Day 3

Well it's me again. I'm out in the hallway outside my hospital room typing an update while my arm is hooked up to an IV giving me fluids, while Will is inside our room laying on my hospital bed and eating my lunch that I was supposed to be able to eat. Uhhhh yeah I think there is something dreadfully wrong with this picture.

They took my food away again, and this time my water too. I was pretty bummed about that. They took my blood again this morning and my lypaise (sp?) levels were up to 2,000. Yesterday they were at 800. (those are the enzymes in the pancreas).

I was pretty surprised to hear that because I am feeling pretty good. I woke up thinking that we would get to go home today.

So after they took my food and water away, they brought me 2 huge things of this yucky stuff to drink for a CT scan that they wanted to do on my pancreas and gall bladder. It lights up my intestines for the scan.

So they did the CT scan this morning, and my pancreas looked great. No inflamation at all. But they thought that they saw some "sludge" in my gall bladder.

Then they hooked me up to an IV for fluids, and gave me a Lisex pill that is supposed to get any access fluid off my body (makes you pee like nonstop). Then the doctor came in and told me NOT to pee because they needed my bladder full for the ultrasound.

So I was a bit annoyed that they gave me a flushing pill and then told me not to pee. Grr.

So then about an hour later, they sent in an ultrasound tech and they did an ultrasound on my belly to check my pancreas, gall bladder, and uterus. They wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything lingering in the uterus after the csection. It looked great. And the pancreas looked great too. The gall bladder looked great, except for they did see some sludge in there.

You are probably just as confused as we were. Will went and looked up all this stuff on the Wikopedia to understand more of what all the doctors were talking about.

So basically, when you eat food your pancreas secretes two things - enzymes and insulin. Your liver also secretes bile that then goes into your gall bladder and breaks down. Together they meet at a duct that enters your intestines and all these things together work to break down your food. They think that there is some "sludge" coming from my gall bladder that is blocking the entry into the intestines, and therefore that is why my pancreas is secreting extra amounts of the enzyme.

They told us that this is sometimes a common thing for women who go through pregnancy because there is a linkage between estrogen levels and it having an effect on the gall bladder, etc.

I have still been a little bit shocked by everything just because I have never had any major health problems in my life. I have always been healthy, the only bones I've ever broken were a toe, the only hospital stays I've had were for my csections. So it's really weird to be here in the hospital and come into the ER for one thing (preclampsia) and then be here 3 and 1/2 days later and now it's an issue with my gall bladder.

Blah.

So the internal medicine doctor just came down to talk to us and told us that he would have the a surgeon look at all my charts and scans and give us his opinion as well to see if it would be necessary to have my gall bladder taken out.

When he said that, I was of course resistant to that idea because I tend to gravitate towards natural remedies first because surgeries and such.

A half hour passed...and now one of my OB's just came down to talk to us and told us that she talked to the surgeon. He said since I am no longer feeling any pain in my abdomen, and because there were no stones (just "sludge") that there is no reason to take the gall bladder out (yay!).

They are now allowing me to drink a liquid diet for the next 24 hours, and then they will prick me again to get a blood draw to check my enzyme levels. If things are still looking okay, then I will get to eat a lowfat diet and then go from there.

I'm not exactly sure what is going to happen from here. I don't know if they are going to send us home, or keep me here for observation for the next day or so.

I'm thinking that the reason my pain has gone away is because they have basically been starving me, so there has been no food to digest really (other than pea soup, applesauce, and pudding which tasted like heaven...). I think once I go back to eating food again, I might have the same stomach issues that I had before. Who knows.

Two more babies were born this morning on our floor here in the maternity ward. I didn't hear it, but Will did. Apparently they were screamers (both moms and babies).

Well, Will is officially sick of eating fast food and gets pretty excited when they offer him my food tray that they originally thought I was going to get to eat and then take it away from me. Taylor is a champ and such a good baby, just hanging out. He hardly ever cries unless he's hungry. When he's awake he just looks around and is very observant.

We still haven't gotten much sleep due to lots of vital checks, exams, blood draws, nurse interuptions, Taylor feedings, etc. through the night. We are hoping to get a nap in this afternoon.

I got to take a shower last night and it felt soooo good.

Anyway. That is it. Later.