Hospital Admission
Thursday, March 12th, 2020
I remember Wade picking me up out of bed. Nothing. Putting me in the car. Nothing. Pulling me out of the car and putting me in the wheelchair at the ER. Nothing. Waking up in a bed in the hospital and being asked if I need to pee, what my kids' names were, and who was president... It wasn't until that first night stay in the hospital that my brain started putting two and two together and I realized I had no idea how I got there!
My husband, Wade, had called in at work for me that whole week because I wasn't able to wake up most days and was sleeping a lot. He got up and went to work like normal that morning. I slightly remember my mom asking me if I can sit up and thinking, "yes," but apparently didn't. She had been giving me fluids through a straw that whole morning but I wasn't saying anything. She says that the only time I actually spoke to her was when she knew my 8-month-old needed to nurse and she asked if she should just get milk out of the freezer for him to which I said, "No, I don't want you to do that." She somehow managed to get the baby to latch and helped me nurse him with little to no help - I'm not sure how many times...
My mom says that she would ask me to do basic things like "take a deep breath" or "wiggle your fingers" to which I was doing for a while... until I wasn't. At that point, she got more and more worried and finally called my husband to come home. He scooped me up and took me to the St. Luke's Nampa ER. Once we got checked in, apparently they did a CT, drew some blood, place a catheter and gave me a ton of fluid until I finally became lucid. That's about where I can start to remember for myself.
_________________________
Tests, tests, and more tests...
I met quite a few doctors the day I was admitted. All of them were dumbfounded as to why a seemingly healthy, 31-year-old woman was displaying liver problems. They tested me for everything under the sun and finally determined that I was in liver failure but had no clue why. I kind of felt like I was on an episode of House. They dubbed me their "mystery patient". By that time, my stomach was so swollen from ascites that I could hardly breathe. It was causing so much pressure and pain that I was having a hard time getting comfortable. I was still breastfeeding my 8-month-old, Everett, so when it came to nursing him, I had to have help to hold him up off my belly and was almost in tears from the stress and pain of it all. I felt helpless as a patient and useless as a mother.
Since I had encephalopathy, they had to frequently ask me questions to check on my mental status. By the evening I felt like I was starting to get my head back, but that night when they asked me if I was right or left-handed, I said left! (I'm right-handed) I remember saying that and then saying, "Wow, I had a 50/50 chance of answering that right and I failed!" So, at least I knew I was wrong. That counts for something, right?
I stayed overnight in Nampa in the telemetry unit because my resting heart rate spiked to 150 bpm and my blood pressure was consistently 150/100 almost the whole time I was in the hospital. They wanted to keep an eye on my heart all night. It was either that or the ICU.
Since my admission, the doctors had been sending labs and consulting with the leading hepatologists in the nation at the University of Utah and were getting concerned that they weren't finding any answers. The doctors at St. Luke's Nampa stated that they didn't think they could give me the extent of the care I needed at their facility and they wanted me closer to the Boise St. Luke's in case anything else happened or I needed to get Life Flighted to Utah, so they transferred me to St. Luke's Meridian. However, they really wanted me to go to the University of Utah as soon as a bed opened up.
Friday, March 13th - Sunday, March 15th 2020
I got loaded into an ambulance and taken to St. Luke's Meridian. Checked in again, I stayed there Friday night. Still very bloated and uncomfortable, I had a few people come in and visit me, pray with me, and bring a few meals. That was right around the time that Idaho got its first Covid-19 case and the hospital decided to only allow family members 18 and older to visit patients. I had to make a decision. Since we still weren't really sure what was going on, what types of meds I was going to be receiving and if they would go through my breastmilk or not, I was struggling to decide if I needed to stop breastfeeding. When a bed opened up in Utah I knew that I probably wasn't going to be able to keep pumping and storing milk efficiently enough to keep up with my son, so I made the difficult decision to stop.
+q(85)+r(584x224!))
Later that afternoon, we got word that a bed at the University of Utah had opened up and they wanted to get me there ASAP. The St. Luke's fixed-wing was at the airport from just transporting someone to Idaho, so they decided to fly me to Salt Lake. Man, was that a trip! The amount of time to get me loaded up by the Life Flight paramedics, driving to the Boise airport, loading up into the fixed-wing, landing in Salt Lake, the ambulance ride to U of U and getting me checked in and in my room was about 2 hours! The paramedics were amazing. The flight itself was a little bumpy and intimidating, but really cool from what I remember. I slept a lot of the way, but what I did see was beautiful. That may have been the morphine though... Anyway, the fun at U of U was just getting started.
