Drip, drip, drip….

Let me start by saying that we have no reason to believe that there is anything wrong with Cupcake. However, we have no real way of knowing until our next scan on 10/16.

  The last few days have not been fun. I had a pretty good Saturday with very little in the way of nausea or heartburn. My energy was almost back to pre-pregnancy levels. We went to a wedding for friends and a birthday party for another friend so I was thrilled to be feeling the best I’d felt in weeks.
  Then came Sunday. I woke up feeling pretty exhausted and sick. My day was spent mostly on the couch fighting the urge to puke. At 7pm it was time for my 2nd daily dose of the Zantac. It was a struggle to get the 1st pill down, and a minute later I was hugging the toilet and losing the contents of my stomach. I didn’t try to take the 2nd one. By 9pm, I was passed out in bed.
  At 7am on Monday, I tried to take a Zantac again. An even more violent reaction than the night before. I gave up on going to work, managed to eat a few bites of yogurt, and went back to bed. Throughout the day, I tried to stay hydrated and fed with a saltine every hour or so. Mostly sleeping, I fought the nausea off until 5pm. And then it got worse. I couldn’t keep ANYTHING down. Not a single bite of dry toast, not a single sip of water or Pedialyte. This kept on through the night. After 3am, I gave up trying to keep myself hydrated.
  We had called the after-hours answering service for my OB at 7pm and again at 11pm, but no one ever called us back. At 7:30, with me feeling completely worn out and exhausted and unable to keep anything down, we called again. This time, someone finally called us back. They were very emphatic. Go to the emergency room for IV fluids.
  I called out of work again (missing my out-of-town boss and a very big meeting and telling him over the phone that I’m pregnant. Not at all how I had planned to tell him). Strawberry called out of work. We loaded me into the car, puke bucket in hand and drove to the ER.
  Ok, so I have to now put in a good word about the ER. We arrived at 9am and were through the doors to a room by 9:30. Not at all the horror stories of 4 hour waits in the waiting room with screaming children.
  We were placed in a semi-private curtained room with no one on the other side of the curtain. A nurse took my stats. A 4th year med student asked me a bunch of questions and confirmed what we had expected- that they were going to give me an IV drip of saline to re-hydrate me and also an IV dose of Zofran for the nausea. Oh yeah, and take a bunch of blood to run tests to rule out any more serious causes of my illness. Here’s the part where I remind you I hate needles. I was a big baby. I sobbed and sniffled as they took blood and left a line in for the IV. I was unable to look at or use that arm for the rest of the stay.
A doctor came in and did a brief exam before confirming the course of treatment. Before starting the IV, they asked for a urine sample. As dehydrated as I was and with one arm unusable, that was a challenge, but I managed.
  Then came the IV. A huge bag of saline left to drip over the course of an hour and an in-line injection of the Zofran. The nausea subsided fairly quickly. And we were left to wait.
  After the hour, the Dr. and his student returned. Asked how I was feeling, seemed pleased with my improved appearence and said that all my blood work had come back fine. Assured me that I’d get a perscription for Zofran to fill at my pharmacy. Gave me a cup of ice water and a cup of apple juice to sip at will, then departed. The nurse returned. My saline bag was still 3/4 full, and dripping too slowly. No wonder I didn’t feel great yet! She had to re-tape my IV to get the fluid flowing properly. We knew this meant another hour wait. Before she left, she hooked my other arm up to an automatic blood pressure cuff, set at 30 minute intervals so that she could “keep an eye on me”. As you can well imagine, this left me pretty much imobile since I now had 1 arm in the cuff and the other on a drip. And the saline was COLD. My fingers were numb. I started to shiver. Strawberry wrapped me tightly in the sheet and a blanket she asked for. I was still freezing.
  An hour later, the drip was done and Strawberry went to get the nurse. She came in, removed the drip, and checked my blood pressure again. She wasn’t pleased with how low it was. I kept insisting how cold I was, but she’d have none of it. Said she needed to speak with the Dr. Another 30 minutes go by. At this point, I’m hydrated and no longer feeling the nausea. But I hadn’t eaten since a saltine cracker at 2pm the previous day. I’m HUNGRY. We wait. The machine takes my blood pressure twice more. It’s improving. The Dr. returns with my prescription and departs. Never says anything about my BP. We wait another 30 minutes.
  FINALLY, a different nurse comes in to remove my IV and give me my discharge papers. Instructions for what to eat over the next 2 days. I gratefully get dressed and we head out. We were there from 9am until 2.
After a quick stop at the pharmacy to fill my prescription, and stock up on clear fluid items for the 1st 24 hrs, we made it home and crashed hard. I would like to NEVER, EVER, EVER do that again, please?