Wednesday, March 31, 2010

National Doctor's Day

My family is known for needing to go to the ER on holidays. It could be Christmas or Memorial Day, you name the holiday and someone is at the hospital. I looked up what holiday yesterday could have been and was not at all surprised to find that it was National Doctor's Day. How did our family celebrate? By making sure at least 4 of us were at the hospital throughout the day.

Karen had a scheduled surgery yesterday, but she still counts. She's doing fabulous and everything went even better than we could have hoped. I talked to her last night and her pain was minimal, she was able to eat, and she should be going home today.

Around 2 pm my mom called to tell me that my grandma Warehime had been admitted for severe stomach pain. She's been fighting off a bladder infection and it looks like she needs another round of antibiotics and some medicine to help get her sodium levels up. I haven't heard much on her but I know she's where she should be and hopefully in a lot less pain.

I've been having minor contractions on and off for awhile now, nothing worth tracking, they just end up annoying me. What started bothering me was the fact that every time I had one my chest felt tight and I had trouble breathing. I finally called my OBGYN and the nurse said, "That is not something I've heard before, go to Labor and Delivery to get checked." I asked if she thought it was something I needed to do immediately or if I could wait for just a bit for my husband to get home to watch my 2 year old. She didn't seem happy that I wanted to wait but she thought I'd be okay. Not only had Brenden just laid down for a nap but I'm pretty sure trying to explain to him that he needed to sit down and be quiet while we were at the hospital would have been like talking to a wall.

The first thing they always do is strap on the monitors to check the baby's heartbeat and contractions. Lauren was doing just fine, kicking and wiggling and driving me crazy because OH MY GOODNESS my belly is sore. I was having random contractions, which I knew, but that wasn't what caught the nurse's attention. My pulse, which started at about 80 bpm, which is normal, kept jumping up to 125-130 bpm. Every time that would happen I would get dizzy, my arms would tingle, and I'd start breathing hard.

The main concern was if Lauren and I were getting enough oxygen and they ran all the tests to check for that. I had an Arterial Blood Gas, which checked the oxygen in my blood. They stick a needle deep in your wrist to get blood from an artery and when she first did it I thought she was telling me it should hurt pretty bad just so I would be happily surprised when it wasn't that bad at all. For about 15 seconds I was fine...then out of nowhere my entire arm started throbbing. Seriously, that hurt.

The other 2 tests didn't hurt at all, thank goodness. They did an ultrasound of the veins in my legs to make sure I didn't have a blood clot and an EKG to make sure my heart was fine. Everything came back totally normal so they sent me home. It looks like my body is just stressed. The nurse thinks I'll be in labor sooner rather than later, but we'll see if she's right. I've heard that before.

My brother called us about 9 pm to let us know that he was taking my mom to the ER. She was having chest pains and trouble breathing, which is never good. I know it had to be pretty bad because my mom is not a fan of going to the hospital for herself at all. Thankfully she wasn't there for very long and it turns out that she has an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis, which is what my brother had last week. It's not a fun diagnosis but it's better than what it could have been.

All in all, a long day. Someday we'll all be healthy again, and then it will be time for the next holiday.


No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...