Confessions of a Starbucks addict

My goodness... this appointment took FOREVER. Most of it was the waiting...and waiting...and waiting. PJ had a good time in the lobby, making friends, watching Veggie Tales, finding the hidden objects inside the Highlights magazine, having me read a book to her, looking at the pictures of babies in the exam room, etc. It was mostly waiting.

I got approval from my OB to go back to injecting heparin, instead of pumping it. The bruises that I get from the pump are just awful. I'm looking a lot like someone who lost a punching contest in my abdomen area. It's just gross. Plus the bleeding from the sites is just insane. So, I'm done with the heparin pump. I'll be returning that sucker tomorrow!

The baby's heart rate was 158bpm. Doing well there. Also, she finally measured fundal height...it was 33cm! So, either baby is big, I have a lot of fluid, or I'm just fat! I'm going for the latter. I also lost weight from my last appointment. Stupid nausea! I just don't want to eat.

I also gave my OB the preliminary birth plan form that I'd filled out (in the case of hospital birth, i.e., induction). She didn't like that I will refuse Cytotec. Sorry, I'm not going through that crap again (Shayna was a Cytotec induction). I'll let her break my water, I think that's about it. I don't want to be on continuous monitoring which this hospital requires if you get pitocin. So, break my water, baby will probably fall out within an hour. :p I hate inductions, so everyone pray that the baby will come on his own at around 38w6d!

My next appointment is in two weeks. I'll be getting another ultrasound, then I'll see my OB, then I have to rush to the other side of Tacoma to see the fetal echo specialist...so I'll be getting two ultrasounds that day. Woohoo. Let's hope for more pictures this time!

Not really, but it's an eye-catching title, isn't it? The story...

Thursday Kaycee came home from school and said she felt sick. Immediately upon entering the house, she threw up. She was sick for the next 24 hours.

Saturday I became sick. I threw up multiple times all day and had stomach cramps that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy....okay, well maybe *her*. :p That night, Shayna got sick and a few hours later so did PJ. I was swimming in vomit. Nice picture, yes?

Sunday morning finally comes around and I'm *still* sick. Shayna and PJ are over their troubles, but I'M STILL SICK! At around 11AM Troy tells me to call my OB since I said to him the night before that if I was still sick I'd call my doc in the morning. So fine, I call my OB.

A midwife calls me back and tells me to get to the hospital since I must be dehydrated. Plus they can give me anti-nausea meds that will help my stomach cramping. So off we go. Instead of going all the way to St. Joe's, I decided I wanted to be close so we went to St. Francis. In the ER, they sent me to L&D so the baby could be checked. His heart rate was tachy so I needed fluids before they'd send me back to the ER for the anti-nausea meds. I didn't think I'd be in the hospital long, so I let the nurse put the IV in my left hand. OUCH! After 3 hours in the L&D, I was finally sent back to the ER.

Of course, I had to wait in the ER waiting room until they could get a bed for me...ugh. Picture a woman in a hospital gown, sitting in a wheelchair, thin blanket, shivering and cramping. I'm sure that made the other people in the ER waiting room feel safe! They did quickly get me back there though.

So, I'm in ER10...a room with sad memories for me. It's the ER room I passed out in from blood loss when I miscarried once. I also know it's the only ER room where the remote for the TV doesn't work! I would have liked to watch something on TV to take my mind off the cramping, but oh well... Anyhow, after another 2 liters of fluids, this time potassium bags (not banana bags, to distinguish), some IV Reglan, 8mLs of Morphine, and another 4mLs of dilaudid, they realized that the stomach cramps weren't going away and that I was still puking up everything I drank (they let me have ice chips and water). So I was admitted to the hospital. Fun stuff figuring out where they were going to put me too...

First they took me to the L&D "recovery" section. I got all settled in a nice, private room. It was heaven, except I was sweating like no tomorrow. Then the nurse came in and told me that they put me in the wrong room, on the *wrong* floor. Apparently the L&D people don't know how to take care of sick preggo people, just healthy ones. Duh! I get transported, yet again, to the 3rd floor. That's the "medical" floor. Where I don't get the window bed and my roommate is an 80 year-old complainer. If there were awards given for the most complaintent, she'd win for sure! Especially if anyone "stole" on of the 4 chairs on her side of the room! I mean holy hell, how many chairs do you need when you have one visitor at a time, who only stays long enough for you to lodge half of a complaint to them and then leaves? And I want to know whose smart idea it was to put vomiting me into the same room with a woman who can't keep her heart rate up? I swear my little bugs were gonna be the end of this woman!

