Sometimes I think Murphy’s Law could be my life statement

Posted by Emily on December 23, 2009

So you shouldn’t fear if you’ve never been pregnant that you’ll be like me. I’m weird.

Here’s the latest and greatest:

I have planter fasciitis in my right foot.

OK, that’s true, but not the latest and greatest.

I was in the hospital for approximately, um, I don’t know, EVER yesterday.

I went to my regular appointment yesterday, and it so happened that while I was there I was having some pain that has been coming and going for the last week. Upper abdominal, chest, and upper back pain. Like, searing pain.

I came in and their first red flag was that my blood pressure was 20 pts above my normal(and take into account that I’m often not feeling well when I’m there), even though I hadn’t moved in 20 minutes. Making it a whole 120/80. Yeah, I’m a high roller. Then they noticed how much trouble I had moving.

It was all downhill from there. After short discussion, I was being sent to the women’s center at the hospital for evaluation, but wait, I can’t go the the hospital across the street because I’m at 31 weeks and what if I’m in labor? I tried to talk them out of sending me to any hospital; I tried to talk them out of sending me to Atlanta.

Apparently you’re not very convincing when you are in so much pain that you can barely walk.

But bless my mom for dropping everything and not only driving me down there, but hanging out with me once there.

It’s a flurry of tests and I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors. Their top list of things it might be:

• Preterm labor
• Gallstones
• Expanding ribcage (really?)
• Air trapped under ribcage (a nice way of saying gas gone amiss)

I’ll confess that I did not know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t as serious as the first two, or as trivial as the last two.

I’ll spare you all the fun things, but I have to give a couple of highlights:

1. Having a urine sample taken by catheter. BTW, I was ticked about this. They didn’t ask me, and catheterization is personal reason (as opposed to baby reason) #52 why I want to avoid an epidural. Every time you have a catheter it ups your chances of urinary incontinence and infection.
2. Not being allowed to eat for 11 hours, and all I had eaten was a yogurt that morning.
3. Finally going down to get my gallbladder checked and there’s no order for me. Waiting all alone, goodness knows where in the hospital, for them to get the order faxed down. Then the girl mentions checking my bladder and kidneys. “Um, not to be trouble, but that’s not what I’m here for.” Waiting all over again, alone, did I mention half naked, while that’s worked out.
4. Day time TV. Oh dear.
5. Finally being served a dinner, and it’s hospital salmon. Possibly one of the most nauseating smells on the planet. Even my mom, who likes fish, couldn’t stomach this, this… thing. Extreme. Disappointment.

Anyway, before most of the billion tests were performed, but after many hours of waiting, I was able to talk to a doctor. Within 5-10 minutes of discussion he was pretty sure I had some form of acute gastritis. An ulcer or herniated-somethin-somethin pushing up into my diaphragm, causing “pain episodes.”

Yes, apparently my heartburn is severe heartburn. I didn’t know! I have nothing to compare it with! I’m sorry I was never concerned, but the word burn is in the name. That tells me it’s supposed pretty stinkin bad, right?

So this severe heartburn has now done enough damage to my innards that it’s causing all sorts of addition pain, even when I’m not having heartburn. Not to worry, if I take this prescription proton pump inhibitor, it should heal itself right up.

Oh, and my gallbladder is fine, and every nurse that looked at little girl’s heartbeat monitor raved about how perfect it was in relation to her movement. I know, right?