The end of the story
Those of you who following this blog know that I experienced a miscarriage a week and a half ago that landed me in the ER on Friday the 6th.
My body showed itself in no-wise interested in finishing the process over the weekend after the ER visit. After some wise counsel, I decided to take Misoprostol to induce contractions. This was itself pretty scary and emotional - I plan to do a separate update on that later. In any case, Monday of that week I was able to enjoy a day out with the whole family plus my husband's mother in the Gorge. My head hurt, but I was pounding down water and the weather was beautiful. I am very glad to have had that day. Tuesday AM I took the pills and sent everyone to the zoo, then had a couple of girlfriends come over for comfort and (although I hoped not) help should something go wrong. Well, nothing went wrong, but it didn't work either. None of the scary side effects occurred: no bleeding, cramping, fever, chills, or - well - progress.
Very frustrated, I spent another full day (probably too full!) with the family on Wednesday, and then started early Thursday morning with another dose of Misoprostol around 6 am and a couple of friends on call. David was back to work. :} Again, nothing happened. Nothing, except that as the day progressed I felt more and more rotten, but with none of the symptoms that would indicate actual progress. After an uncontrollable attack of chills, I called in help from a good friend around 10:30. I slept a couple of hours and then snuck down for what turned out to be my last real meal of the day around 12:30. She traded off with another friend a few hours later as my general feeling of illness was increasing rather than decreasing. Finally, around 3:30, the light started to dawn: I was not simply feeling crummy, I was feeling *flu like!* Indeed, I was running a temperature which I'd probably suppressed with Tylenol earlier in the day - not that I would have done anything much earlier anyway, since fever was a listed side effect of Misoprostol. Long story short, a good friend who is also an OB nurse set me straight: my symptoms were consistent with infection, and this was nothing I could ignore. In other words, back to the ER around 6 pm for one of the least pleasant nights of my life. Everything hurt, and I was constantly either hot or cold. The nurses were male and not terribly communicative. They put a painful IV in my right arm, preventing me from getting even half comfortable on the bed. I was not allowed to eat or drink for upwards of 4 hours - The former was no big deal, but the latter near to have killed me: all week I'd been consistently downing 80 to 120 oz of water a day all week! Hours in I was given 3 tylenol with half a glass of water and told to drink "as little as possible." It could have been the nectar of the gods. Oh my goodness, I hope Never to be restricted like that again!
All along I knew I needed a D&C, but had no idea how long I was to wait.
Finally, near midnight, my clinic's on-call doctor freed up enough that I was transferred to (ironically) labor & delivery. There everything was immediately better. Friendly, female nurses, communicative doctors and techs, a blood pressure cuff that didn't squeeze my hand into pins and needles, and an actual plan! (Specifically, a D&C as soon as the doctor was finished with her other operations.) That event was rather an anti-climax as I was completely out for the whole thing. All I can really say is that after I was finally back to myself a couple of hours later, I felt immediately better - and not simply because I was allowed water and food!
We were sent home around 6 am. Friends surrounded us from beginning to end - one stayed with the kids all Thursday night; two others traded off Friday during the day to allow us sleep. And honestly, by Saturday I was feeling 70% better. Today (Wednesday) I feel essentially normal - although there are a few side effects from the iron pills I have to take for who knows how long.
Turns out, by the way, that my headache all week was not so much from dehydration as it was from blood loss. So too were some of the chills. Although very little was making it out, it was building up in my uterus which was refusing to surrender it. My red blood cell count was so low they were nervous about giving me pain meds and serious considered transfusion during the surgery. (They didn't have to, thankfully!)
In conclusion, I am incredibly thankful for modern medicine. No-one specifically told me that my condition was life threatening, but I suspect that left untreated I would have found myself incredibly ill at best, and it may have been a toss up. So yeah, it's expensive. It's broken in any number of ways. It also works, wonderfully, especially for common and well understood problems like this one. Thank God!
My body showed itself in no-wise interested in finishing the process over the weekend after the ER visit. After some wise counsel, I decided to take Misoprostol to induce contractions. This was itself pretty scary and emotional - I plan to do a separate update on that later. In any case, Monday of that week I was able to enjoy a day out with the whole family plus my husband's mother in the Gorge. My head hurt, but I was pounding down water and the weather was beautiful. I am very glad to have had that day. Tuesday AM I took the pills and sent everyone to the zoo, then had a couple of girlfriends come over for comfort and (although I hoped not) help should something go wrong. Well, nothing went wrong, but it didn't work either. None of the scary side effects occurred: no bleeding, cramping, fever, chills, or - well - progress.
Very frustrated, I spent another full day (probably too full!) with the family on Wednesday, and then started early Thursday morning with another dose of Misoprostol around 6 am and a couple of friends on call. David was back to work. :} Again, nothing happened. Nothing, except that as the day progressed I felt more and more rotten, but with none of the symptoms that would indicate actual progress. After an uncontrollable attack of chills, I called in help from a good friend around 10:30. I slept a couple of hours and then snuck down for what turned out to be my last real meal of the day around 12:30. She traded off with another friend a few hours later as my general feeling of illness was increasing rather than decreasing. Finally, around 3:30, the light started to dawn: I was not simply feeling crummy, I was feeling *flu like!* Indeed, I was running a temperature which I'd probably suppressed with Tylenol earlier in the day - not that I would have done anything much earlier anyway, since fever was a listed side effect of Misoprostol. Long story short, a good friend who is also an OB nurse set me straight: my symptoms were consistent with infection, and this was nothing I could ignore. In other words, back to the ER around 6 pm for one of the least pleasant nights of my life. Everything hurt, and I was constantly either hot or cold. The nurses were male and not terribly communicative. They put a painful IV in my right arm, preventing me from getting even half comfortable on the bed. I was not allowed to eat or drink for upwards of 4 hours - The former was no big deal, but the latter near to have killed me: all week I'd been consistently downing 80 to 120 oz of water a day all week! Hours in I was given 3 tylenol with half a glass of water and told to drink "as little as possible." It could have been the nectar of the gods. Oh my goodness, I hope Never to be restricted like that again!
All along I knew I needed a D&C, but had no idea how long I was to wait.
Finally, near midnight, my clinic's on-call doctor freed up enough that I was transferred to (ironically) labor & delivery. There everything was immediately better. Friendly, female nurses, communicative doctors and techs, a blood pressure cuff that didn't squeeze my hand into pins and needles, and an actual plan! (Specifically, a D&C as soon as the doctor was finished with her other operations.) That event was rather an anti-climax as I was completely out for the whole thing. All I can really say is that after I was finally back to myself a couple of hours later, I felt immediately better - and not simply because I was allowed water and food!
We were sent home around 6 am. Friends surrounded us from beginning to end - one stayed with the kids all Thursday night; two others traded off Friday during the day to allow us sleep. And honestly, by Saturday I was feeling 70% better. Today (Wednesday) I feel essentially normal - although there are a few side effects from the iron pills I have to take for who knows how long.
Turns out, by the way, that my headache all week was not so much from dehydration as it was from blood loss. So too were some of the chills. Although very little was making it out, it was building up in my uterus which was refusing to surrender it. My red blood cell count was so low they were nervous about giving me pain meds and serious considered transfusion during the surgery. (They didn't have to, thankfully!)
In conclusion, I am incredibly thankful for modern medicine. No-one specifically told me that my condition was life threatening, but I suspect that left untreated I would have found myself incredibly ill at best, and it may have been a toss up. So yeah, it's expensive. It's broken in any number of ways. It also works, wonderfully, especially for common and well understood problems like this one. Thank God!