Anyhow, I was drugged up most of the time, except when the nurses were too busy chatting with each other to remember that one of their patients actually "needed" those pain meds or they'd get royally ill with the pain... Would you rather give pain meds on a schedule and not have me remind you, or do you just like cleaning up all the vomit all over the place? I did have some great nurses though. One was a guy. I think he was the one who really liked cleaning up the vomit. I wanted Katie to be my nurse all the time. Of course, that can't happen in a hospital where there are shifts...no! They took her off my side of the floor and put her on the other side the next day...that was so unfair. She was great! She never forgot a time for dosings, blood sugar checks, meals, etc. I'll get to it in the next paragraph, but she stayed up with me all night when I had to have a blood transfusion. I'm so mad that she was switched to the other side of the floor when she came back to work. :(

So some of my labs came back funky. Apparently there's this thing called an H&H...hemoglobin and hematocrit. Hemoglobin has a normal value of 12-16 gm/dL in women, and hematocrit has a normal value of 37-48% in women. Mine were well below normal. I've put a call in to my doctor to find out the exact number since I don't remember, but as I said, they were well below. I needed a blood transfusion. 2 units. Thank you blood donors. :) The type and cross match on blood was funny since I know my blood type, MedicAlert knows my blood type, the Red Cross knows my blood type, but apparently the hospital can't take any of our words for it. Yet another 3 vials of blood gone, like I could spare any! Sheesh!

Getting someone else's blood pumped into you is an eery feeling. Really, you don't feel anything, but it makes your blood pressure drop. Who knew. So while they're pumping in the new blood, your vitals have to be tested every 15 minutes. There's this whole protocol. They have to have three nurses sign off that the blood you're getting is the blood that was sent to you. Then they have to sign off that they've inspected the blood. Like they have little microscopes to make sure that the tags were sewn into the cells properly...hahah. A little bloody humor.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the best part! The hospital made me take off my insulin pump! Which was comical for them when I nearly went into DKA the next morning. If I recall correctly, I was +3 ketones and my sugar was 600+. I guess they forgot that if you need a pump and they take you off of it, then you *need* a basal insulin to replace what you're missing from your pump. Idiots. I got to put my pump back on after that. Yes, I did remind them about giving me a basal insulin, but they didn't get it ordered by a doctor. Stupid doctors.

All this, and I'm still dehydrated! Ugh. My mouth is dry, my eyes are dry, my skin is dry. I was released from the hospital last night. Guess what was the first thing I did as we drove away? I made Troy pull over so I could puke. Don't want that on my new car, you know? Also, my set for my heparin pump came out while I was getting dressed at the hospital, so I put a couple of gauze pieces on it and taped it pretty well. By the time I got home, I'd bled through that onto my clothes. As I write this, it's still bleeding and it's nearing 1PM! I look like I've been stabbed again, so does my bed. :( But hey, the baby is fine. :D

ETA: Finally got a call from my OB's office... my hemoglobin was 26% and my hematocrit was 9.1 gm/dL. As of yesterday at 8AM it was 31% and 10.3 mg/dL. I still feel like crap. :( Oh, it's 4:57PM on 3/19.

I've been taking a nap in the afternoon lately. It's so nice that Troy works from home so that I can do that and not worry that PJ is getting into trouble... If he didn't work from home I might just make her take a nap with me. I don't know if it's the pregnancy that's taking a toll or if I'm not getting enough sleep at night. Either way, it's really nice to take a nap in the afternoon. :)

Unless... you have a set accident like I did during yesterday's nap. Whoops! It wasn't my insulin pump set, it was the heparin pump set. It seems that I must have scratched at it while I was sleeping or pulled on the tubing, something must have happened. I woke up from the nap with this cold and wet spot on my shirt. I looked down and it was like someone had stabbed me or something! A huge amount of blood was all over my shirt, and I don't even want to talk about the mess on my skin. Ick. I knew there was a reason they told me to keep the old set in for at least 12 hours after a set change. Sheesh, I'll make sure to definitely do that.

So my first set change for the heparin pump was a day early. Such is life, I guess. Also, the site is now a hard, huge lump. I'm kind of disappointed about that. I don't tend to get lumps under my skin with my insulin sets, and if I do it's because I left the set in for more than 4 days (you're only supposed to keep it in for 3 days). The site is also bruised like crazy. I thought the whole point of the pump was that the site wouldn't bruise. I'm going to have to yell at my OB about that one...

As of noon today, I'm a double pumper. :p I have my insulin pump and now I have a heparin pump.

The pump is the same case as my Cozmo, made by Smith's Medical. The thing I don't like is the sets... the sets are *awful*. They are the Orbit 90s. I suppose they're supposed to be like the Cleo's but the tubing is the real problem. The Luer-Lok connector comes up out of the cap, so it's scraping my side up. Ugh. The tubing is blue, so at least I can tell through the tangled mess of 42" tubing which has a bubble and which doesn't.

Another interesting difference is that heparin sets are allowed to stay in for 5 days. Yippee! My rate for the heparin is 0.024mL/hr. The 3mL cartridge lasts almost the full five days. I'm also glad that I have the clear holster from my Cozmo that I'm not using (because I'm pumping with my MM722 right now), so I have that instead of the stupid carrying case they gave me for the pump. It's like a big wallet that you clip on to your belt. No thanks.

I also now have to check my first morning urine for Glucose, Protein, Blood and Leukocytes. Oh yay!

For what it's worth though, I think these Orbit sets might have a smaller gauge than the Cleos. I could feel those going in and with the Orbit's I can't. Which is kind of strange since I was told heparin is a larger molecule than insulin, but if it's working through a smaller gauged set, it does make me wonder...?