To the handful of you who follow this blog and worry about me when I am not updating it regularly: I am so incredibly sorry that I keep disappearing.
Four weeks ago today, I got a call from the manager of that freelance project I thought I finished in early June. Her bosses loved the project but wanted some significant changes to it. Me making those changes could lead to bigger opportunities for me, so I agreed to dive in. Only, I had exactly three weeks to make all of those significant changes. Hence the disappearing act.
I finished the project (again) last Monday and have been trying to catch up on life ever since. And then Mini-Hope came to spend the weekend with us - it was a fun visit but my time is never my time when the kiddo is here (not that I'm complaining!).
Suffice it to say: I've been busy.
As of today, I am 26W4D. There has been SO much going on, you guys. So much. I need to go back and fill in my weekly updates, which I write for me more than anyone - they're a great way to keep track of the pregnancy.
But first things first: Jellybean is still 100%, as far as I know. At the last round of ultrasound we got a profile shot of him that was so perfect I kept joking it had to be fake - like stock photography of what an ultrasound is supposed to look like. If I get some time I'll scan it and upload it to a post; that's how perfect it is.
I am not quite as perfect. Okay, I'm kind of a hot mess. As of this morning I am up 64 lbs. total, but the scary part is that 7 of those have found their way onto my gargantuan body in the last four days ALONE. My hands have been extra-special hurty lately, super-swollen and numb and yet riddled with sharp, stabbing pain all at the same time. Oh, and remember how I thought I dodged the gestational diabetes bullet? Yeah, not so much. Even though there were only a few readings above where they were supposed to be, they slapped that label on my fat ass right quick. So now I'm doing finger sticks 4 times a day until I deliver.
But here's the very best part:
A couple of weeks ago I went for an EKG. This is apparently standard with Maternal Fetal Medicine for women who go through IVF. My EKG was clean but when I was at the cardiologist, her student intern thought she heard a slight murmur. So, they sent me for an echocardiogram. During that, they didn't find a murmur but they did find increased lung pressure. The cardiologist called me this past Friday to tell me about that. She said it could be something or it could be nothing and that she wanted to repeat the echo in early September. She didn't sound all that concerned, though.
Fast forward about three hours, when my OB's nurse calls to tell me that I need to be seen next week (as in, this week) because of the cardiologist. I was like, "Um, when I talked to her this morning she seemed like this was NBD. What changed?" The nurse tells me that nothing changed, per se, but they're concerned by the amount of edema I have and are considering putting me on Lasix.
Here's me: "Wait, so you took me off a diuretic because it was dangerous to the baby, and that led to all of these health problems, and now you want to put me back on it? Did it stop being dangerous to the baby?"
Here's her: "Just come in and talk to Dr. Direct."
Can I just tell you how incredibly pissed I was? I mean, seriously. Every single problem leads back to when they had me stop the HCTZ. I went from gaining a total of 9 lbs. in the first trimester to 17 within a single week. I developed high blood pressure. I developed pitting edema in my hands, feet, ankles, calves, and stomach. I developed bilateral carpal tunnel. I developed sleep apnea.
So then I do the Google thing and find out that Lasix is pregnancy Category C. As in, DO NOT TAKE. As in, DANGEROUS TO BABY. But the drug I was on, the HCTZ, is Category B. As in, could be harmful but probably isn't. There's a woman on my super-secret Facebook group who said she took the same drug throughout her entire pregnancy and had exactly zero problems with her baby.
I go back to the cardiologist tomorrow and am prepared to fight them on the Lasix. I refuse to take a drug that has been known to induce spontaneous abortion and infant death. Not after everything I've been through. I'm not even that excited about the possibility of resuming the HCTZ, even though every cell in my body is crying out for a diuretic right now, because I don't want to take anything that could hurt my little Jellybean.
Anyway, so that's the short of what's up with me. I'm behind on my blog writing and I'm behind on my blog reading, because I pretty much suck. Again, my apologies.
