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Claire is back home again. It turns out that she had pneumonia. Her doctor wanted to keep her another night but decided that she could leave in the early evening, after one more dose of I.V. antibiotics. Claire is still taking a bunch of medicines but she is doing much better and was even fighting with Katie right after arriving home.

Katie was upset about being away from Claire, the baby and me for so long. She was with her older brother, William, Friday morning. William told me that Katie had left the house by herself because she got scared when he was upstairs in the bathroom. She went to a neighbor’s house and William had to search to find her. When he found her she was crying and saying, “I was so scared.” She was so upset that she let him carry her home and normally she would smack him if he tried to pick her up.

When I got home I tried to talk to Katie about what had happened and let her know that she wasn’t in trouble. Katie refuses to talk about it and acts like nothing happened. I feel terrible that she thought that she had been left alone in the house. She seems happy to have everything back to normal, although she denies having missed her sister.

I caught up on my sleep this weekend and that has really helped.

Hospital

The girls had their surgeries on Friday. This picture is the one that Claire did when we arrived home from the hospital.

Claire was very nervous and upset when we arrived at the hospital. Katie was not too happy either but I don’t think that she completely understood what was going on. When they took us back to get vitals and gowns, Claire started crying and wanted to be on my lap. Katie whispered in my ear, “Claire first.” So the nurse gave Claire the pre-op sedative after she was gowned and ready. Shortly after drinking the medication, Claire was relaxed and resting in a bed. Not only was her anxiety completely gone, but she also had a serious case of the giggles. Then she was taken to the O.R. and Katie drank her medicine. It seemed to hit Katie more quickly than Claire and I was surprised to see her get a goofy look on her face right before she had seemingly unstoppable urge to get up and do a little dance. She was swinging her butt as if trying to do “the twist.” It was especially funny when you factor in the hospital gown that doesn’t really close in the back. I had to coax her back onto my lap before she injured herself. I then tucked her into her bed and spent the next 20 minutes trying to keep her there anyway I could, short of actually sitting on her. She reminded me a lot of Drew Barrymore in ‘Never Been Kissed’ when she accidentally ate the hash brownies.

Katie was very relaxed (obviously) but as soon as the nurses came to get her she became upset that I couldn’t go with her. She cried a little but was drugged enough that the nurses were able to distract her pretty easily.

Soon after Katie went back the nurse came to take us to the room that Claire was in. They had already moved her out of recovery into her regular room. Claire was sitting up in bed with several nurses getting her settled in. She was awake and looked great. She told me that her throat was just a little sore. The anesthesiologist had told me prior to the procedure that she likes to give quite a bit of pain medication in recovery, which seemed to have worked out well for Claire. Claire didn’t even seem bothered that she was hooked up to an I.V.

I sat with Claire and was talking to her when a nurse came in and asked if it would be ok to have them in separate rooms. They were not sure that they could fit two beds in the room and all the rooms were private. Claire then said that Katie could share her bed because they wanted to be together. So that was to be the first time the hospital had two post-surgical patients share a bed.

By that time I was getting worried about Katie. It was taking longer for her to get done. One of the nurses went to call about her and returned to the room saying that Katie was fine and awake but was very upset and crying. Claire looked concerned and said, “Mommy, you should go to Katie.” I was shocked that a six year-old could have such empathy for her little sister. I was walking down the hall and saw Katie’s bed at the end of the hallway. She was screaming for me and her face was covered in tears. One of the nurses was nice enough to hold the baby while I tried to calm Katie. She kept crying and screaming that her throat hurt. She had to have her pain medication right away and was soon calm and resting in bed with her sister.

Claire was feeling well enough to go for a walk down the hall, pushing her I.V. pole with one hand and clutching the rear of her gown, trying to avoid mooning everyone. I think Claire remembered seeing me walk to the bathroom in a hospital gown recently when her and Katie both cracked up laughing with Katie saying, “I can see Mommy’s butt!”

In a short time they both had the call light figured out and were pushing the button to place their orders as if they were in a drive-thru. I heard the nurse through the speaker asking, “Can I help you with something?” To which Katie responded, “We would like some ice cream. Claire wants strawberry and I want chocolate.” Fortunately the nurses thought that they were cute and didn’t seem too irritated by all the calls. Claire rewarded them with some of her drawings that she worked on while we were there.

They are home now and very tired. Katie has continued to have more pain than Claire and still needs pain medication on a regular basis. She woke up coughing and crying very early this morning. It seems that they caught colds on top of everything else and once again, it is worse for Katie. She has been running a fever and is just miserable.

Claire’s biggest complaint is that she’s hungry and she wants regular food. It has proven a challenge to keep them full on the soft diet. They are both sick of Popsicles and ice cream. The only thing that Katie really wants today is “hobstable soup” which translates to hospital soup. (chicken broth)

Hopefully Katie will be feeling better in the morning. I would rather be breaking up the fights than worrying about kids that are too sick to fight.

Too Much Drama

I am going to apologize in advance for the length of this post. There is really no way to describe how horrible it is to think that you might die after just having a new baby. I am hoping that maybe someone in the same situation will do a Google search for some of the symptoms listed here and get to the hospital right away.



Last Thursday morning, my daughter Katie was distressed to find that I was not in the house. Later she said, “I thought somebody stoled you. Because I missed you.”

