Four days in the hospital

So I guess, before I forget, I should maybe mention that last week I spent four days in the hospital.  The great news is that I am now feeling perfectly fine, and that during the whole ordeal Riblet was fine the entire time.  Now, with that out of the way, here it is in ridiculous detail:

Last Monday night, after Nate went to bed I went to a local urgent care clinic.  All weekend, starting with the Friday before, I had this pain in my upper back/lower shoulder region.  It initially felt like I had pulled a muscle, but then each day the pain got worse, then started radiating down my midback and around to my left ribcage.  By Monday I was in serious pain and was having difficulty breathing.  Every time I took a breath it felt like I was being stabbed in the back with a knife.

Nate tends to freak out if I am away or if I leave at night to go somehwere, so I decided to wait until 7:30pm, after he had gone to bed, to head to the urgent care.  I figured they were just going to tell me it was a pulled muscle, but I also wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to die or something in the middle of the night.

I saw the doctor at the urgent care clinic, and he told me that I needed to go straight to the ER because my symptoms sounded to him like a blood clot, and the ER would be the best place to have the tests done to rule that out.  I was very surprised to hear that, but after calling Matt and letting him know of my new destination, I headed to the ER.

Thankfully the urgent care doctor had called the ER to let them know I was on my way, so I didn’t have to wait very long to see a doctor.  The ER doctor agreed that they first had to rule out a blood clot.  She told me to do this they would need to do a CAT Scan on my chest.  As soon as she said that all I could think about was Riblet and all that radiation I was about to receive.  I think a look of panic crossed my face because she told me that they would cover my belly, but that yes, the baby would get some radiation.  She said radiation was bad, but so was a blood clot, and having a blood clot kill me would be much worse for the baby than the radiation.  I said OK, then just sat and worried about it.

The pain I was having in my back was making it difficult for me to breathe, but laying down at all made the pain and breathing difficulty much, much worse.  So an hour or so passed (well, I really have no idea…I imagine being in the ER is a lot like being in Vegas, where you have no idea what time it really is or what’s happening in the real world….oh, but you don’t get to drink or gamble.  And you get to spend all your time on a stretcher that they purposefully make terribly uncomfortable so you will think twice about ever getting sick and coming back to the ER.  So, really, maybe not a whole lot like Vegas after all…), and a technician came to take me to get the CAT Scan.  He rolled me in, and then had me sit on the tiny table that would take me through the machine.  I sat on the table, but as soon as he told me to lie down, I freaked out.  Because I had to lay flat on my back I felt like I was suffocating, and all I could think about was poor Riblet who was about to get blasted with radiation.  So I laid there trying to be perfectly still, praying to God to please, pleaseprotect Riblet, all the while sobbing uncontrollably and feeling like I was going to die at any moment from lack of air.  The poor old man who was unlucky enough to get to put me through the CAT Scan had no idea what to make of my meltdown.  He just kept telling me it was going to be OK and that I had to be still.  Thankfully the test only lasted a few minutes and I was able to sit up, but then I had to get a well-meaning lecture about how hyperventilating was bad for the baby, that the baby needed oxygen.  Yes sir, the baby needs oxygen, got it.

The CAT Scan came back showing no blood clots, but the doctor did say that there was a spot of some sort on my left lung, which they thought might be pneumonia (despite the fact that I had no fever and had not been coughing at all).  She said that they couldn’t 100%  rule out that I didn’t have a blood clot since the CAT Scan didn’t show the very sides of lungs, so she had a Doppler done on both of my legs to make sure there weren’t any clots there that were making their way to my heart.  Thankfully that too showed no clots. 

So after being there since about 8:00 on Monday night, I was released at 4:30 on Tuesday morning and told to follow up with my doctor when his office opened.  At 9:30 I was in my OB’s office, feeling exactly the same (read: horrible) as I had the previous night.  He told me that, especially because of the baby, he wanted me to see a pulmonologist to check on my breathing situation.  He said the best way to see a pulmonologist immediately was to have me admitted to the hospital.  He offices in the hospital, so roughly 5 minutes later his nurse walked Nate and me over to the Labor and Delivery ward.  The nurses in the hospital worked to get me all changed and hooked up to monitors, and all the while Nate had a blast checking out the giant room, flipping through the channels on the TV, and being fawned over by the nurses who brought him apple juice and crackers.  He only got to have his fun for a little bit, however, because luckily my mother-in-law was able to come up to the hospital immediately to pick up Nate.  (So, so glad we moved to Dallas and live near our great family, who all help us out in so many ways!) 