More soon - I promise!
Showing posts with label sleep apnea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep apnea. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2015
Sunday, July 26, 2015
the finger sticks begin.
On Friday, I went in for glucose meter training. Technically, I already knew how to use a glucose meter, since I had Type II diabetes for a couple of years before losing the weight and sending it into remission, but I thought I'd get the meter itself at the appointment. I did not. That got called into the pharmacy. And the nurse training me got very suspicious when she handed me the meter to try myself and I asked for an alcohol swab.
"You look like you've done this before," she said.
I smiled and nodded.
I don't talk to a lot of people about how I used to be diabetic. It's not something I'm proud of. And when I did have it, early medical interventions made things way worse; the first doctor to put me on insulin kept jacking up the dosage even after I didn't respond well, and I ended up putting on something like 40 lbs. in a single month. And even then, my sugars didn't get under control until I was put on a medicine that basically talked to my liver and told it to stop pumping out insulin.
I also don't talk a lot about my gastric bypass surgery, which I had almost 7 years ago. I don't talk about it because when I had it, I was at an all-time high weight that was the equivalent of four top-of-the-pyramid cheerleaders. To be fair, nearly 70 lbs. of that came from the insulin and fluid retention, but still. It was a dark time in my life and one I don't care to revisit. Plus, I never lost all of the weight after my surgery. I lost nearly 200 lbs., but that still put me at close to 100 lbs. over where the height-weight charts wanted me to be, and about 35 lbs. over my personal weight-loss goal.
When you still look like a fat girl and you tell people you've had gastric bypass, they either assume that you were unsuccessful at it or that you're one of the sad folks who's gained all of their weight back. Prior to this pregnancy, I did have some regain from time to time. but I always nipped it before it got too bad and took the weight back off. This is one of the main reasons the massive gain from Jellybean has me so unhinged. I'm terrified the weight won't come off again, And all of the health problems I had pre-surgery loss, they're all coming back - the apena, the edema, the sciatic lower back pain, the shooting numbness in one or both legs, etc.
Except, I think, for the diabetes. This is one pregnancy nasty I may have been able to avoid.
My very first stick - the one that made the nurse suspicious - was 114. "That's really good!" she remarked, shocked that my blood wasn't made of taffy. I left the training feeling unexpectedly chuffed. I was going to be fine! No gestational diabetes for me!
And then, that night, my post-dinner reading was 140 - 10 over where they like to see it. There had been a touch of cornstarch in the sauce we made, and I had about 1/3 cup of brown rice. A friend who has Type II told me she can't tolerate brown rice even medicated, that it always spikes her sugars, so I made a note on my log and moved on.
The next morning, my fasting bgl was 96 - about 7 higher than it should be. I'd indulged in a small piece of chocolate cake for a late-night dessert, and figured that was the culprit. Again, I made a note and moved on.
And then something surprising happened - my post-meal readings for the day were all stellar. After a lunch of spaghetti squash chow mein and grilled chicken, I clocked in at 78 - close to low! Last night's pre-bed snack consisted of a piece of Ezekial toast with natural PB and a small sliced banana. The fasting reading today? 89. And that's with the banana!
So while I'll likely have to pay attention to what I'm eating, and skip as much refined sugar as possible, it looks like my bgl is going to behave through diet modification alone. Of course, I need to track my finger sticks for two full weeks before someone will make that assessment, but still. Early data is promising.
Since that's the case, I think I'm going to experiment a little with foods to see what does/doesn't spike my sugar. I'm making some oat bran with blueberries and almonds for breakfast, just to see what that does. Yesterday I had a whole wheat English muffin with egg and cheese (homemade) and my post-meal reading was 114, which was well within the good limits. So we'll see.
I've been so terrified that I'm going to get pre-eclampsia that in my head I already have it. But this? This makes me wonder if maybe I'll somehow avoid it. When I checked my BP last night it was 122/78 - perfectly normal. Is it possible that I will get through the rest of this pregnancy without any major medical meltdowns?
