Update from Jenni

Hi Everyone. It's Jenni. This is the first time I've been on a computer in the past 2 and 1/2 days. They finally let me up and walk around, and Will has told me that he wrote a couple of posts on our blogs and I finally just now read them and what he told you all.

They took me off of the magnesium sulfate around noon today. It made me feel like a wet noodle. I was sluring my speech and dizzy, and my arms and legs felt like they weighed a zillion pounds to raise. So once they finally took me off of it, the drousy-drugged feeling wore off after a couple of hours and I have felt better to actually get out of bed and walk around a bit.

So I guess the latest update is that I finally got to eat some food around 2pm today. It was the first time I'd eaten anything in about 48 hours. They wanted to see how my stomach and pancreas handled it. They have been afraid that I have pancreatis (sp?). However, when they feel around I no longer have pain and the ultrasound on my organs showed they were not inflamed. So the fact that my pancreas is still secreting high amounts of an enzyme that it's not supposed to be is bizzare.

I have to say that bland vanilla low-carb pudding and pea & mint soup never tasted so good in my life. (Yes you read that right - pea and mint soup). I don't even like cranberry juice and that tasted like heaven to me.

They also took me off of my IV fluids and put me on a diarhetic pill that helps to get the rest of the water off of my body. I had to pee like every 15 minutes. But at the same time, I have had to keep drinking buckets of water so that I can keep up my milk supply. I met with the lactation specialist this evening, and she told me that a woman can actually go 2 weeks without food and still breastfeed as long as she is drinking fluids. So I just have to make sure that I am still drinking lots and lots of water.

Um what else.

My blood pressure has come down some. They have started me on a blood pressure pill that helps it to come down. It works over time. Earlier today it was in the 150's over 80. Then a few hours later, in the 140's, and then the last time they took my BP was about 2 hours ago and it was in the high 130's.

I guess for those who are familiar with the term, you will understand about preclampsia. That is what my OB says that I have had - and she doesn't understand why. Usually women get preclampsia towards the end of their pregnancy and having the baby is the cure. Sometimes women can get it after the baby is born, but usually it happens in women who have a history of hypertension. I have never had high blood pressure in my life, and so my OB is really confused as to why my BP was so high and why I developed preclampsia.

What they are doing now is having me continue to take the BP medicine and hope to get my levels down to 120/70, which is what they usually are. They are still checking my vitals as well to check my resting heartrate. And they will be doing another blood draw tomorrow morning to see what the enzyme levels in my pancreas and liver are. It is very baffling to them that my stomach no longer has pain, but I'm still secreting the enzyme. I show no signs of the typical pancreatis, except for the enzyme count.

So I guess you could say that I am really confusing both my OB and the internal medicine doctor. They aren't quite sure what to do with me yet, and so they are keeping me under observation possibly until tomorrow evening or Monday.

Now that I am not on the magnesium anymore, I can actually talk normally and focus my vision (I was seeing double) and feel good enough to get up out of bed and walk around (hence why I am on the computer). It feels great to not be in bed any longer and to be able to walk around without feeling like the room is spinning.

They still have my IV in so that they can give me an "GI Cocktail" to keep things moving down there.

The only thing still bothering me is my headache. If I keep up on painkillers, it helps but as soon as the painkillers wear off the headache is there again. I have experienced some bad headaches before but this is the worst I've had in my life. Everytime my heart would beat a pulse, it would shoot all this pressure into my head and I felt like someone was taking their hands and squishing my head with each pulse. They gave me morphine 3 times and it didn't even do anything for my headache. They finally gave me something that is 10 times as strong as morhpine and it zapped the headache, but because it's a narcotic that goes through the IV it only lasts for about 2 hours and then it's out of the system. They finally found a painkiller that I can take orally that is a combo of caffeine and a few other things. It is not a typical painkiller though so I don't know the name of it.

Everything I have taken they have made sure that it is okay to take while breastfeeding Tayor. However to be on the safe side, I have made sure to feed him first, then take the painkillers, and then wait 2 hours before feeding him again so that it was out of my system.

Yesterday was a complete blur to me. All I know is that there were lots of doctors coming in to talk to me, people doing EKG's, ultrasounds and a lot of other tests on me. It's been really nice to know that I'm healthy - since all of the tests came back with flying colors. I just wish they could figure out why my pancreas is secreting the weird enzyme and why my BP was so high. My fear is going home and it happening all over again.

