A Long Silence Explained

So everyone, I have not been around on my blog simply because, for the second time this year, I was admitted to the hospital via ambulance. This time my stay was 5 torturous days away from my beloved family.
The cause: Blood clots in my left leg and lungs.

Thursday night I was up all night with a very sick daughter, and having difficulty breathing myself, I assumed I was also coming down with this chest infection and decided that seeing the doctor the next day would be the best plan of action. Little did I know that my symptoms and my families illness were very different things.

How does one know they have a blood clot you ask? Easy, You don't until it's rather serious. In my case it was having a leg that was constantly cramping, and tender and swolen, along with inablity to breath properly somewhat similar to asthma, or a severe asthma attack only it just keeps going on and on. There can also be a dry cough along with this and just a general feeling of unwell.

This all seemed rather vague to me at the time too.

But after taking my blood pressure and getting a high reading of 78 over 45 I realized that something a bit more serious was going on. I've NEVER seen my blood pressure that low before, and it does run low in me already. I also had a very low amount of oxygen in my blood stream and was put on a breathing machine, and my white blood cell count was unusually high.

All that doesn't mean a whole lot to me except that doing anything normal felt like I was running a marathon. The first few days I was admitted it was so bad the nurses wouldnt even allow me to go to the bathroom 15 feet away, they brought one to me, which is never a pleasant experiance! LOL.

So I went into an x-ray test of my lungs the 2nd day I was there, and they confirmed it WASNT anything to do with pneumonia, chest infection, leaking lungs, ect ect. and just made them more suspicious of clots. The next day was followed by a chest Scan, which is different in an x-ray in that it's more dangerous for me and the baby, and they were looking at my blood vessils not the organs. They inject you with a dye into your blood stream which makes you have a hot flush all the way from your head to your toes and last about a minute and a half, and then they put in you this big Tube that looked like a blue metalic, large, Krispy Kreme. This test came back with no diagnostic at all meaning they just didn't get a clear enough scan to see anything and they weren't going to risk putting me under that much radiation again. It's scary enough thinking I might not be able to breast feed because of this as it is.

Anyways, after this I was getting frustrated and couldn't see when my time here would end. If they'd just find Proof of blood clots they could send me home with the medication they were already giving me (Clexane) and I would be ok. Of course I didn't realize how weak I actually was until I came home last night and walking from the car to my bed was exhausting. In any case I was just pining for my family and normality and to have this illness leave me.

Some people never get sick, and never have anything wrong with them health wise, and then other people, myself included, can't seem to stay out of the hospital. It's rather annoying actually. Maybe I just have a lot to learn spiritually from all this illness in myself? It's not like I treat my body badly, I'm very healthy and concious of my body and what it needs. Which is why I was able to getthis fixed before it killed me, because it does kill many young mothers who are pregnant and don't recognize the symptoms. That's what my doctor told me anyway (how's that for reassurance?).

So, Day 4 I am really getting fed up with hospital food and have been moved from two different units to a respitory unit with 5 other women in my room. Two of them have pneumonia and I'm just praying I can't catch it because I know me and my body and it would have a laugh having blood clots and then getting sick because I was around other illnesses. I also found out that I was getting an ultrasound done on my left leg to find any blood clots. By now I've been on Clexane, an inject based blood thinner, for 4 days and it has made me feel a billion times better. I'm weak but I can at least breath with out oxygen anymore. The scan showed I had a blood clot in my left calf, so, with all that reasoning and the way I came in so ill, they decided to pin me down as having had blood clots in my lungs as well and with my proof I pushed to go home.

You see, even if you get sick, real life goes on with out you. I was not only missing the precious words and Sentences my daughter had started babbling with out me, but my husband had to get back to work so he could get his precoursework done before his business training trip on the 8th of October. (whew that was a run-on, mouthful sentence!) I was dreading the state of the house in my husbands care for five days, and I just didn't want to be stuck in a bed any longer! so I did everything in my powere to show them I was ok, to stop taking paracetamol, (which was for the chest pain that's mostly gone away) to actually walking that 15 feet to the bathroom. I also made an effort to take off those dreaded open backed dressing gowns in favor of normal clothes. I was not going to stay for 2 or 3 more days while the doctors tried to "decided" if I had any clots in my lungs or not. I had one in my leg and that was proof enough for me. The medication that would cure the one in my leg would do the same for the one or more in my lungs. (if there are any at all there- which by the way was never found out!)

So to make a long story short, I got bumped up from having a midwife to having an obtrician for my pregnancy and I will most likely be induced for this pregnancy because of the blood thinners I'm taking. I'm at more of a high risk now that I've had blood clots and they want to time when I haev the baby so I'm not still on the medication, which is useful when giving birth requires a lot of blood letting anyway.
Also, they don't want to stop it too soon because I could reform other blood clots in that time between stopping and having the baby which is also very risking when birthing a child. So, I don;t think I'll be getting my dream of a home birth at this rate.

But I take solace in the fact the Holy Ghost prompted me to see a doctor and I was so quickly diagnosed and taken care of. I am grateful my health is returned to me (mostly) and that I am back home where I belong with my beloved family. Heavenly Father has seen fit to be so merciful at this time to our family and I am so incredibly grateful to him and the gospel for giving my family and my self peace on this matter and keeping the daughter in my womb healthy as well.