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).

4 comments:

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

Christina, you will all be in my prayers.
May the Theotokos place you all under her Protecting Veil !

Mimi said...

Ugh. I'm so sorry this has been such a long and hard road for you, dear Christina.

You continue to have my prayers.

Elizabeth said...

Christina, I am so glad that you seem to be picking back up. I have to say what a blessing it is for you to have parents who can help pick up the slack! That's really wonderful to have, when you need a bit of extra care.

Xenia Kathryn said...

Thanks for posting this Christina! Glad you're getting some rest, and I hope things are going well for you!