Discouraged part 2
Sooo since Tuesday’s growth ultrasound was so much fun, Wednesday and Thursday decided to join in the mix and make my week even more enjoyable. (I hope you’re sensing the sarcasm).
Wednesday AM I was sitting playing with my daughter, as usual, when seemingly all of a sudden I get very dizzy, short of breath, lightheaded and my heart is pounding. What’s the first thing we diabetics do when we feel “funny”? Check our sugar. Sugar was perfect. And I knew it hadn’t come down fast or anything weird with it, as I had been monitoring it pretty good that morning. So then I check my blood pressure: 90/62.
Ummm….ok, I’m not usually that low, even in pregnancy…maybe it was a fluke. I sit quietly for a bit, the room still spinning, my heart pounding, and check it again: 85/58 with my pulse in the 80’s.
Crap. If I wasn’t anxious before, now I’m full-on panicking. Not only am I a bit of a hypochondriac (think Woody Allen), but I’m also a nurse. The worst combo. My mind goes wild with all the possibilities. Good Lord I must be bleeding internally or going septic! I start pounding the fluids.
Eventually it passed but the rest of the day I was off and on dizzy, lightheaded with my heart racing at times. It was bad enough that it made me afraid to drive anywhere. Not your run-of-the-mill pregnancy lightheadedness, etc. Thursday AM the same thing happened, but not as severely. So I call the OB, and they get me in that same morning. And wouldn’t luck have it, my OB is on vacation, so I get the pleasure of meeting the other OB in the office. Dr McStuffyPants.
Of course, my blood pressure is high in the office: 142/85. Grrrrrrreat!!!! Dr Stuffy walks in, quickly introduces herself and asks for my sugar logs. I tell her I didn’t bring them. She acts annoyed and asks why I’m there. I proceed to tell her my symptoms. That I’m concerned about anemia, I feel like crap, etc. She tells me I look fine. I tell her I don’t feel fine. (You know that look people give you when they aren’t really listening or caring or believing what you’re saying? I hate that look.) She tells me I’m probably dehydrated and hypertensive (high blood pressure) and asks me at least twice if I’ve ever been told I have high BP. No never, I’ve always been on the lower side, I’ve never had chronic high BP, I’m nervous and its always higher in Dr office and I tell her I know I’m not dehydrated. Again, I get “the look.” She says she’s going to send me to OB triage at the hospital for high blood pressure, to rule out pre-eclampsia and get some fluids. I’m pissed. I’m annoyed and feel the Dr isn’t listening. But I want my labs done, so I reluctantly go.
And wouldn’t you know it, everything came back normal. Not dehydrated, not even close. Blood pressures were normal at the hospital, all lab work completely normal. My EKG, however, showed an “abnormality.” Something the OB nurses and Dr “couldn’t read” so they shipped me to the ER to get the EKG read. ER wants to do their own EKG, so I wait for that and it shows the same thing: an abnormality of my T wave. They draw labs to make sure there’s no stress or damage to my heart, all came back normal. They don’t know why the EKG is “off”, and no cardiologist or Dr comes to chat with me. I get a PA who tells me to follow up at home with a cardiologist. Oh and then asks me why the OB triage nurse didn’t just call the cardiologist on-call instead of sending me to the ER? (That’s on the list of things you DON’T ASK a patient who’s already been there for 7 hours!)
I will say the PA was the most helpful. When I mentioned anxiety, he listened. He said pregnancy messes everything up (really?) and maybe my symptoms were all related to anxiety. As scary and severe as my symptoms had been, I have also been very anxious over the past weeks and even months. Anxiety does scary things, it can manifest itself physically and make people feel like they are dying. I’ve had panic attacks before, I’ve been on meds before, I’ve been to counseling multiple times for anxiety and depression. So I’m no stranger to anxiety. And this pregnancy has amplified it all to a whole new level. A level I’m having a hard time managing.
My husband and I finally got to leave the hospital, we were both starving and stopped to grab a bite. I stared at my delicious looking stuffed quesadilla, my heart so grateful that nothing was found to be “wrong” with me, and that baby was fine. But then my mind filled with anger, disappointment, discouragement, annoyance, irritability, pure frustration….ugly thoughts. And I just had to cry. Thankfully my hunger eventually trumped my tears and I composed myself.
Tomorrow is another day.