(Be prepared - this is quite a long one!!!)
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Monday (like a week ago) - normal
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Tuesday - pretty normal. I had my final appointment with my physical therapist. My pelvis was only slightly off kilter and since I'd been pain free for a week, she didn't try to correct it. Just massaged the surrounding muscles and said to come back if I throw it out again.
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That night, I didn't feel bad, but wasn't hungry for dinner and had some gastro-intestinal problems during the night. I felt a little short of breath during the night too, but thought it was probably just the baby's position. To say the least, it wasn't a good night sleep though.
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Wednesday - OUCH! Every breath I took hurt my back. I've had something like this before - it felt like a back spasm but was worse at times, like so bad I couldn't catch my breath. I lasted at work until about lunchtime and then had to head home. I couldn't even talk to anyone on the phone about what was going on because I would start crying and that was incredibly painful. I got home and checked my temp - 101.4. Really? That's strange. I emailed Brent a script so that he could call my nurse since I would have cried my way through the conversation. They decided I should come in since I had the high fever.
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Long story short, I was dehydrated so they sent me to the hospital to get fluids and have some other tests. An ultrasound showed I have gall stones, which could have led to some of the back pain, but not the fever. They kept me overnight, still trying to figure out the fever.
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Thursday - The back pain was completely gone when I woke up in the hospital, maybe a little achy, but no big deal. Fever had stayed below 100 pretty much the entire time I was at the hospital. So they let me go home around lunchtime. I pretty much kicked my heels back the rest of the day. Hunter was pretty thrilled when mommy came with daddy to pick him up from school. Although he did ask where Mema was (she came in Wednesday afternoon once we knew we wouldn't get back in time to pick Hunter up from school and stayed the night to help out - thank you Mema). That night, I ran a slight fever right before bed but woke during the night when it broke (aka, I was drenched in sweat).
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Friday - Hunter played right into my hands that morning and woke up early at 6, so I was able to get him up and take him to school and go right back to sleep when I got back home. Had the phone not rang around 8:45, I probably would have slept all day. Instead, I got up and went into the office. I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't have gone in had my work baby shower not been scheduled for that afternoon. But I felt okay - just tired really. No fever all morning.
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After I got into the office, I got a slight headache - enough pain to go get some tylenol out of the first aid bank at work. But my shower was so nice - Anne and Shannon made all sorts of treats and a very cool diaper cake (will post pics soon). I work with a great group of people, there is no doubt about that. There were gifts and smiles and words of encouragement. Wonderful people - I wouldn't change a thing about my job or the people I work with. Its a great feeling.
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The headache was progressively getting worse though. So I headed home after the shower and onto the couch with my miracle drug, tylenol 3. Not so miraculous this time. Didn't do much for me and if anything, the headache was getting worse not better. By 8:00, it was officially the worst headache of my life and I headed to bed around 8:30 with two tylenol PM hoping I could sleep it off. I only had a slight temp again but did notice I had chills and felt cold, which I don't think had happened my entire pregnancy....less than 2 hours later, I woke up groggy and hot - temp had shot up to 101.4. I called the after hours number for my doctor immediately and the on-call doctor (Swaim) asked me to come to the hospital.
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We had to wait for Mema to arrive since we didn't want to wake Hunter up and didn't feel it was enough of an emergency to wake one of the neighbors to come stay with him until she could get there. Its so nice to have Mema an hour and 15 minutes away for situations just like this. Once again, thank you Mema!!
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Saturday - So we arrived at the hospital, in labor and delivery (scary), around 12:30 am. More bloodwork, which again showed nothing - if anything my white blood cell count was even more normal than it was on Wednesday. (As Dr Swaim said "Boring.") Now they started thinking outside the box a little though. They swabbed me for the flu (negative, although I am still taking Tamiflu), did some test on my pancreatic fluid (?), and I really don't know what else. Brent and I didn't sleep much in that first room. Oh, and they gave me straight codeine hoping to help with the headache but all it did was make me vomit a couple hours later, which also helped my temp break briefly but it came right back. Oh well.
