Thursday, August 31, 2006

thrombophilia

Or as I like to call it, unfortunate illness #731.

On the night of August 1 I landed myself a 9 day stay in the beautiful Alta Bates hospital ante-partum unit. Alex and I were having dinner with friends at Greg and Brad's apartment and right before I was ready to dig into my peanut butter cup ice cream I stood up to illustrate a point of the story I was telling and noticed that my left leg felt wrong. Wrong like "hmmmm, why can't I feel anything in my leg?" Wrong like dead weight. Wrong like this can't be good. So I excused myself and wandered off to the bathroom, assuming that the baby was to blame for all of this (I'm starting so early). I figured he must have been sitting on nerve or something and if I walked around he would move and my leg issue would be resolved. When I got to the bathroom I took a peek at my leg and it was then I noticed it was swollen and a tad on the bluish side. Trying my best not to panic I washed my face, shook my leg a little and went back to the dining room. I ate one spoonful of ice cream, trying to ignore my leg, but I couldn't, so I quietly alerted Alex to the fact that I thought we should leave because something dreadful was happening to me. He suggested we move into the living room and I put my leg up, but by the time I reached the living room I knew that I needed do more with the leg than just put it up, purple toes are never a good sign. Ice cream abandonment is not a common trait for me, so everyone took me quite seriously when I said we had to leave. Alex and I rushed home and got on the phone with the OB on call and he gave me two choices: 1. Put my leg up and wait for it go away or 2. Go to the ER. I chose the latter. I figured I would be heading the hospital that night anyways, might as well be sooner than later.

So off to the ER we went and finally by 3:30am I was suited up with a nice open backed hospital johnnie and a steady IV of heparin. No one knew what was wrong with me quite yet, but after a slew of tests we found out the baby was doing great and I most likely had a blood clot in my leg, but more tests were waiting for me at 9am.

After meeting my daytime nurses and picking through my breakfast of French toast and fruit I was wheeled down on a gurney to the vascular lab where an ultrasound of my leg revealed a blood clot that ran from my groin to the back of my knee. I was officially diagnosed with DVT, deep vein thrombosis. Instead of being terrified I was relieved that I finally had an answer to why my leg was ailing and that it wouldn't hurt the baby. I was thrilled that this all happened before Saturday, because otherwise it could have all happened on a 6 hour flight to Boston, perhaps resulting in death. I was elated that this clot was discovered before pieces of it broke off and landed in my lungs. So sad to be bedridden, yet so happy to know why. I was handed a bunch of literature on how to deal with my new condition and every single one pictured fellow DVT suffers... all over 60.

It was a tough 9 days in the hospital. For the first 3 days I wasn't allowed to even get up and use the bathroom. I can't think of too many things that are more humiliating than using a bedpan, other than having your own urine spill from a bedpan forcing the nurses to give you a sponge bath and change your clothes and sheets while you just lie there. That's no fun. No fun at all. Having blood drawn every 5 hours also is no party, it left my arms looking like this. I could go on and on and I'm sure as the memories come flooding back to me I'll post more about my hospital hijinx, but I'd rather not re-visit those days right now. The rest of the month has been a steady diet of modified bed rest, working from home and little walking. I might lose my mind.

To sum it all up, the baby is okay, I'm okay and the clot is gone, thanks to the two daily injections of Lovenox I get to shove in my gut. This week I finally got permission to leave my home and drive a car, all by myself! So even though I have to take it easy I'm just about ready to return to my (somewhat) normal life. And wait for the next unfortunate illness to surprise me and Alex.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

just wondering

Does this baby make me look fat?