I remember Wade picking me up out of bed. Nothing. Putting me in the car. Nothing. Pulling me out of the car and putting me in the wheelchair at the ER. Nothing. Waking up in a bed in the hospital and being asked if I need to pee, what my kids' names were, and who was president... It wasn't until that first night stay in the hospital that my brain started putting two and two together and I realized I had no idea how I got there!
My husband, Wade, had called in at work for me that whole week because I wasn't able to wake up most days and was sleeping a lot. He got up and went to work like normal that morning. I slightly remember my mom asking me if I can sit up and thinking, "yes," but apparently didn't. She had been giving me fluids through a straw that whole morning but I wasn't saying anything. She says that the only time I actually spoke to her was when she knew my 8-month-old needed to nurse and she asked if she should just get milk out of the freezer for him to which I said, "No, I don't want you to do that." She somehow managed to get the baby to latch and helped me nurse him with little to no help - I'm not sure how many times...
My mom says that she would ask me to do basic things like "take a deep breath" or "wiggle your fingers" to which I was doing for a while... until I wasn't. At that point, she got more and more worried and finally called my husband to come home. He scooped me up and took me to the St. Luke's Nampa ER. Once we got checked in, apparently they did a CT, drew some blood, place a catheter and gave me a ton of fluid until I finally became lucid. That's about where I can start to remember for myself.
_________________________
Tests, tests, and more tests...
I met quite a few doctors the day I was admitted. All of them were dumbfounded as to why a seemingly healthy, 31-year-old woman was displaying liver problems. They tested me for everything under the sun and finally determined that I was in liver failure but had no clue why. I kind of felt like I was on an episode of House. They dubbed me their "mystery patient". By that time, my stomach was so swollen from ascites that I could hardly breathe. It was causing so much pressure and pain that I was having a hard time getting comfortable. I was still breastfeeding my 8-month-old, Everett, so when it came to nursing him, I had to have help to hold him up off my belly and was almost in tears from the stress and pain of it all. I felt helpless as a patient and useless as a mother.
Since I had encephalopathy, they had to frequently ask me questions to check on my mental status. By the evening I felt like I was starting to get my head back, but that night when they asked me if I was right or left-handed, I said left! (I'm right-handed) I remember saying that and then saying, "Wow, I had a 50/50 chance of answering that right and I failed!" So, at least I knew I was wrong. That counts for something, right?
I stayed overnight in Nampa in the telemetry unit because my resting heart rate spiked to 150 bpm and my blood pressure was consistently 150/100 almost the whole time I was in the hospital. They wanted to keep an eye on my heart all night. It was either that or the ICU.
Since my admission, the doctors had been sending labs and consulting with the leading hepatologists in the nation at the University of Utah and were getting concerned that they weren't finding any answers. The doctors at St. Luke's Nampa stated that they didn't think they could give me the extent of the care I needed at their facility and they wanted me closer to the Boise St. Luke's in case anything else happened or I needed to get Life Flighted to Utah, so they transferred me to St. Luke's Meridian. However, they really wanted me to go to the University of Utah as soon as a bed opened up.
Friday, March 13th - Sunday, March 15th 2020
I got loaded into an ambulance and taken to St. Luke's Meridian. Checked in again, I stayed there Friday night. Still very bloated and uncomfortable, I had a few people come in and visit me, pray with me, and bring a few meals. That was right around the time that Idaho got its first Covid-19 case and the hospital decided to only allow family members 18 and older to visit patients. I had to make a decision. Since we still weren't really sure what was going on, what types of meds I was going to be receiving and if they would go through my breastmilk or not, I was struggling to decide if I needed to stop breastfeeding. When a bed opened up in Utah I knew that I probably wasn't going to be able to keep pumping and storing milk efficiently enough to keep up with my son, so I made the difficult decision to stop.
Later that afternoon, we got word that a bed at the University of Utah had opened up and they wanted to get me there ASAP. The St. Luke's fixed-wing was at the airport from just transporting someone to Idaho, so they decided to fly me to Salt Lake. Man, was that a trip! The amount of time to get me loaded up by the Life Flight paramedics, driving to the Boise airport, loading up into the fixed-wing, landing in Salt Lake, the ambulance ride to U of U and getting me checked in and in my room was about 2 hours! The paramedics were amazing. The flight itself was a little bumpy and intimidating, but really cool from what I remember. I slept a lot of the way, but what I did see was beautiful. That may have been the morphine though... Anyway, the fun at U of U was just getting started.
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