I was not planning on having to leave the night of July 4th. I had just finished feeding the baby and went outside to see the remainder of the firework display when I noticed that my heart felt like it was beating too slowly and skipping beats. I had felt that a little bit the night before but ignored it and it went away a little later. This time I was prepared to ignore it as well but then I started to notice that I was also short of breath.

It was about then that I started to become concerned since I also had a lot of swelling in my legs and ankles. I had called my O.B.’s office two days prior to talk to them about the extreme swelling that had developed after the baby was born. The nurse talked to the doctor, called me back and said it was normal and not to worry. I actually suspected that it was beyond normal but was happy enough to just put it out of my mind. After all, it’s a symptom of postpartum cardiomyopathy and I certainly did not want that.

So the shortness of breath along with the edema and bradycardia (heart rate under 60) was something that I could not ignore. I called the answering service for my O.B. and was waiting for a call back and then decided that waiting was not really the best plan. I packed up the diaper bag and got ready to go to the E.R. Just as I was ready to leave, the on-call doctor called back and suggested that an EKG might be a good idea.

Twenty minutes later the triage nurse was evaluating me. After reviewing my vital signs and questioning me about my symptoms, she told me I was next. The waiting room was not completely full but full enough that I thought it might be a while. The emergency room is not a place where you want to be a priority. That usually means you are pretty sick.

I was taken into a room, instructed to put on the gown and the nurse immediately drew blood, hooked me up to an EKG and an I.V. line. My heart rate was staying between 38 and 43 beats per minute and I was not feeling good. They decided to move me to a room close to the desk with constant cardiac monitoring.

Next stop was for a chest film. The chest film showed evidence of pulmonary edema, which means that there was fluid in my lungs. The doctor was discussing this as well as some of the lab results and explained that now we had to check for a pulmonary embolism. Pregnancy and birth raise your risk of clots so it had to be ruled out. Pulmonary embolism is a very bad thing to have that is commonly fatal. The next test was a chest CT with contrast dye.

They informed me that I would not be walking for that one. I was now in the gurney hooked up to a portable monitor with an attached defibrillator. This was a little nerve-wracking, along with the fact that I was scared that is was an embolism.

I made the journey to radiology without any excitement. I had a CT scan years ago but things have changed. I had not been subjected to the contrast agent with my previous CT but I knew I did not like the idea of being injected with it. In rare cases people can have serious allergic reactions and I had enough problems without that.

The tech came in and told me I was getting the test dose and that it would probably burn a little. It was worse than a little burning but was over with quickly. Then he was back saying that it was time for the full dose and that I probably wouldn’t like it. It felt like it had a density much greater than regular liquids, more like hot molten metal. It is quite painful, but the tech had warned me that the I.V. placed in my hand would make it worse than if it had been in my arm. Immediately there was a hot feeling all over my body and a strange taste in my mouth. This was in addition to fact that I was now flat on my back and it had become very difficult to breath in that position.

The CT was read fairly quickly. Evidently they have a deal where it is sent to radiologists in Australia to read so that the local radiologists can sleep through the night. My results were negative for pulmonary embolism, which was a huge relief. The problem was that they still were not exactly sure of what was wrong.

The doctor ordered some more lab work and we waited. The results for a test called BNP were back quickly and that showed an elevated level. Normal range is less than 100 and mine was 200. The doctor consulted with the O.B. on call as well as the cardiologist and decided to admit me for constant monitoring with more tests ordered during the day. The working diagnosis was congestive heart failure secondary to postpartum cardiomyopathy. Scary stuff.

The good thing was that they decided to give me some drugs to get rid of some of the fluid. I was given I.V. Lasix, which is a strong diuretic. Within 30 minutes a lot of the fluid was gone out of my legs and my lungs. I started to feel better immediately.

I was moved to a postpartum room (so I could keep the baby with me) and hooked up by the telemetry nurse. I had just had enough time to sleep for 10 minutes when they brought in breakfast. Then the cardiologist was in, followed by nurse after nurse, lab techs, etc. Then they decided to move me again due to trouble with monitoring, this time to a unit called “Progressive”. That is the equivalent of being banished to old people land. That unit is filled with really sick people, all wearing oxygen masks. I was happy to not be hooked up to that. My blood pressure was higher than it had ever been and was compensating for my low heart rate. The result was that I still had normal perfusion with plenty of O2 reaching my tissues.

I spent the next few hours getting an echocardiogram and a Doppler of my legs to rule out clots. Everything was looking normal. It was then decided that I did not have cardiomyopathy at all. I was diagnosed with fluid overload, which means that the large amounts of I.V. fluid that I had been given during labor along with the increased blood volume from pregnancy was more than my body could tolerate. That explained the symptoms that I was having with the edema, shortness of breath, etc.

My doctor finally came in around noon. The first words out of her mouth were, “I’m so sorry.” When I called about the edema originally, she thought it was nothing, because that is usually the case. I was at fault for being too willing to believe that it was nothing.

I was released with a little EKG monitor that I have to use for 30 days and instructions to check my weight and blood pressure daily. I am also on a low sodium diet, which is just as tasty as it sounds. I have continued to have some of the same symptoms, such as the bradycardia, but in general I feel better. I was not given a diuretic at discharge but hope to start one tomorrow when I see my doctor again. I think maybe then I will be able to get back to normal more quickly.