What a week!

I can honestly say this has been the most challenging week I've had in quite some time!

Let's see on Monday I had my doctor's appointment and hospital visit. We had to decide what we were going to do with Brody and myself. Brandon is starting football so is never home. He has games on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and then practice Wednesday and Thursday. Game nights he's usually not home til 10 or later and practice nights he can get home around 6 or 7. He also has a few Saturday games as well.

So we decided to keep Brody out of daycare until I return to work. He wasn't situated with his teacher and it was all too new for him. I couldn't stand thinking about laying around the house while he was at daycare 30 miles from my house. Then there would have been the issue of who would drive him to Burleson and pick him up, illnesses, etc...

Then the next thing was to decide where we would stay. This week I've been at my parents because my mom took off to help me around the house. After being here all week I think it will be best if I stay here until I deliver. I need help during the day and at night and through the night. The medicine I'm on, at times, can make me pretty weak and unstable. The first couple nights I didn't think I would make it to the bathroom to bed because my legs felt so shaky and weak. It can also cause my heart rate to be through the roof and my blood pressure to be pretty low. On good days these side effects aren't as bad but on the days where I have to take extra medicine this is how I feel. I'm also having to monitor several times a day. I have a morning and evening session. If during these 1 hour session I have more than four contractions I have to give myself extra medicine and then remonitor for another hour. Yesterday I had to monitor 5 times, that's 5 hours!

My dad is able to come home for an hour at lunch to help me and I'm hoping that on Monday Dr. Bradford will let me have modified bedrest so that I can take care of Brody while my parents are at work, resting when he takes a nap, when my dad is home for lunch and then in the evenings when they are both home. If I'm not able to watch Brody on my own we will have to figure out a new arrangement because Nana can watch him but we are across town

Tuesday: my mom came over and packed up everything Brody and I would need and we headed to my parents to get adjusted. I felt pretty yucky that day because the Terb pills had pretty bad side effects.

Wednesday was very stressful. The home health was coming out. They had to put a rush on all my medicines because I was already contracting even though I was on the pill form of procardia. Once she got here we had to deal with cost and insurance. They tried to charge $50.00 a day for this set up plus my $500.00 deductible. Well that's $350/week + 8 weeks! I simply told them I couldn't afford that and they were able to waive that fee for me. Whew! I then had to insert my catheter myself and learn all about my pump. I have to change my catheter every 5 days and alternate legs and also change out my medicine every day. I also had to learn about my contraction monitor and how to send those in.

This is mainly for my memory but here's the low-down:
I get a continous dose of Terbuline through my pump.
I then get what's called a bolis every 4 hours. It's basically a booster. This is administer through my pump over 12 minutes
I also have what's called an on-demand dose. That is when I have more than 4 contractions in an hour, I can push a button and override the system to give myself a boost even though it's not scheduled.

Contraction monitor:
Looks like the one in the hospital except a little bigger that straps around my belly. I just push two buttons and on it goes. I sit around for an hour and can turn it off to go to the bathroom or rearrange and then turn it back on. It then beeps when my hour reading is up. I then attach it to the base which is hooked up to the phone line. I dial a number and wait for the fax machine sound and then push a button on the base and hang up. This sends my strip into the home health company that monitors it. They then call me back within 30 minutes and let me know how many I had. They consider a contraction to be anything that last over 40 seconds and then irritiability anything less than 40 seconds. If I have over 4 I am to empty my bladder, give myself an on-demand dose and then 30 minutes later start monitoring again for another hour. If I'm above 4 again they page my doctor and ask what they want me to do.

Thursday: we had a great day. I felt like the terb pump was making the side effects less dramatic or that my body was getting use to the meds. I had to monitor twice in the evening because the first strip showed 5 contractions but then the 2nd one only showed 1.

Friday: Urgh, the longest day ever! Brody woke up with a fever. At first it was low grade but quickly became 102-103. He already had his 18 month well baby appointment so I called the nurse because I knew he couldn't have his shots. She wanted to see him anyway to make sure he didn't have an ear infection. He was miserable! He kept telling me he had a boo boo on his head and then he must have a sore throat because anytime he would eat or cough he would cry. The doctor said he has a virus and it has to run it's course. I was also having several contractions. My first strip said I had 8 so they quickly upped my dosage I was receiving and had me monitor again. That strip showed 5 contractions so I did an on-demand dose. The 3rd strip showed 6 so they paged my doctor. She said to give another on demand dose and if that did not lower them I was to head into the hospital for a Ffn test and cervical check. Luckily the next one only showed 1 contraction and then my regular evening session showed 2. Whew!

Brody had a bath and then was so miserable he was ready for night-night. He quickly passed out and his fever kept climbing. It got up to 103.5 when I started worrying and was trying to cool him down. Luckily it was time for his motrin and that quickly kicked in. I was up every 3 hours alternating Tylenol and Motrin last night and his fever finally went below 102 about 3 am. He's doing much better today and his fever is staying around 100. I too am feeling better and only had 2 contractions on this mornings monitoring.

Once I get my computer up and running over at my mom's I will try and upload some pictures. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday at 2:20. Hoping for good news!
LeAnn