Penguin's Ponderings
Thoughts, dreams, and events in the life
of Dawn (aka dpenguin)
Check back at least every other day :)

Thursday, April 28, 2005
 
Sorry for not updating, but I've been in the hospital.
Thankfully, I am home now.

First of all, last Thursday (4/21), I may have already mentioned my scare with my leg turning purple and swelling, then going back to normal...

I had trouble walking, but was otherwise ok for the next two days. Things went along pretty much normally.

Sunday morning, we went to church as usual. I leaned on Robby to get in to the building, used the railings to get up the stairs, and sat in the pew in the classroom... we stayed up there for children's church. About 11:15, I shifted positions and my leg started swelling and turning purple again. I got up, moved around, tried to get my back to pop (thinking that would fix it - it seemed to have on Thursday), but it didn't work. I sent Bob for Robby (who had gone downstairs) and when he saw it, we immediately left, and tried to get in touch with our chiropractor (still going on the back-pop thing from last week). He (understandably) doesn't answer his phone on Sundays, but since he is also a customer - and a friend - we drove to his house.

He agreed to meet us at the office... I was in severe pain and the leg was continuing to swell. He did all he could, and the muscles in my back (except the one that is causing my pinched sciatic nerve) responded nicely, but the swelling didn't change at all.

The chiropractor seemed a bit frightened by how the leg looked, and recommended we go to the ER. Robby (still going on last week's experience) thought we could just go home and he could massage it and it would do better, but it hurt SO bad, I requested to follow the doctor's recommendation, so we did.

We should have gone straight to Huntsville, we would have seen someone at least and hour and a half sooner. We waited in Scottsboro's hospital for 2.5 hours for them to tell us they couldn't do anything and we needed to go to Huntsville. They DID give me a shot of nubain, which put me out and did help the pain a little... and Robby drove me to Huntsville.

Once we got there, we waited for another couple hours (I have no idea exactly how long, since I was out of it from the nubain) until the meds started wearing off and the pain started returning in earnest. They quickly found me a bed and gave me a shot of morphine, which, while it didn't touch the pain, put me out to where I didn't really *feel* it, except when I woke up.

They took ten or fifteen vials of blood for tests, and did an ultrasound on my leg, and later one on my abdomen.

The ultrasound on my leg found blood clots in three veins.

The ultrasound on my abdomen found a 2.8cm (from crown to rump) sweetie, 9 weeks, 4 days, healthy heartbeat, due date by sono 11/23... and a possible subchorionic hemorrhage (uterine wall bleed). Because of the sc/h, I am having some spotting occasionally, but so far there hasn't been anything enough to worry about, thankfully.

They finally admitted me to a room at 1:30ish on Monday early morning. They started me on Fragmin (blood thinner injections) Monday and I will be on them until baby is born, then on an oral thinner for a few months after that.

My left thigh is still swelled to about twice its normal size, but I can bend my knee almost to a 90-degree angle now, so that's progress. It won't hold my weight, yet, so I'm using crutches to get around the house.

Oh, and also... my aversion this time around seems to have shown up... meat and bread items are unappetizing to me. I've been living on fruit, veggies, and dairy.
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