Right after my mother-in-law showed up and was looking after Nate the pulmonologist arrived.  He said that he had checked out my CAT Scan from the ER and he did not see any spot like they had seen.  He said that it was probably just pleurisy, and the pain of that was causing me to take very shallow breaths, making it hard for me to breathe.  Go home and it will get better, he said.  Great!  Nothing serious and I was about to go home.  The nurses still wanted to check up on Riblet, to make sure he was OK, plus they gave me some pain medicine, so Patti and Nate went ahead and left, and I stayed behind.  Just for a few hours, I thought.

This is where things kind of start to run together, but it went something like this: My OB doctor came in Tuesday afternoon, asked if I was feeling better, and I said “No”.  He said he was not sending me home until I had turned the corner and was not still having difficulty breathing.  He sent me to a perinatologist to have a closer look at Riblet, to make sure that was still doing OK.  Everything was fine with Riblet, but that doctor said that he had never heard of a pregnant woman getting pleurisy in the summer, and he thought it had to be something else.

Spent Tuesday night in the hospital.  (Spending time in a quiet, kid-free, chore-free hospital where all you are expected to do is sleep, read, and watch crappy TV sounds like a great idea…until you do it for a few days.  Then misery sets in.)

Wednesday: They had done some bloodwork the day before which showed my white blood cells where slightly elevated, indicating a possible infection of some kind, so they started me on oral steroids and continued the pain medication.  These things were not helping.  The pain in my back started spreading again so that now it was concentrated mainly on the very side of my left lung.  The pulmonologist came in again and tells me that nothing is wrong with my lungs and that I probably just have pleurisy.

Spent Wednesday night in the hospital.

Thursday: My OB orders an EKG and an echocardiogram of my heart.  The cardiologist says that I have some inflammation around my heart and lungs.  This inflammation is causing the incredible stabbing pains I feel every time I take a breath.  He says I most likely contacted some sort of viral infection, which then caused the inflammation.  I had been taking an oral steroid, but he orders an IV steroid to get more of the medicine into me quicker.  Within a few hours of getting the IV steroid I start feeling much, much better.  The pulmonologist comes in again, seems shocked that I’m still there, then impatiently tells me that I have pleurisy and all I need to do is go home and wait it out.  I just nod my head, say “Thank you, doctor,” then thank my lucky stars my OB was the one in charge, that he helped to find the inflammation, and that he was able to help get me the right medicine so that I was no longer in excruciating pain.

Friday: Feeling practically normal now.  Thank God.  The cardiologist comes in and says that the inflammation was probably more around my lungs than my heart, and that I should probably have no long term side effects because of all of this.  Get to see my friend the pulmonologist once more, who seems to sigh and roll his eyes at the very sight of me still in that hospital bed, but who then perks up when I tell him how great I’m feeling.  He tells me again that all I really had was pleurisy, then says how glad he is that I’m feeling better.  “Yes, I am feeling better.  Thank you for all your help, doctor.”  I smile like a good patient, and he is gone.

Finally, FINALLY!, I am released from the hospital about 1:00 on Friday afternoon.  I was so done with that place, but I was happy that I was feeling so much better.  I couldn’t believe I was there for four days, but I also can’t imagine if the pulmonologist had had his way and I had been sent home immediately.  I’m so glad my OB stuck it out and kept looking for the problem, because as soon as they figured it out and got me the right medication I started feeling better almost instantly.

And how did Matt and Nate do while I was away?  Absolutely wonderful.  I was so, so nervous about what Nate’s reaction was going to be when he had to leave the hospital without me, and how he was going to do each night when I wasn’t there to put him to bed, but he completely surprised me.  For a kid who only ever wanted me to put him to bed, who never wanted me to leave the house if he wasn’t going with me, and who pretty much wanted only me to do every single thing for him, he did awesome.  I don’t even really think he missed me all that much…he and Daddy were having too much fun.  And my sweet, wonderful husband took four days off work, took over everything and did an amazing job. 

So anyway, it was a long, crazy four days, but thankfully I am now feeling perfectly fine.