I sure hope so.
"You look like you've done this before," she said.
I smiled and nodded.
I don't talk to a lot of people about how I used to be diabetic. It's not something I'm proud of. And when I did have it, early medical interventions made things way worse; the first doctor to put me on insulin kept jacking up the dosage even after I didn't respond well, and I ended up putting on something like 40 lbs. in a single month. And even then, my sugars didn't get under control until I was put on a medicine that basically talked to my liver and told it to stop pumping out insulin.
I also don't talk a lot about my gastric bypass surgery, which I had almost 7 years ago. I don't talk about it because when I had it, I was at an all-time high weight that was the equivalent of four top-of-the-pyramid cheerleaders. To be fair, nearly 70 lbs. of that came from the insulin and fluid retention, but still. It was a dark time in my life and one I don't care to revisit. Plus, I never lost all of the weight after my surgery. I lost nearly 200 lbs., but that still put me at close to 100 lbs. over where the height-weight charts wanted me to be, and about 35 lbs. over my personal weight-loss goal.
When you still look like a fat girl and you tell people you've had gastric bypass, they either assume that you were unsuccessful at it or that you're one of the sad folks who's gained all of their weight back. Prior to this pregnancy, I did have some regain from time to time. but I always nipped it before it got too bad and took the weight back off. This is one of the main reasons the massive gain from Jellybean has me so unhinged. I'm terrified the weight won't come off again, And all of the health problems I had pre-surgery loss, they're all coming back - the apena, the edema, the sciatic lower back pain, the shooting numbness in one or both legs, etc.
Except, I think, for the diabetes. This is one pregnancy nasty I may have been able to avoid.
My very first stick - the one that made the nurse suspicious - was 114. "That's really good!" she remarked, shocked that my blood wasn't made of taffy. I left the training feeling unexpectedly chuffed. I was going to be fine! No gestational diabetes for me!
And then, that night, my post-dinner reading was 140 - 10 over where they like to see it. There had been a touch of cornstarch in the sauce we made, and I had about 1/3 cup of brown rice. A friend who has Type II told me she can't tolerate brown rice even medicated, that it always spikes her sugars, so I made a note on my log and moved on.
The next morning, my fasting bgl was 96 - about 7 higher than it should be. I'd indulged in a small piece of chocolate cake for a late-night dessert, and figured that was the culprit. Again, I made a note and moved on.
And then something surprising happened - my post-meal readings for the day were all stellar. After a lunch of spaghetti squash chow mein and grilled chicken, I clocked in at 78 - close to low! Last night's pre-bed snack consisted of a piece of Ezekial toast with natural PB and a small sliced banana. The fasting reading today? 89. And that's with the banana!
So while I'll likely have to pay attention to what I'm eating, and skip as much refined sugar as possible, it looks like my bgl is going to behave through diet modification alone. Of course, I need to track my finger sticks for two full weeks before someone will make that assessment, but still. Early data is promising.
Since that's the case, I think I'm going to experiment a little with foods to see what does/doesn't spike my sugar. I'm making some oat bran with blueberries and almonds for breakfast, just to see what that does. Yesterday I had a whole wheat English muffin with egg and cheese (homemade) and my post-meal reading was 114, which was well within the good limits. So we'll see.
I've been so terrified that I'm going to get pre-eclampsia that in my head I already have it. But this? This makes me wonder if maybe I'll somehow avoid it. When I checked my BP last night it was 122/78 - perfectly normal. Is it possible that I will get through the rest of this pregnancy without any major medical meltdowns?
I sure hope so.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
edema, apnea, and other fun things.
It's been almost a month since I last updated. I'm sorry about that, especially since so many of you have emailed and left comments to check up on me. You're so sweet and I'm a complete toad. Again: apologies.
