Thursday, February 26, 2009

I am having problems with my Talking Trash Blog, so I am doing an update for y'all here. I first want to say thank you to God for seeing Jenn through a very difficult and scary 4 days. We are not out of the woods yet, but things are much better than they were Monday. I also want to say thank you to all of you for the prayers that were sent up on her behalf. We felt each and every one of them like a blanket of love and I cannot even begin to thank you enough. God is mighty and loving. I thank him for seeing us this far and for giving Jenn the wisdom to seek out help as quickly as she did. She wasn't feeling well Sunday and when she got up Monday her lips were swollen to the point of being purple with a white outline. She knew that wasn't normal and went to her local fire station to have her blood pressure checked. (Praise God for firemen!!!) It was 240/135 and she called her doctor immediately. When she got to his office, she was admitted on the spot. She has Preeclampsia. Unfortunately, the only real way to treat it is with delivery. Normally it occurs in the last few weeks of a pregnancy, but in Jenn's case she is only 21 weeks. There is little hope for a normal delivery at this time. Her blood pressure was life threatening for her as well as possibly causing damage to the liver and kidneys, a stroke, seizures or coma. There was a lot of problems getting her blood pressure to come down to a number that wasn't life threatening to her. But through God's grace, the drs. found the right dosage. It has now, with meds stabilized to 150/100. When doing the liver scans, her liver was found to be normal with no damage. Her kidneys tests didn't go as well. Her protein levels were at 930. If they reached 1000 they would have had to take the baby with little chance of survival. The second round of tests this morning came back at 600. Praise God! Because her blood pressure is responding to the meds, her protein levels appear to be dropping and no reoccurrence of fluid in the lungs, she was able to be moved from labor and delivery to the Managed Care floor this morning. She will be kept there until the baby is developed enough for delivery as long as there is no further problems. They will continue to do the protein tests and labwork weekly to monitor her. They will also be on the watch of gestational diabetes. We are looking at 3 weeks to 4 months depending on Jenn's condition. The baby's heartbeat is fine and they will be doing another ultrasound this evening. Jenn has asked not to be told if her baby is a boy or girl until she feels confident about the time of delivery. She has the best possible care. Her OB/GYN is wonderful and the specialists are gifted and caring, sensitive caregivers. Her nurses have all been angels. We are also so fortunate that my best friend is her doctor's nurse. Sherry is able to keep an eye on her as well, when I need to come home. I have come home for the afternoon to take care of some things here, shower, and pack a few more things. We are smiling now and I hope to be smiling in four months. I will try to answer all my e-mails over the next few days. I hope you all know how much I appreciate y'all. Again, I just can't express what it has meant to me. I thank and praise the Lord for bringing me the blessing of such caring individuals. In the words of Patti at Delighted Heart, I am a blessed and fortunate woman. Thank you, thank you, thank you and God bless each and every one of you. Love, Debbie