Well ok, here's what has been going on with me. I thought I would share in case someone else ends up in my shoes. Sure wish I would have known what I know now about how dangerous edema can be.
So I got home Friday with Chloe. All was well. I had told my dr and every nurse that week that my feet and arms, and legs even, were killing me from the swelling. I had severe edema about a day after Chloe was born it started.
It was unreal to be honest how my feet and legs looked. My hands were numb, and hurt so bad I was sleeping with ice packs on them.
The dr and all the nurses said it's normal to swell after birth, etc. I know with my others this never happened, but every pregnancy is different right? So I listened to them.
Finally Thursday I complained enough that they gave me a half of a 40 mg. Lasix pill (water pill).
It didn't do much. I peed a little, but nothing major.
I left Friday still complaining about how bad it hurt and looked and was assured that give it a week or so and it would either be sweat out or peed out through my system and all would be well.
I was told to drink tea and coffee, eat watermelon, etc to help get rid of the water. None of that seemed to help.
Saturday night around 10 pm I started getting short of breath but blew it off as me doing too much that day. I had a lot of visitors come to the house, people dying to see Chloe and all that. I thought I just overdid it and needed to rest.
I went to bed.
At around 2 am I woke up from a horrible nightmare in which I was dreaming that I was drowning and couldn't get to the surface of the water to breathe.
Turns out I had the dream because it was reality! I could not breathe even after waking up! I stood up and started shaking like a leaf - totally out of my control, couldn't stop shaking and teeth shattering.
I took my temp and was running fever, though not terribly high - just 99.8.
I hopped in the shower and the warm water helped to stop the shaking and shattering. It helped, but I still could not breathe. I was gasping.
I woke my husband and as best I could I told him what was going on. He jumped up and started getting his clothes on. I called the hospital to tell them what was going on and they said to get to the ER immediately.
A friend drove to my house and stayed with the 3 sleeping older kiddos and off we went to the ER with Chloe in tow (since I am her food source).
I thought for sure I wouldn't make it. I was unable to catch my breath, was bawling, etc all the way there. I thought this is it, I am gonna die like this? It was a horrible feeling.
We get to the ER and they are rushed taking care of me. Like I knew the way they were acting it was probably very serious because normally they just take their time at the ER if it's not something major.
They insert and IV and shuffle me back to have an x-ray.
The dr. comes back in and orders the nurse to give me morphine and a shot of 60 mg of lasix in my IV. She does. The morphine did NOTHING for the severe pain I was having in my back between my shoulder blades and in my chest. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my back and front. I couldn't make my lungs open up. It was HORRIBLE. A horrible feeling, totally.
They come back with the results from the x-ray. Not good. My lungs are filled with fluid.
The dr. (who I had told my dream to) said that basically had I not woke up the dream would have came true. I could have just slept right through it and died in my sleep, drowning in fluids in my lungs.
He ordered all kinds of tests on me. My bloodwork on my kidneys came back fine. Everything else was fine, the ekg - etc. I don't even know what all tests they did - they were in and out constantly taking blood.
So the lasix kicks in and I am literally sitting on the toilet and pee is just running out of me in a steady stream. No pushing or anything. Peeing out 1000's of cc at a time.
What happened ladies isn't that uncommon. When the fluid from the edema/swelling let loose in my body it decided to settle in my lungs.
PLEASE if you have swelling and you have ANY signs of shortness of breath
don't blow it off as just being worn out like I did. Get to the dr/hospital and be seen immediately PLEASE!
So anyways - after 4 rounds of lasix at a big 60 mg a pop through my iv... and after peeing off 31# of water (YES YOU HEARD ME RIGHT, I lost 31# overnight!) I am home now.
They released me this afternoon. My feet and hands and body look so much better. There is still a little bit of edema on my feet (the tops and the ankles) but nothing like there was... nothing even near what there was!
Ohh and they let Chloe stay with me. Gave us a double room so there would be plenty of room. I had to have an adult stay with me though to take care of her in case they needed to take me out of the room for testing or if (God forbid) something went wrong.
Hubby stayed there late last night, then went home to the older kiddos, and my best friend stayed the night with me until my husband came back this morning and relieved her so she could go to work.