First things first: I'm barely okay(ish), but Jellybean is perfect. And that's what matters most. To me, anyway.
I fell off the blogosphere for a bunch of reasons, but here are the main ones:
But now I'm home, and I've really missed blogging. So, here's me attempting to get back into the swing of things.
The last time I updated I mentioned that I'd been snoring again and was terrified I'd developed sleep apnea again. I haven't had it in almost eight years, but I remember how awful it was. The not sleeping. The trying to sleep sitting up. The walking exhaustion. The diagnosis and treatment. The breathing machine they make you wear. Etc.
I went from only being able to sleep in bed a couple hours at a time to not being able to fall asleep in bed at all - sleeping exclusively on the couch, sitting up, in front of the TV. And I knew. I just knew that the apnea was back. It made a lot of sense - why my BP had gone crazy, why my weight was shooting up so quickly, why the swelling in my appendages seemed so much worse than normal pregnancy stuff.
I talked to Dr. Direct about this, and she told me to make an appointment with my primary to order the sleep study. It took almost a week to get that appointment. Then, it took another week to schedule the study itself. And even then, they initially told me they couldn't get me in until the end of August, at which point I played the pregnancy card and told anyone who would listen that I'd had a previous loss and I was terrified of losing this baby, too.
It worked. Turns out no one likes you insinuating that their lack of action could result in a loss of pregnancy. I got the sleep study for two days before I left for my business trip, and the apnea was bad enough that they titrated me that night. I spent the bulk of the next day crying to anyone who'd listen that I was about to get on a plane and needed my CPAP immediately so that I didn't lose my baby. It worked again; by 6:30 p.m., I was getting a lesson on how to use the new machine.
That first night, I wrestled with it. See, the way the CPAP works is by forcing air into you, so that you don't stop breathing in your sleep. I have to wear a full-face mask, too, because pregnancy has given me so much nasal congestion that the nose mask made me outright choke. So I've got this thing over my nose and mouth, and it's forcing air into me, and I feel overwhelmingly claustrophobic, like if I don't rip it off my face right that second, I'm going to die.
I think I made it 90 minutes with the mask.
On the trip, I continued to wrestle with the machine. One night I managed to get about four hours in, divided. But I couldn't just fall asleep with it on, stay asleep 7 hours, and wake up refreshed. There were a couple of nights I didn't even bother using it, but the last day of the trip I was like a zombie, so I went back to my hotel and took a 2.5 hour nap with the mask. When I woke up feeling human, I capitulated: I needed the machine, and I needed to get over my CPAP anxiety ASAP.
But then a new thing developed, and it's this: If I sleep on my left side for more than 45 minutes, my arm falls asleep. My hand goes numb. And then I wake up with pain shooting down my arm. So now, even though I'm finally getting used to the mask, I still can't stay in it long because I wake up in so much pain. Mr. Hope and I decided tonight that we'd set it up in the living room and I'd use the mask sitting up on the couch, so that I'd get quality sleep that was mostly pain-free.
Yep. This is what it's come to.
Can we talk about my hands and arms for a sec? Previously I'd reported carpal tunnel in both arms. This is still present, though the pain in my arms/wrists isn't as pronounced. No, now the problem is that my hands are swollen beyond belief. My fingers are like fat sausages. It's all fluid, too. They are so sore and stiff in the mornings that I can't even make a fist. Throughout the day they grown numb whenever I use them too much. It doesn't matter how much water I pound, I can't find relief for the hands. Not fully, anyway.
If I am on my feet for any significant amount of time, my feet and ankles swell. They look like Hobbit feet. I have pitting edema in both calves. But my favorite is the edema in my stomach. And no, that's not a typo. The lower portion of my stomach, which many plus-size women refer to as their apron, is hard with edema. The skin is so stretched that the pores are enormous. It feels leathery and looks like orange rind. And there's so much fluid collected there that my belly swings like I have weighted balls implanted, one on either side of my belly button.
