Friday, February 17, 2006

New blog to keep people informed of my health stuff...

Ok, so I created a new blog to keep everyone informed. Hopefully, I will post to it everyday. Not sure if I am going to post to this blog in the meantime. New blog is at cblankenstein.blogspot.com. Feel free to pass this on to people who might be interested or are praying for us!

Thanks....Christina

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Guess What, Again?

So I'm in the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy. I just finished up another blood transfusion, baby's kicking a lot right now. When they give me a blood transfusion they also give me an IV dose of benadryl to help in case I have a bad reaction to the transfusion. That makes me a lot loopy and a lot tired. But we are finished with this one, for now (please excuse my typing, spellilng errors, or anything like that... blame it all on the benadryl).

I was able to meet Presv. Elizabeth the other day. It was so nice to finally see her in person instead of just through cyberspace. A woman from church came by today and decorated my room a little for me. It now looks much more cheerful, cozy, as if someone actually lived here. Pavlos continues to poop on the potty. I am so proud of my little man. And hopefully my mom can get him enrolled into some sort of preschool or activity to help him have more in his life than just visiting his mommy in the hospital.

I am very thankful that they are keeping. I feel better knowing that both myself and the baby are being watched very closely. Still lots of up in the air things going on with my treatment. Will try to keep you posted (Paul bought me and antenna for the laptop and now I have great internet service in my room). Please contintue to pray for us.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Guess What?

I'm back in the hospital again. Hopefully for just tonight (Monday). I am right now waiting for them to give me another blood transfusion and another IV immuno globulin. I'll keep you posted, of course....

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Snap Shirts


With the time that I have on my hands, I went ahead and did this (like so many others). Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Friday, February 10, 2006

New Book, Pregnancy, Lupus, and God's Will in Our Lives...

This is a link to the book I am currently reading about St. Basil of Ostrog.
So far it is very good and not too difficult a read. I am on the second introduction which is an article be St John of Damascus titled God's Miracles: The Foretaste of Eternal Goodness. If anyone knows where I can find a link to the article on the internet, please, let mw know because I would like to provide that link to you, my faithful readers, because it is such a beautiful article:)

Obviously I have lots of thoughts regarding the last few weeks. I realized that out of the last three weeks, i have spent 11 days in the hospital (two separate visits). I have received 8 blood transfusions (please, please, please... go give blood. I'm going to find out if I can give blood after this is all said and done and I have a normal hematicrit and am not pregnant... I am deeply indebted to the anonymous person who gives blood that exactly matches me... so go give blood).

I am learning to appreciate the two miracle babies in my life... Pavlos and this baby who we will God-willing meet soon. I had always pictured myself having three or four children. I don't know why, really, maybe because there are three children in my family. And I realize that with what I am going through now, that two children may be what we have in our family. And that's ok. When I was 25 (eight years ago), I was diagnosed with Lupus. My rheumatologist told me that I would/should not/never have children. I was single at the time, just finishing up grad. school. Not even dating anyone. Talk about a blow. I walked out of that office and thank goodness my mom was there because I cried all the way home. I had always pictured myself married and having a family. And now this doctor was destroying my dreams. Eventually, I met Paul and he knew that us being able to have children may not ever happen. And yet, he loved me enough to marry me and see what God's will would be in our lives. And here we are on the verge of our second miracle. The first pregnancy was very low key, not too many problems. And so we thought we would try again. And, well, you can read about what we've been going through in my previous entries or go to my mom's blog and read her updates on my health. That doesn't mean that we haven't struggled even in other areas of pregnancy... our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at eight weeks. Our second pregnancy is Pavlos. Our third pregnancy ended in miscarriage at ten weeks, and this is our fourth pregnancy which is a little rough, but at this point, the baby is weighing in at over 4 pounds:) Definitely survivable. And it actually just dawned on me... I have four babies... just not all here:) Maybe that is God's plan for us.

I realize that this blog entry is a bit disjointed, I'm still really tired and I am finding it difficult to do much more than sit in my dad's lazy boy recliner and surf the net on my dad's laptop:) Today was a difficult day because I had a doc. appt. early, early this morning (thank goodness we were able to drop Pavlos off at a friends house so he didn't have to sit through the long appt.). After the appt, my mom and I stopped by the soon to be new church site because neither of us had been there in months. Then, we picked up Pavlos and went to get lunch. Then we went to Babies R Us because the only thing that I really need for the baby is a new diaper bag (which I found one that I liked and that Paul will not be embarassed to carry around). Then we headed home... and it took us over an hour to get back to my parents home because of all the traffice. I think we were gone for 8 hours today. I am tired. So forgive the disjointed-ness of this blog entry:)

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Update on Second Hospital Stay...

This is an email that I sent out to family and friends to update them on what is going on with me... I will try to post more thoughts on my adventures in the hospital later this week (and I'm reading this great book on St Basil of Ostrog and the introduction has some really wonderful quotations that I want to share with you all:)


I am now out of the hospital and at my parents home. My hematicrit has gone up to 27 and my hemaglobin is up to 8. Still not normal but definitely better than it was. Baby is fine, I'm 32 weeks tomorrow so if this happens again in two weeks (like it did two weeks ago) they will probably build up my blood levels again and then induce me because the baby will be 34 weeks which is a great gestation.
I now have drug induced diabetes (not gestational diabetes) and so I have to give myself insulin shots twice a day, watch what I eat, and monitor my blood sugar. This came about because of the high amount of prednisone I am taking. The good news is that if my blood levels continue to rise, they will taper me off of the prednisone and my blood sugars will return to normal.
I also came home with a more permanent IV in my arm (aka PICC IV) so that if this does happen again, they won't be destroying my poor veins again. And they can do my blood draws through this IV, too. I will keep this in until the baby is born. I will continue to go to doc. appt's often (meaning multiple times a week). If my levels continue to rise, then we will eventually return back to our own home which I dearly miss (although we are extremely thankful to have my parents so close to us that they are able to take care of Pavlos throughout this whole ordeal).
That's all for now... I am supposed to be resting (not bed rest, just rest).