What Is Up With Me

It seems to be the common question that everyone wants to know the answer to. So, now that I can sit up long enough to blog, I thought I would explain exactly what is up with me.

First you should know that pregnancy and my body are not friends. They do not get along well and do not like each other. This time started out with the normal morning sickness routine. Lots of nausea, very little eating, lots and lots of dizziness (more than normal). After a few trips to the emergency room for re-hydration, my doctor decided the enough was enough. She ordered something called a zofran pump and set up an appointment for the home hospice company to deliver it and show me how to use it.

This is my lovely pump. (Please excuse the quality of the pictures, I think our camera is getting worse)

The syringe on the top is filled with zofran (a nausea medication) and is slowly injected throughout the day, through a site in my stomach. The pump is my constant friend. I carry it in a bag that hangs over my shoulder. I even have a water-proof bag so it can come in the shower with me. I still occasionally go to set it down and then remember I can't do that.

Yes, I do have to poke myself with a needle every other day to change the site. I thought that I was going to be making Jacob do this and would never be able to poke myself. Much to my surprise, I can actually do it by myself. Jacob put the first one in, but when it started hurting and needed to be moved for the first time, he was at work. So I figured I would try and I did it! Still not my favorite thing, but oh well. The hard part now is finding a spot on my stomach that isn't sore. Turns out, this medication is pretty hard on the tissues.

I also now have a bio hazard container sitting by my bed. Ok, so it's a Gatorade bottle with a bio hazard sticker on it.

I also have boxes of hospital supplies by the front door, but that picture is loading sideways for some reason, so we will just skip that.

For the first little while, it felt like my life had been taken over completely. Every morning, I have to weigh myself and pee on a stick to check for keytones (I know you wanted to know that), which tell whether I'm dehydrated. I then have to call the home hospice nurse and report in for the day. She asks for my weight and my keytones along with a million other questions like how much I've had to eat and drink, how much I've thrown up, etc. They monitor all this to make sure I'm not losing too much weight or getting too sick.

I also have to be careful to watch how much medication is in the pump and be ready to change it when it runs low. At school, that means I frequently have to have an aide come up to my room while I go get the medication out of the fridge and change it. My class thinks it's pretty funny when the pump starts beeping and me.

When the home hospice nurse came, I found out that along with the pump I also got an IV pole and bags of fluid. Which of course, meant she had to put the IV in my arm. I tried to still function normally by unhooking myself to go to church and to school and then hooking it back in when I got home. Unfortunately, my body didn't think that was such a good plan. Monday night, I kind of crashed. Here is me on Halloween, hooked up to all my machines, while my kids were getting ready to leave for trick-or-treating.

I ended up at home, in bed, for the rest of the week. It was kind of miserable. During that time I started testing positive for keytones, so the nurse came back and moved the IV into a bigger vein, which happened to be in the back of my hand. Not very comfy. She then had to come back a few days later when that vein blew. Also, not comfy. My wrist looked broken, but it was just full of IV fluid. The good news is, the nurses started looking into what was triggering the morning sickness and one of them discovered that motion is one of my main triggers. I hadn't noticed because even the slightest motion sets it off. This is why I was so much dizzier than normal. They got me put on an over the counter motion sickness medication called bonine. It tastes terrible, but works miracles.

I am finally back to being a functioning human being. I made it through work every day last week and have actually accomplished some things around the house this morning! I have even gone through all of Eddie's clothes and packed away all the summer things. It only took me two hours, one box and two garbage bags. Hopefully Emily's will be a little faster!