Sitting in this hospital room tonight gives me an odd sense of Déjà vu. One year ago, I was in an eerily similar place. The only difference, I was the patient. It was when I received my CMV diagnoses and the future was up in the air. Most people don't know the details of this time as I didn't talk about it much. So, I thought I would grace you all with a look back at this time since it was really where our whole journey started.
It all started like any other week started. I was about 28 weeks pregnant and I started feeling sick. I muddled through with some Tylenol and a good ole fashion "I'll be fine" attitude. Things progressively got worse and by Thursday night I was contemplating heading to the ER. I couldn't keep anything down, my whole body hurt, I was dizzy. It was pretty miserable. I waited until morning and got in to see my OB, when I arrived my fever was 101. He was concerned about the flu and some other illness but told me to rest and go to the ER if my fever went over 102.5.
The whole day I was pretty out of it. I went over to my mom's house to be with her and see my siblings. I mean, if I was going to miserable I might as well have some company. Later in the night, I was struggling. I was tired, so achy I couldn't stand, and my fever was rising. I remember telling my brother to "feel my eyes" because they were hot. (in the end he felt my eyelids after I said that enough and they were actually really hot). My fever spiked to 103 so we headed to the ER.
When I arrived my fever was over 103 and I wasn't doing so hot. I got a bed immediately and was tested for a bunch of things, including a spinal tap to test for meningitis. After spending a night in the ER I was admitted to Grand Itasca as my fever wasn't controlled and I was still in rough shape. To be honest, I don't remember much. I was really out of it and tired. I remember my sister brought me bread from the Forest Lake restaurant. I was so sick I didn't want it. If anybody know me, I never turn down carbs. Ever. I ate some jello and sipped some water, but I was riding off my IV fluids mostly.
I also remember repeatedly saying I couldn't breath. It was so hard to breath. Everyone chalked it up to me being tired, sick, and in my 3rd trimester. Eventually, Sunday night, my o2 Saturations were dropping into the 80s and I couldn't get them up. The docs decided they wanted to do a chest x-ray, which came with risks because of my pregnancy. It was found I had severe pneumonia and needed to be transferred immediately to the ICU in Duluth at St. Mary's.
I was brought via ambulance. I don't know if you have ever ridden in an ambulance but it is not a smooth ride. Now do that, while seven months pregnant and strapped to a gurney extreme ill. Not fun. I declined pain meds... at first. When I asked if we were getting close, and they said we were only in Floodwood, I accepted those pain meds really quickly!
Once we got to the ICU, things get a little fuzzy. I don't remember much. I was in the ICU for 5 days, 4 nights. Here is what I do remember. I yelled at the male nurse who admitted me to the ICU because the bed kept inflating and deflating and it hurt me. Eventually he unplugged the whole bed. While I am sure he won't read this, I am sorry! I remember having to pee ever hour. And crying because it was so hard to get up, and the nurses had to come hold me up every time. I got a magnesium infusion and it burned so bad. I had a nurse named Carol who made me stay in the ICU an extra night because my temp dropped to 97 (I was not happy). People came up from Labor and Delivery to check on my everyday about 4-6 times. I was in early labor at one point and was having contractions. they were able to stop them and I only dilated to 1 cm. My oxygen saturation levels continued to drop, especially when I fell asleep. Every time it would drop, someone would wake me up, I'd take a few really deep and exaggerated breaths to make my level go up. Then I'd pass back out. Then we'd repeat the whole thing 10 min later. I know a lot more happened in that time obviously. Antibiotics and breathing treatments, and a ton of other things... I just don't remember any of it.
Eventually I was healthy enough to leave the ICU, but no floor wanted to admit me because I was pregnant. I was sent to the birthing center floor and quarantined to me room, it was there I spent the next two weeks. In order to leave, I had to be fever free for 48 hours. I would spike a fever almost everyday. I went through over a dozen IVs so they had to place a central line, which they could not do as my veins were so shot, so they placed a midline after a bunch of tries. I was awake, but numbed up for this. Strange experience. The doctors were really stumped as to why I was so feverish, as I had been given 3 really strong antibiotics for 10 days. They ran every test in the books. Everything was coming up negative. I was still miserable, but getting better each day. Eventually they ran a test called the TORCH screening. This is test for the viruses that can be passed from a mother to a baby through the placenta during pregnancy. I'll give you a hint, the C in TORCH stands for Cytomegalovirus, or CMV. Obviously, my CMV tests came back positive. This started us off on our journey with Easton.
A few days after this, I was able to keep my fever down and I was discharged from the hospital. I was labeled as a high risk pregnancy and made weekly trips to Duluth for ultrasounds. It took me a long time to recover. I was still pretty sick and about 30 weeks pregnant. I went into labor when I was 35 weeks pregnant, so I didn't really recover fully from my illnesses until after I delivered.
The hospital, when it definitely was not my favorite place, was the location of many smiles. My family played cards, ate a lot of ice cream from the cafeteria, and had a lot of laughs. If you are ever at the St. Mary's hospital, they have really good chicken strips down in the cafeteria
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