I am so thankful that I am alive, and ok! Praise God!
So I got home Friday with Chloe. All was well. I had told my dr and every nurse that week that my feet and arms, and legs even, were killing me from the swelling. I had severe edema about a day after Chloe was born it started.
It was unreal to be honest how my feet and legs looked. My hands were numb, and hurt so bad I was sleeping with ice packs on them.
The dr and all the nurses said it's normal to swell after birth, etc. I know with my others this never happened, but every pregnancy is different right? So I listened to them.
Finally Thursday I complained enough that they gave me a half of a 40 mg. Lasix pill (water pill).
It didn't do much. I peed a little, but nothing major.
I left Friday still complaining about how bad it hurt and looked and was assured that give it a week or so and it would either be sweat out or peed out through my system and all would be well.
I was told to drink tea and coffee, eat watermelon, etc to help get rid of the water. None of that seemed to help.
Saturday night around 10 pm I started getting short of breath but blew it off as me doing too much that day. I had a lot of visitors come to the house, people dying to see Chloe and all that. I thought I just overdid it and needed to rest.
I went to bed.
At around 2 am I woke up from a horrible nightmare in which I was dreaming that I was drowning and couldn't get to the surface of the water to breathe.
Turns out I had the dream because it was reality! I could not breathe even after waking up! I stood up and started shaking like a leaf - totally out of my control, couldn't stop shaking and teeth shattering.
I took my temp and was running fever, though not terribly high - just 99.8.
I hopped in the shower and the warm water helped to stop the shaking and shattering. It helped, but I still could not breathe. I was gasping.
I woke my husband and as best I could I told him what was going on. He jumped up and started getting his clothes on. I called the hospital to tell them what was going on and they said to get to the ER immediately.
A friend drove to my house and stayed with the 3 sleeping older kiddos and off we went to the ER with Chloe in tow (since I am her food source).
I thought for sure I wouldn't make it. I was unable to catch my breath, was bawling, etc all the way there. I thought this is it, I am gonna die like this? It was a horrible feeling.
We get to the ER and they are rushed taking care of me. Like I knew the way they were acting it was probably very serious because normally they just take their time at the ER if it's not something major.
They insert and IV and shuffle me back to have an x-ray.
The dr. comes back in and orders the nurse to give me morphine and a shot of 60 mg of lasix in my IV. She does. The morphine did NOTHING for the severe pain I was having in my back between my shoulder blades and in my chest. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my back and front. I couldn't make my lungs open up. It was HORRIBLE. A horrible feeling, totally.
They come back with the results from the x-ray. Not good. My lungs are filled with fluid.
The dr. (who I had told my dream to) said that basically had I not woke up the dream would have came true. I could have just slept right through it and died in my sleep, drowning in fluids in my lungs.
He ordered all kinds of tests on me. My bloodwork on my kidneys came back fine. Everything else was fine, the ekg - etc. I don't even know what all tests they did - they were in and out constantly taking blood.
So the lasix kicks in and I am literally sitting on the toilet and pee is just running out of me in a steady stream. No pushing or anything. Peeing out 1000's of cc at a time.
What happened ladies isn't that uncommon. When the fluid from the edema/swelling let loose in my body it decided to settle in my lungs.
PLEASE if you have swelling and you have ANY signs of shortness of breath
don't blow it off as just being worn out like I did. Get to the dr/hospital and be seen immediately PLEASE!
So anyways - after 4 rounds of lasix at a big 60 mg a pop through my iv... and after peeing off 31# of water (YES YOU HEARD ME RIGHT, I lost 31# overnight!) I am home now.
They released me this afternoon. My feet and hands and body look so much better. There is still a little bit of edema on my feet (the tops and the ankles) but nothing like there was... nothing even near what there was!
Ohh and they let Chloe stay with me. Gave us a double room so there would be plenty of room. I had to have an adult stay with me though to take care of her in case they needed to take me out of the room for testing or if (God forbid) something went wrong.
Hubby stayed there late last night, then went home to the older kiddos, and my best friend stayed the night with me until my husband came back this morning and relieved her so she could go to work.
I am so thankful that I am alive, and ok! Praise God!
.
