Today I heard that Kate, The Duchess of Cambridge, was suffering a health setback with her "acute morning sickness." As Prince William said, "I don't know why they call it morning sickness. They should call it "all day and all night sickness.""
Amen.
For the short update on Kate in today's news, click here: http://www.charter.net/tv/3/player/vendor/E!%20Pop%20of%20Culture/player/fiveminute/asset/gnrc_18242601
Lovely, huh? This is how I spent nearly my entire pregnancy. Not exactly the beautiful "glow of pregnancy" you hear about! Notice the attractive IV pole, the wet washcloth hanging above my head, the towel hanging at the side of the bed, the puke bowl on one nightstand, and the various drinks that people brought for me to try, to see if I could keep them down. I see some Gatorade, a Tennessee Guzzler full of water, and a Pal's Tea among the array. Oh, and the bottle of Tums, and Rolaids, and you name it...
So, I ended up spending about a week in the hospital my seventh week of
pregnancy. As I said, I was severely
dehydrated, to the point of talking out of my head and having no urine output
whatsoever. I had also lost a total of
26 pounds in two weeks, and, as you can imagine, we were incredibly fearful of
what all this could mean for the baby I was carrying. So, besides all of the physical problems, I
was an emotional and mental wreck, drowning in worry and depression.
During my hospital stay, they kept me hooked up to IV fluids
because the vomiting/dry heaves continued – and when I say “continued”, I mean
they continued day and night. We stopped
keeping count after I had dry heaved for the 50th time in one
day. The intravenous fluids were the
only way to keep me hydrated and conscious.
They also began trying several drugs to see if they could
alleviate some of the nausea and slow down the vomiting. First up was Phenergan. Now, I’m sure most of you have heard of this
drug, and are familiar with the lovely suppository form of it that we all got
to experience during childhood whenever we got the "stomach bug." Luckily
for me, they have this in a form that works intravenously, so the IV hook-up
was very convenient. However, though the
hospital staff was exceptionally wonderful every time I was admitted throughout
the course of my pregnancies, I do have a distinct recollection of one very
painful experience. The first time they administered
the Phenergan intravenously, the nurse forgot to dilute it, and she also shot
it into the IV really close to my arm.
Well, let me tell you – undiluted Phenergan HURTS! It felt like a steel rod was being jammed up
my arm. I was in pain from this for
about an hour, and ever since then, I have made sure to ask before any drug is
administered if it needs to be diluted.
Keep this in mind yourself, just in case.
Phenergan did nothing for the nausea – it did serve to kill
my arm and keep me in a semi-conscious state, though.
I definitely felt drugged. The
next drug we tried was Reglan.
Nothing. They might as well have
shot me up with water.
Finally, they gave me Zofran, an anti-nausea medication that
was given to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Zofran was a miracle drug for me. It did not stop the vomiting completely. We’re talking about going from throwing up
more than 50 times a day to throwing up around 20 times a day, which was a vast
improvement. It also helped to alleviate
the nausea to the point that I could think clearly for periods of time greater
than five minutes. Unfortunately, taking
Zofran by mouth was not working, because I could not keep from throwing up long
enough for it to take effect, or keep it in my system. The solution was a drug pump, which allowed
it to be administered via a pump that kept it coming into my system
continuously. This worked much better
than taking it by mouth because the flow of the drug was continuous. The downside of this was that you had to
change the entrance site every other day, which consisted of sticking a small
needle into my thigh each time, and later into my stomach, when my thighs
became too black & blue and the muscle tissue too saturated and “hard” to
be able to take it.
James tried to learn how to do this for me, so he could help
out on days when I was feeling too sick to even sit up. However, the first time he tried to do this
from home without a nurse on hand to supervise, he forgot to take the plastic
cap off the needle, and tried jabbing it into my thigh several times before
realizing the problem. The crazy thing
is that he almost succeeded in jabbing the entire thing into my leg, cap and
all! Bless his heart; he still brings
that up to this day, feeling horrible about it!
After a few days using the Zofran pump in the hospital, we
seemed to be making progress and we were looking forward to getting me out of
the hospital and back home. However,
every time they removed the intravenous fluids, I would immediately become
dehydrated again. The strange thing is
that this would happen with 30 minutes or so of removing the IV. To this day, no one has figured that one
out. I tend to dehydrate easily, even
when I have a stomach virus, and often have to go to the hospital for fluids
when I get a stomach virus for this reason.
So, I seem to have a natural tendency to become dehydrated for some
crazy reason. Of course, this did nothing to help my condition during pregnancy.
After a couple of days of this nonsense, the doctors were
becoming very frustrated. I was even
beginning to feel like they were accusing me of having a mental disorder that
was “causing” this somehow. I really did
think I was going nuts. This took an
incredible toll on me emotionally.
My doctor considered a picc (parentally inserted central
catheter) line for total parenteral nutrition (TPN), however, he was very
concerned about the risk of infection and pneumothorax with this, and how it
could affect the baby. I was in
agreement that if there was any way to avoid this we should. However, we could not find a way to get my
system balanced out without the IV fluids.
Even with the Zofran drug pump going full force, the removal of the IV
would set me back to ground zero where I was vomiting and becoming dehydrated
in a vicious cycle.
However, my doctor was persistent, and he finally decided
that the only way I would get to go home was to send me home with both the
Zofran pump AND the IV fluids. And so,
that is how I came to get my very own home health nurse, who was, simply put, a
complete blessing to me throughout the pregnancy and beyond. She visited me at home every three days to
change my IV site and take my vitals.
James and I took care of changing out the Zofran pump site every other
day. Also, James became very adept at changing out the IV fluids in between the nurse's visits. What a man!
Even with all of this “help”, I still continued to vomit
several times a day. Overall, I lost a
total of 40 pounds before the weight loss leveled out. And, this was not the end. There was still no “diagnosis” and no
explanation offered for what was going on.
I was in a period of horrible mental and emotional anguish, worrying
about the health of our baby, and believing that I must somehow be to blame for
all of this. And the sad part was that
no one around me offered me any reassurance that it wasn’t my fault. Somehow, every solution offered included "crackers and ginger ale." They simply did not know….and the worst was
yet to come.
(To Be Continued in Part 4: http://tronworld.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-future-queen-and-i-what-kate-i-have_11.html )
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