crying a TON over the last week or so. It seems that the only way to keep her calm (and sometimes that doesn't even work) is to either feed her or hold her. Oh, but a good thing is that she enjoys riding in the car most of the time. So the crying thing has not helped my daytime sleeping ability. Today was the first time in a week that I've gotten a nap, and boy was it heavenly!

Ha, I almost forgot, Nola had her first Thanksgiving! It was lots of fun besides the fact that I was upstairs half the time trying to fix my back. Anyhow, Tony's mom, Allison, Alex, and his dad came over as well as my parents, Donny, Oasis, and Maisie. The food was delicious (thanks to Tony, his mom, and my mom...cuz all I made was the monkey bread) and we got some really cute pictures of the family outside. I also got a picture that I have envisioned for a while...our girls with both sets of grandparents! :) Then that night Tony's mom, Allison, and I went over to our friend's house to play games which was hysterically fun, I love games and friends. The day after Thanksgiving Allison and I went to do a bit of shopping and then Saturday Allison got the flu that Embry had and so did my mom. Then Donny and Oasis also got it as well as tony's mom. Apparently it's a very strong strain. Saturday before Tony's family left we took the girls with Alex and Doro to the desert museum which was really fun and I can't wait to go back!