The funny thing about all of this is, is all day Thursday when I wasn't feeling very good it's like I knew what was wrong with my body. I knew there was something wrong with my stomach, and it wasn't a virus. It hurt really bad when I touched it or tried to lay down. It had nothing to do with feeling nauseous. I tried to lay down and cried out in pain, and I don't usually cry about pain unless it is pretty bad. So I knew something wasn't right.

I also knew that my pulse was low. I asked my mom to take my pulse, and though I don't think her assessment was completely accurate, she did find that it was low (she said it was 55 bpm). Having that low of a heartrate was not normal for me so I was worried about that too.

And then the fact that I felt like I couldn't breathe very well - I knew something was up with my blood pressure and that is why I asked Will to take me to a drug store so that I could get my blood pressure taken. Although, I actually thought that it was going to be low BP due to my low heartrate. I was surprised to see that it was high.

When 3am came and I was so frustrated and started getting this massive killer headache, Will asked me if I wanted him to go to the ER. Honestly I said yes only because all I wanted was for a qualified medical professional to look at me and tell me "You are fine. Nothing is wrong with you." so that I could rest easy and not worry about it. I had no idea that I would spend 5 hours in the ER and then be admitted to the hospital and be here for possibly 4 days.

I guess we know our bodies better than we think we do and should always listen to our hunches when something might be possibly wrong.

We are back in the Family Maternity Center now, only because we have a baby and because part of my condition is preclampsia. The nursing staff in the Progressive Unit on the 5th floor also felt more comfortable with us being staffed by OB nurses who knew how to deal with drug interactions with the baby and so forth.

I have only eaten pureed foods so far, but tomorrow I will get to try some more solid things like crackers and such. They will have me on a very lowfat diet because of the pancreas issues. I'm really looking forward to getting to eat another vanilla pudding tonight because I'm starving. Fasting for 48 hours was no fun, especially while lactating. Ice chips never tasted so good.

I can't really think of anything else. Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers. I admit that I have been pretty frightened while here. At first they wanted to rule out the worst case scenarios and told me about some serious conditions that they were testing me for and so it worried me.I am so grateful that all of my scans and tests so far have come back confirming that I have a healthy body.

It is fun to be back in the maternity ward. We just listened to the woman next door push a baby out and hear the baby's first cry. It is also nice to be here and not be in labor. Will has rented a RedBox movie and we will watch it tonight. It's the first time we will have turned the TV on because up until now any type of sound or bright lights have aggrivated my headache.

I also got to ride in a wheelchair for the first time. Twice. And be on a stretcher. I got my 2nd CT scan, and had ultrasounds on my liver, pancreas, stomach, lungs, and kindeys (weird to have an ultrasound other than my uterus). I have about 9 holes in both of my arms from IV and blood prick pokes. I had 2 EKG tests, as well as an ultrasound on my heart (which was pretty cool to watch). My OB removed the steri-strips from my Csection incision and has checked it about twice a day and is happy to tell me that it looks beautiful and is completely closed. My OB has been awesome during this. She has come in on her time off to check on me and given me hugs and smiles. I'm so glad that she has been here for me.

Most of all I'm so grateful for Will. He has been so supportive. I kept apologizing because he was supposed to take Preston camping on Friday night for the ward campout and he had been telling Preston all week that they were going to go camping. Luckily Grandpa just got back from camping and he set up his tent in their back yard to clean if off and so Preston got to play in a tent after all. Will has been an award winning Dad and taking care of Taylor and passing him to me for feedings and cuddling. All of the nurses have told me that they think I have the perfect husband. I have to agree with them :)

One last cute thing. While we were on the Progressive Unit floor for the past day and a half, Will walked around a lot in the hallways. He told me that most of the patients on the floor were elderly men. It made me laugh, because I noticed that we had a lot of nurses come into our room to take a look at our baby. They would get so excited and give us lots of compliments on the beautiful baby. I also had a lot of nurses watch me breastfeed. I thought it was weird, but they got so excited and would just ooh and awe to watch him feed. I guess it didn't dawn on me until Will mentioned that all of the other patients were elderly men when it made sense why we were such popular patients on the 5th floor.

Anyway. I need to go eat something and get back to Will and Taylor in our room. Hopefully we will get to go home tomorrow evening, but if not it will be Monday morning. Thanks again for your love and prayers.