The Story of My Life

I don't even know where to start...hmmmmmm

I spent too much time in the presence of doctors and nurses this weekend. I ended up in Emergency at Penticton Regional Hospital after experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain. These symptoms are primary in diagnosing a Pulmonary Embolism so I thought after a bit of "humming and hawing" that I should get checked out. Needless to say...it landed me on a stretcher in emerg with wires everywhere and on oxygen. Nice! I felt ridiculous. All I wanted was the blood test to check for clotting that the nice doctor at the Walk in Clinic suggested I get at Emergency. Funny enough, I also got the privilege of being a patient of Karen Bond's for my chest x-ray. It was bizarre to be wheeled through the hospital on a stretcher like I had about 7 months ago on bedrest with Braden.

After waiting too long to find out the results of the blood work and x-rays etc., we were told that my blood gases (or oxygen in my blood) was low and my d-dimer (the clotting test) was on the high end of normal -- not confirming but pointing towards another possible pulmonary embolism and I would need the dreaded CT Scan with IV Contrast to confirm it -- which is exactly why I almost chose not to go get checked. The reason I did not want it was because they have to inject a die into your blood during the scan which means that I would not be able to nurse Braden for 24 hours.

I left the hospital after learning to inject myself once again with Heparin, hardly believing this all could be happening again.

Poor Braden....

He was once a good enough bottler to get him out of the SCN at Royal Columbian Hospital but now (as we found out) he REFUSES anything other than his mommy. So for 24 hours he got lots of carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and he was also spoon fed some thickened formula. The hardest time for him was the 7:30pm feed. This is his bedtime feed so he is always desperate by 7:25pm. He is such a good natured baby and he did surprisingly well considering he was probably hungry and bordering on dehydration (towards the end of the 24 hours his urine was orange and he was looking orange after all the orange he was eating!)

It was hilarious to nurse him for the first time after the 24 hours was up. He was sooooo excited he could hardly believe it and he kept pulling back to check it all out!

The CT Scan (thanks Karen for arranging it for Sunday..it made it sooo much easier) was completely clear showing no evidence of a PE or anything else that might cause the symptoms. And actually the CT Scan showed no evidence of the previous DVT and PE that I had while I was pregnant with Braden. I also had a Pulmonary Function Test today which gave me a report of excellent lung health. In fact, some of the tests that were done put me above the average 30 year old woman for lung function...what a shock considering my history and how out of shape I am right now. Great news all around.