On Monday, the 29th of December, I started noticing leg pain in my thigh. I had been sitting in a funny position nursing, so I just assumed I had pulled a muscle and began stretching throughout the day. By the late afternoon, I had to take 800mg of ibuprofen just to suppress the pain. I was limping around and avoiding the stairs. Danny noticed discoloration the next morning and began to worry. He made me call and get a doctor's appointment. Danny was helping a friend move around 2ish, and I started to panic that I couldn't rush to Embry when she needed me; it hurt to walk anywhere. Danny came home and decided to take me to the appointment so that I wouldn't have to drive. I went in at 3:40 and they had to wheel me in a wheelchair just to get me to the room. The doctor took one look at my leg, and wheeled me straight to the ER. In the ER, they all went into panic mode seeing my swollen, discolored leg and they called a helicopter in. They let me know that they thought that I had a very serious blood clot in my leg. They asked if I preferred a city to go to (Springfield, Columbia, or Saint Louis) and I immediately replied that I wanted to go to Columbia, because I wanted to pick a city that was closest to family if I was going to be in the hospital for the long haul. My parents are about 20 minutes from Columbia. They got me on a helicopter in record time and flew me to MU Hospital. The helicopter ride was pretty neat, despite the fears running wild in my head! After arriving, the head vascular surgeon was pleased that the clot was still a new clot and it wasn't as life threatening as Fort Leonard Wood had portrayed on the phone. He let me know that this was still a very serious condition, but surgery could wait until the morning. I was not going to loose my leg and I still had time. He put me immediately on Heparin (blood thinner) in order to prevent anymore clotting. The radiologist scanned me, and we found out my clot started in my abdomen and ran clear down to my knee (wow!). It was still a softer, newer clot, and therefore I could still feel a pulse in my foot. Once a clot begins to harden, that is when it cuts off the blood completely, and pieces of it could go into my heart. While I was in the ER, Danny had been packing up the kids and drove down to Columbia to get a hotel. They arrived after I was put in the SICU (this is like a second ICU....just a step down from the MAJOR critical patients). I was incredibly happy to see them at 11pm that night. I had broken down when they left the ER in FLW, so it was a relief to see their faces again. Kids are not allowed in the SICU, but they were kind enough to let mine back so that I could nurse Embry. She had never had formula yet, so I was worried it was going to be a long night for Danny. I slept as well as I possibly could that night. My parents came up the next morning and were able to watch the boys while Danny and Embry came up during my surgery. After Danny gave me a kiss, I was wheeled into surgery around 10:30 and it lasted nearly 4 1/2 hours. I was awake the whole time and I was so bummed that they didn't knock me out fully. I was laying on my stomach the whole time so my back was in excruciating pain (I had been having back pain for the last 2 weeks). They went in through the back of my knee to put in a filter in order to catch any pieces that may go to my heart, next, they essentially vacuumed out as much of the clot that they could get. They told me that they got a lot of blood. I was loopy but I remember them saying that they got 40 something units (I do not know if they said mL or not) of blood. After surgery, I slept a lot. By that evening, they moved me to a ward called the "Step Down" area where they could still keep an eye on me all night, but I no longer needed to take up a room in the SICU. These pictures below, I sent the kids. I was giving them a kiss in the second picture and telling them goodnight.
This was my white board in my room the next morning. Happy New Years to me! I'm alive and I have my leg! I did not care that I had to miss out on a fun New Years...I was grateful to be able to walk around my room and see my family.
After moving me yet again to where I would stay put for the next 3 days, they pulled out one of my 2 ivs. This is what my arm looked like! They pricked me a total of 16 times in this arm in order to draw blood labs. Icky!
The hospital food was very appetizing.... These chicken tenders were bricks. I ate the broccoli at least!
These flowers were sent by James & Sherrie. Aren't they gorgeous?!
I also received sweet notes from my sister-in-laws. They cheered me up immensely!
...and the biggest rays of sunshine to my 5 day stay was of course my husband and these three rascals! Danny visited often so that I could continue to nurse Embry. I pumped whenever they weren't around. I felt awful confined in the hospital knowing that Danny had been suddenly thrown into single dad-hood. Embry gave him an awful time at night, but he kept his and my spirits up the whole time. I was so incredibly grateful and proud of my husband. It had to be hard toting 3 around (one being a newborn) and living out of a hotel room. That was the roughest part of this whole ordeal.
Embry was introduced to formula over this time, and Evan loved having the opportunity to feed her. He even burped her and laughed and laughed about how loud her burp was. I'm happy to say that Embry transitioned back fully to breastfeeding without a hitch!
Someone liked stealing my bed!
Danny took the boys to have "breakfast dinner" at IHOP. They got a kick out of that. Danny assured me that Embry was still with them and was just not pictured :).
On Sunday, the doctors gave me bad news and told me that my blood levels for my medication I am going to take for the next 6 months were still not anywhere near where they were supposed to be. They said that I might be in the hospital for a couple of more days. I was getting really discouraged and kept trying to encourage myself by reading "Calm My Anxious Heart", a devotional book that Carolyn had gotten the gals for Christmas. It seemed to help. Later that morning, the doctor decided that he could let me go home and take me off Heparin if I agreed to do shots of Lovanox in my stomach until the pill medication (Coumadin) was showing up in my blood stream. The concern was that I needed to be on an immediate blood thinner like heparin until coumadin had taken affect. Lovanox is one of those immediate blood thinners. We headed home a happy family! I'm not out of the dark yet, but I am so grateful to be home.
Side note: They think the blood clot was caused by pregnancy. The first 3 months of pregnancy and up to 6 weeks postpartum is the time that is a high risk for blood clots. The blood slows down in order to clot easily during and after birth. I also had had retained placenta and took 2 different strong medications to contract the uterus. They think the medication added a higher risk for clotting. It was either those things that caused the clot, or Embry was sitting in a way that pinched something off in the womb. No one knows for sure.
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