The apron weight has started pulling on my back, and so now I'm getting twinges and numbness and shooting pains down my legs from time to time. I don't walk anymore so much as waddle. And I get breathless quite easily. So, really, most of the time I don't even look pregnant. I just look like a super-fat version of myself.
I look a lot like the me I was before I lost nearly 200 lbs., and it's totally fucking with my head.
When people ask me how I'm doing, I give them the real answer, which they don't really want. I will say, "As long as I get a healthy baby at the end of this, I can handle anything for a few more months." And it's true. I can.
But.
I am miserable a lot of the time, physically and emotionally. My self-esteem is in the toilet. There have been a couple of incidences of people being not-so-nice to me that have hurt me deeply. I hate the way I look in everything. I dread leaving the house. Etc.
On the plus side, Jellybean is, as I said earlier, perfect. We had our anatomy scan a week before I left on the trip. They couldn't get every shot they wanted (more on this later), but what they saw was exactly as it should be. The relief in knowing that my many ailments wasn't harming him in the least was so overwhelming I almost cried right there on the table.
I have a few days off and I hope to write a few more posts that have been percolating in my brain. Like about the anatomy scan, and how right up until the ultrasound tech pointed out Jellybean's penis, I was still - STILL - hoping there was a girl growing inside of me. I want to write about the torture and mental gymnastics involved in building my baby registry. About my crunchy granola chiropractor whom I love, and the mean girl co-worker whom I now loathe.
And I think I want to retroactively fill in my weekly updates, since I've found those useful in documenting this pregnancy. And I do want to document it, as miserable as I am, because hopefully when all is said and done I'll be holding a fat, happy baby in my numb arms. His life will be something to celebrate, no matter how traumatic his gestation was for his poor, unlucky mama.
First things first: I'm barely okay(ish), but Jellybean is perfect. And that's what matters most. To me, anyway.
I fell off the blogosphere for a bunch of reasons, but here are the main ones:
- I was working a lot of extra hours to get ready for a weeklong business trip.
- I wasn't sleeping well, and therefore unable to get up early enough to do any AM writing.
- I was also so exhausted that I wasn't up to PM writing, either.
- I felt like all I was doing was complaining, and who wants to read that shiz?
- I left for the weeklong business trip, and it almost broke me.
But now I'm home, and I've really missed blogging. So, here's me attempting to get back into the swing of things.
The last time I updated I mentioned that I'd been snoring again and was terrified I'd developed sleep apnea again. I haven't had it in almost eight years, but I remember how awful it was. The not sleeping. The trying to sleep sitting up. The walking exhaustion. The diagnosis and treatment. The breathing machine they make you wear. Etc.
I went from only being able to sleep in bed a couple hours at a time to not being able to fall asleep in bed at all - sleeping exclusively on the couch, sitting up, in front of the TV. And I knew. I just knew that the apnea was back. It made a lot of sense - why my BP had gone crazy, why my weight was shooting up so quickly, why the swelling in my appendages seemed so much worse than normal pregnancy stuff.
I talked to Dr. Direct about this, and she told me to make an appointment with my primary to order the sleep study. It took almost a week to get that appointment. Then, it took another week to schedule the study itself. And even then, they initially told me they couldn't get me in until the end of August, at which point I played the pregnancy card and told anyone who would listen that I'd had a previous loss and I was terrified of losing this baby, too.
It worked. Turns out no one likes you insinuating that their lack of action could result in a loss of pregnancy. I got the sleep study for two days before I left for my business trip, and the apnea was bad enough that they titrated me that night. I spent the bulk of the next day crying to anyone who'd listen that I was about to get on a plane and needed my CPAP immediately so that I didn't lose my baby. It worked again; by 6:30 p.m., I was getting a lesson on how to use the new machine.
