A Little Trip to the ER and a Short Stay in the Hospital

So everything has been going pretty well with my pregnancy. I had easy pregnancies with Liv and Coleman aside from a little nausea the first trimester. I've felt a little more tired than usual (I am officially in the "old" category being 35) and okay, so maybe it's a LOT more tired, but that's to be expected. I've had a lot of nausea but no vomiting so things seemed to be going on just fine.

Early Thursday morning (around 1 am) I had some severe chest and shoulder pain that woke me up. I stayed in bed for awhile, hoping it would go away, but it got worse. Ryan woke up to the sound of my sobbing and knew that we had to go to the ER. I honestly thought I was dying. I figured I was either having a heart attack or that I had a blood clot in my lung.

He called our dear friend (and across the street neighbor) Sara to come and stay at our house while we went. I was much more worried about the state of our messy house than I should have been, I know Sara didn't care, I'm just grateful she was willing to come over immediately.

The hospital is pretty close to our house and we got into a room quickly (despite the lack of valet parking!). They checked my heart (all was normal) and confirmed that I hadn't had any trauma to my chest or shoulder and drew some blood to take a D-Dimer test. An elevated level says that something is going on, but isn't specific as to what. A normal level rules out any possibility that there is a blood clot. They wanted me to get a chest x-ray, but a ride in a wheelchair to radiology and a consult from the radiologist made us wary. The tech told us what a risk it was so early in pregnancy (since everything is still forming) and that it wouldn't show any clots, only if there was pneumonia, which I really didn't think was the problem (total lack of symptoms).

We went back to the room in the ER and we were waiting there when they came back with my D-Dimer results... normal is 0 to 500. Mine was 3378.... a little bit elevated!?!

The doctor insisted on a chest x-ray before doing a CT scan since the x-ray has a much lower risk of causing any problems. We actually left the x-ray room hoping that I had pneumonia (who hopes for pneumonia???).

The x-ray showed some small infiltrates in my lungs, and the radiologist interpreted it to mean that I was either in the very early stages of pneumonia or that I had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in my lung).... so we had to do the CT scan to find it and confirm that that was the problem.

Shortly after the CT scan, the ER doctor came into our room and told us that it wasn't a death sentence, but that I definitely had a pulmonary embolism, a big one, in my left lung. He said it meant that my pregnancy was now very high risk and that I would be treating myself with blood thinner injections until the end of my pregnancy. The regular treatment for blood clots is oral Heparin or Coumadin, but since those are really well known teratogens they are not an option during pregnancy. It also meant that I'd either be induced or have a c-section after quitting the blood thinners for a couple of days or I could end up bleeding to death.

We are so grateful that they found it when they did, blood clots often go undiagnosed and end up being lethal. I hadn't shown any signs of blood clots in my legs or pelvis and my only risk factor was pregnancy. They weren't able to find the origin, but didn't seem to be too concerned about where it came from since the blood thinners would prevent any further clotting and our bodies naturally dissolve clots in the absence of clotting factors (which I don't have anymore).

I was admitted to stay in the hospital for a couple of days where they managed my pain (saying "eight" has it's privileges) and continued treating me with medicine to prevent any further clotting. I had an ultrasound there that showed that so far everything looks good with the pregnancy and in the future they will monitor things closely. They told me I can resume normal activities, except I have to make sure I don't fall and hit my head or cut myself and absolutely NO CONTACT SPORTS. (Darn, I'll have to see if I can get my money back from that ice hockey team I signed up for.)

I am home now and feeling a lot better, although still extremely tired and a bit sore. Ryan and the kids have been great and although it goes against everything I believe in, I've been sitting and resting a lot. I'm not sure I'll get used to "taking it easy" but I'll do it.

I am so grateful for our friends and family who went overboard taking care of us while I was gone and since I've been home. We've had flowers and dinners and fruit and cards and treats and laundry fairies and we even walked in on a few dear friends cleaning my house while I was gone. (Mortifying and heart warming at the same time.) Some generous and kind souls brought an envelope of money to help us with medical bills. I am overwhelmed in so many ways at how charitable and kind people have been with us. I couldn't ask for better people to be around us in this time of need.

We are now facing the challenge of figuring out how to pay for my insanely expensive injections that our insurance company is saying they won't cover. We have several options that include getting the insurance company to make an exception for us, getting help from the drug company themselves, or road tripping it to Canada or Mexico. The latter sounds like the craziest option, I know, but at this point it is also seeming like the one that might be the most feasible.

Please know that I am okay and we believe the baby will be just fine. We would love and appreciate all of your prayers. I could use some extra ones to make sure I don't fall and trip and hit my head...