Mathew Meanderings: The Storm's A Comin!

On a Wednesday night back in early October I had a headache. Dinner was just on the table, and the girls were extra chatty as they are every Wednesday evening, excited to go to AWANA that night. I took some Tylenol and was out the door, chauffeuring them and having a coffee date with my friend Mindy. Once everyone was home and tucked in bed, I noticed my head was still throbbing. I was hoping a good night sleep would help.

I woke up Thursday morning with my headache still there, but significantly better, so I took some more Tylenol and was off to the office. I was feeling a little behind in my work with all the time I missed with Josie out of school because of her burn, so I dove right in. After staring at a computer screen for a few hours, my headache was much worse. I decided I would call the doctor to be on the safe side. The office was closed for lunch and so I decided I would eat some lunch too. The dining hall was probably not the best option (with all the noise) so I had a quick lunch and went home to put Isaac down for a nap.

I told Josh at lunch that I was going to call the doctor again after I put Ike down, and to be on alert that I may need to go in for an appointment, so he should try and keep his schedule a little loose. He was heading into a meeting at that time, and told me to just let him know.

When I got ahold of the doctor, they told me to go into labor and delivery to get checked out. I felt so foolish. It was just a headache. It wasn't horrible. It didn't effect my vision, and I wasn't having contractions or anything. I called Josh to let him know he would have to cut the meeting short. He came home to be with Isaac and I walked out the door. "I'm sure it's nothing honey. I just want to be careful. I will be back before dinner."

I walked into the triage room on the fourth floor. They asked me why I was there as they took my vitals. I told them of my headache that wouldn't go away. That no, I wasn't seeing spots, and no, I didn't have any abnormal swelling. The cuff stops squeezing my arm. "Um, you aren't going anywhere until we get this BP down." My blood pressure when I checked in was 227/127. Yikes!

They hooked me up to a monitor for the baby's heartrate, one to measure contractions (I wasn't having any), and a blood pressure cuff that was going off every 30 minutes. One nurse had me lie on my side, another said it was more accurate to have me sitting up. Nothing was actually bringing it down though.

"We are going to have to admit you. We will run some blood tests and a urine test and see how you are doing."

I snapped a picture of my belly all hooked up to monitors and sent it to Josh. "I may be here a while. Can you get dinner going and get Emma a ride home from soccer?"

During this whole time, I really am pretty clueless as to how bad things were. I knew they said my blood pressure was high, but I didn't realize that it was dangerously high. I heard of preeclampsia before, but didn't really know much about it. Anyways, I felt fine everywhere except this headache.

They place me in a room with a nice bed directly across from the nurses station. Even though this is baby number 5, I had them all by csection. I had never been in a labor room. My bed had these big blue pads being strapped to the rails. Was this standard? I didn't know they were putting the pads on my bed to protect me if I had a seizure.

I really don't know why I was so unaware of how serious this was. Maybe the nurses were trying to protect me by not letting me stress and worry. Maybe my brain wasn't working at full capacity because of how sick I was. I just know that as I was lying there in bed, I was worried they may put me on bedrest. I don't know how we would handle bedrest! We still have burn clinic appointments every other day for Josie, plus two girls in soccer, and a toddler! Little did I know that bedrest is something I would look back at and long for. I had no idea what lied ahead.