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Saturday morning, I sent Brent home so that he could sleep and they moved me to this room. (BTW, I'm writing all this in the hospital on my blackberry so that I can email it to myself and copy/paste to the blog. Lots of spare time when you're in the hospital this long. And I just heard a brand new baby come into the world next door - that cry is unmistakable. So fresh and new - yes, those are tears in my eyes.) Dr Miller came on shift right before I moved rooms. One thing she mentioned that no one had before was meningitis. She lifted my head off the pillow to see if I would allow my chin to go to my chest, which I did but with a lot of effort because it was really pulling my neck muscles in a way they didn't want to be pulled.
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Saturday wears on and I'm feeling pretty miserable. Nothing is helping the headache or bringing my fever down. I think my temp stayed between 100.5 and 102.1 all day long. Dr Miller decided to bring in a neurologist just in case he thought of something new. But when he did the lift the neck thing, my neck was definitely more stiff - could be the miserable pillows I hardly slept a wink on? He said my symptoms do indicate a possible case of viral meningitis. He actually said to me "you don't have bacterial meningitis because if you did, you'd be dead by now." I'm serious. He really said that. Don't get me wrong though - Dr Lovett was actually very good and I thanked him for giving me the good news first. The bad news was that he needed to do a spinal tap to see if I have viral meningitis, and if I do have it, I just have to let it run its course. Some might think "why bother if they still can't do anything for you?" Knowing a diagnosis at this point was all anyone cared about, especially me.
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So, he said it would be like an epidural - ok, no problem, that was a breeze when I had one with Hunter's delivery. He did warn me that if he couldn't get into the space, he would have to get an anesthesiologist to help. Yes, he needed help. I can't see my back very well, but I think I see 4 marks where he was trying to get in, and one step above and not even vertically in the same line, one single mark where the anesthesiologist (Dr Walters - I'm remembering that name for when I come back for real labor and need that epi!) succeeded. I thanked Dr Lovett for making me forget about my headache for awhile and thanked my nurse, Klarissa, for holding my arms down while he was poking around back there so that I couldn't backhand him. Preliminary results were inconclusive. Still no answers as I drifted to sleep Saturday night.
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Sunday - Wow, there's a lot of sweat on my sheets and in my hair, its everywhere! My temp is what?? 96.5? Yes, but there's still a headache but it feels a little better - maybe a 3. That 3 slowly drifts down to a 1 by afternoon and I feel well enough to accept Brent's offer to bring my baby boy up to my room. By the time they get there, I've showered and changed into my own gown and I don't even feel my headache. I think I feel normal!!
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When Hunter walked in my room, I should have prepared myself better. I didn't realize just how much I had missed him. I burst into tears and scared him or at least put him in his shell. Thankfully, he let me finish squeezing him hard before running back to the safety of Mema's arms. It was a much needed visit and he warmed up to the situation fairly quickly. I'm sure it was very strange to see mommy in this state, even though I felt pretty normal, I probably looked pretty rough and this hospital place is very strange! Dr Lovett came by while they were here and pretty much had no new news. The 24 hour results on the spinal culture weren't showing anything either, but maybe there could be something from the 48 hour check. Just don't make me stay until that 48 hour check pleeeease.
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I felt great the rest of the day and wanted to go home even more badly. But they still wanted to keep me overnight. Fine, but just note on that piece of paper that I want Dr Samuels to come by ASAP Monday morning to sign my discharge papers.
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Monday - Dr Samuels came by around 8:30 and got my discharge papers ready to go. They said they would call me with the results and they kept me on the tamiflu because maybe that is what made my fever break and stay away, even though the flu test was negative? I'll do whatever they say as long as they'll let me go home.
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And here it is Monday night, and I finally got on the computer so that I could copy/paste and read through this one more time and make sure I didn't mistype anything on my blackberry. Feeling good still - still a very low temperature (I still don't think it's gone back up to 98 yet), incredibly tired (although I got a very good nap in earlier), and a slight headache (but a totally different kind of ache than Friday and Saturday). Being home is a wonderful feeling. I missed my family...
