Hello all. Thank you everyone who has called me, texted and emailed concerning Natina’s health.
For those of you who don’t know what’s going on here’s the run down and the most current information.
On Wednesday Natina started vomiting about every hour. At first we thought it might be the flu since it’s flu season and we were just at Onething with a whole bunch of people. But by Thursday she had lost about five pounds and was still vomiting consistently every hour.
So we went to the ER to get her some fluids and see what the Dr’s would tell us. They got her stable with two liters of fluids, checked the baby’s heartbeat to make sure it was okay, and some nausea medicine called Zoflan. They prescribed some Zoflan for her to take orally and we went home hoping she’d get over the flu or whatever it was.
Friday rolls around and she starts vomiting again. So we called the OB Dr and asked what they thought. Their thought was that since the Zoflan was taken orally and she was still vomiting the medicine wasn’t staying in her system long enough to take effect. So they prescribed a different suppository type nausea med (I can’t remember the name.)
That didn’t work so we went back to the ER and waited… waited some more… then again… and finally we were admitted to the hospital (St. Joseph) for further treatment and observation (and another check on the baby). At this point everyone thought it was a condition called hyperemesis which is basically fancy speak for vomits every hour… (grrr I knew that already)
So this continues on till today (please note that while she has been in the hospital the vomiting has been once ever four to six hours and she is on an IV with fluids and nutrients so she is feeling much better). Today (01/04/2009) her lab work has come back and they did an ultrasound to check and make sure the baby was fine. Natina got to see the baby which was awesome for her, I was getting some much needed sleep at home while this was going on, and they checked out her gall bladder.
Now we’re getting to the culprit. What they found was that her gall bladder was filled up with “sludge” or really thick bile. Basically what happens during a pregnancy is the level of cholesterol goes up (this is normal). However in some women when the level of cholesterol goes up the gall bladder isn’t able to cope with it properly, this is called gall bladder disease. Here’s more info at WebMD. (Please note Natina doesn’t have a gall stone but does have biliary sludge.)
Now we are trying to treat her based on what we know. There are three different scenarios that could happen.
1) We are able to get her past this episode and regulate her diet to control how the gall bladder functions until the pregnancy is over.
2) Her symptoms continue over the next couple of days and we remove the gall bladder. (This is most likely. The second trimester is a good time to do this type of surgery because the uterus is still fairly small and would not be bothered by the laparoscopic surgery.)
3) This is the one we don’t want. We get her past this episode, and she is fine for awhile. But then later in the third trimester her gall bladder starts bothering her again and will need to come out. We don’t want this one because the uterus will be too large for laparoscopic surgery. This means that they would have to do “open” surgery on her to remove the gall bladder. At this time there is also elevated risk of miscarriage.
We are hoping and praying for the first scenario. But the second scenario is the most likely. I guess there is also a fourth and that would be for her to be completely healed by the Lord. Ultimately everyone would prefer this one so keep praying!
Bless you all. Thank you for your prayers and kind words.
-Tom
It was pretty cool. It seemed pretty fast too. 180-175 bpm. The doctor didn’t seem to be concerned by the speed. She said it was common for it to be so high. Maybe it’ll be a punk rocker… hopefully not. 😉
Thoughts From Time to Time 