Doing Much Better

Thank you all so much for your comments and well-wishes. I am making a good recovery. The food poisoning or stomach bug or whatever it was has finally left me alone, and yesterday I was even allowed out of bed for a while by my very protective husband. 🙂 Today I am feeling more like my old self, though I find I run out of steam very quickly. I guess we’ll be laying low here at Casa Bonny Glen for a while.

To address a few questions from the comments (and comments, by the way, are split between the Typepad and WordPress blogs because some readers still seem to be landing on the old site instead of the new one):

1) Yes, I am looking for a new doctor. Possibly a new hospital as well (though we like how close this one is to home, especially since I tend to have very fast labors). I’m sure I would fare better in the Labor & Delivery ward during a real delivery than I did under last week’s circumstances. The nurses there just weren’t geared to take care of sick people. (And as my night nurse said to me at discharge: “You were one sick lady!”)

I would probably have been better off in the ER for the hydration and potassium treatments, but they were just too scared to keep a woman who was having contractions.

2) No, I am not eating lots of bananas! I’m afraid bananas are the food I loathe above all others. Can’t abide even the merest hint of banana flavor in a smoothie or anything. But no fear. Knowing this, and having suffered from bad leg cramps during my very first pregnancy—which all the books said meant my potassium was low—I have ever since made an effort to get LOTS of potassium from other sources. Peaches, melon, spinach, oranges, orange juice, and lima beans, to name a few. Dried apricots are especially high in potassium, but I’m thinking it’s best to go easy on the dried fruit for a bit longer.

Also, I’m taking pre-natal vitamins, of course. I don’t think I headed into this illness with low potassium; I think its sudden onset and severity just depleted my reserves. Of everything. I also think, now that it’s over and I’ve had time to do some reading, that I am fortunate the whole thing didn’t turn out much, much worse. ::::shudder::::

Back in her chemo days, Jane used to sometimes get high doses of potassium. This was always a serious business: she had to be hooked up to a heart monitor during the hours-long i/v drip, and a doctor was required to be present in the room the entire time, watching the monitor. That last part was actually a very good thing for us: usually it was one of the young interns assigned to babysit the monitor, a twenty-something first-year doctor fresh out of med school. Scott and I were twenty-somethings ourselves, so we generally hit it off with these docs and wound up making friends with many of the people caring for our little girl. This helped so much as the months of treatment wore on: when your doctors feel that kind of personal attachment to you and your child, they really listen to you. They respect your judgment. You get better medical care that way.

This OB barely knew me—I had only had one appointment with him. My first choice of OB retired over the summer and sold his practice to this fellow.

Anyway, back to the heart monitor: I was a bit surprised nothing like that was mentioned during the four hours I was getting those potassium boluses. No one so much as brought a stethoscope into the room. They did use the Doppler thingie to listen to the baby’s heartbeat once or twice, but not during the potassium treatment. I can tell, now, how sick I was because I never asked about it. It is NOT like me to keep a question to myself. Looking back, I’m shocked at that part. But that’s the trouble with hospital stays, isn’t it? When you most need to advocate for yourself, you’re least likely to be able to do it.

At any rate, I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad we all had a four-day weekend to recuperate in.

A few sweet moments from that awful day:

On Thursday morning, while I was waiting for my OB to return my phone calls, Wonderboy climbed up next to me on the bed and said, “You sad, Mommy?” “Oh, no, sweetie,” I told him, “Mommy’s just sick. My tummy hurts.” He laid a gentle hand on my belly, his brow furrowed with concern.

“I go get you a band-aid?”

Melt, melt, melt.

Also, there is something indescribably sweet about using your husband’s cell phone to call home and seeing, when you dial the number, that the name that pops up onscreen is: Love.

Have I mentioned I’m glad to be home?