That first night, I wrestled with it. See, the way the CPAP works is by forcing air into you, so that you don't stop breathing in your sleep. I have to wear a full-face mask, too, because pregnancy has given me so much nasal congestion that the nose mask made me outright choke. So I've got this thing over my nose and mouth, and it's forcing air into me, and I feel overwhelmingly claustrophobic, like if I don't rip it off my face right that second, I'm going to die.
I think I made it 90 minutes with the mask.
On the trip, I continued to wrestle with the machine. One night I managed to get about four hours in, divided. But I couldn't just fall asleep with it on, stay asleep 7 hours, and wake up refreshed. There were a couple of nights I didn't even bother using it, but the last day of the trip I was like a zombie, so I went back to my hotel and took a 2.5 hour nap with the mask. When I woke up feeling human, I capitulated: I needed the machine, and I needed to get over my CPAP anxiety ASAP.
But then a new thing developed, and it's this: If I sleep on my left side for more than 45 minutes, my arm falls asleep. My hand goes numb. And then I wake up with pain shooting down my arm. So now, even though I'm finally getting used to the mask, I still can't stay in it long because I wake up in so much pain. Mr. Hope and I decided tonight that we'd set it up in the living room and I'd use the mask sitting up on the couch, so that I'd get quality sleep that was mostly pain-free.
Yep. This is what it's come to.
Can we talk about my hands and arms for a sec? Previously I'd reported carpal tunnel in both arms. This is still present, though the pain in my arms/wrists isn't as pronounced. No, now the problem is that my hands are swollen beyond belief. My fingers are like fat sausages. It's all fluid, too. They are so sore and stiff in the mornings that I can't even make a fist. Throughout the day they grown numb whenever I use them too much. It doesn't matter how much water I pound, I can't find relief for the hands. Not fully, anyway.
If I am on my feet for any significant amount of time, my feet and ankles swell. They look like Hobbit feet. I have pitting edema in both calves. But my favorite is the edema in my stomach. And no, that's not a typo. The lower portion of my stomach, which many plus-size women refer to as their apron, is hard with edema. The skin is so stretched that the pores are enormous. It feels leathery and looks like orange rind. And there's so much fluid collected there that my belly swings like I have weighted balls implanted, one on either side of my belly button.
The apron weight has started pulling on my back, and so now I'm getting twinges and numbness and shooting pains down my legs from time to time. I don't walk anymore so much as waddle. And I get breathless quite easily. So, really, most of the time I don't even look pregnant. I just look like a super-fat version of myself.
I look a lot like the me I was before I lost nearly 200 lbs., and it's totally fucking with my head.
When people ask me how I'm doing, I give them the real answer, which they don't really want. I will say, "As long as I get a healthy baby at the end of this, I can handle anything for a few more months." And it's true. I can.
But.
I am miserable a lot of the time, physically and emotionally. My self-esteem is in the toilet. There have been a couple of incidences of people being not-so-nice to me that have hurt me deeply. I hate the way I look in everything. I dread leaving the house. Etc.
On the plus side, Jellybean is, as I said earlier, perfect. We had our anatomy scan a week before I left on the trip. They couldn't get every shot they wanted (more on this later), but what they saw was exactly as it should be. The relief in knowing that my many ailments wasn't harming him in the least was so overwhelming I almost cried right there on the table.
I have a few days off and I hope to write a few more posts that have been percolating in my brain. Like about the anatomy scan, and how right up until the ultrasound tech pointed out Jellybean's penis, I was still - STILL - hoping there was a girl growing inside of me. I want to write about the torture and mental gymnastics involved in building my baby registry. About my crunchy granola chiropractor whom I love, and the mean girl co-worker whom I now loathe.
And I think I want to retroactively fill in my weekly updates, since I've found those useful in documenting this pregnancy. And I do want to document it, as miserable as I am, because hopefully when all is said and done I'll be holding a fat, happy baby in my numb arms. His life will be something to celebrate, no matter how traumatic his gestation was for his poor, unlucky mama.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)