12.31.08
“Super Sonic Mighty Twins”
That’s what LD called the babies last night. 
I had to laugh, but it appears to be true. They are very strong and very healthy. This is a good thing. But it also means that LD is very sick and VERY huge! She sent a picture of her belly last night and MAN she’s big already. I don’t know how she’s going to grow for two more trimesters.
Oh, and yesterday LD was able to find both babies’ heartbeats with her doppler. One was around 130 and the other was around 150. I have to admit that when I read this I let out a little whoop! According to my mother (and lots of other women, but not scientific data) the heartbeat can help determine gender. For the last several appointments both babies’ heartbeats have been about the same (in the 150s). My mother’s comment was “Unless one slows down, you’ve got two girls in there!” (which she was excited about). Don’t get me wrong, I would love two girls just as much as any other combination. But for some reason I really had it in my head/heart that we have one of each and hearing that I might be wrong was disappointing. So when I heard the new heartbeats I got excited that it is still possible I am right! 
I have a feeling we’ll be finding out at our next appointment. I’m not sure that any of us can stand to wait any longer! (though we may be tempted to torture my mother a bit. )
12.28.08
Home again
Sorry to worry anyone. On Friday N and I went to lunch with his family and everything was going great. Suddenly, just after we’d paid the bill but were still sitting around talking, I felt awful. I felt sick to my stomach and I had pain radiating down my right arm (which would be my “heart attack” arm because of my anatomy). I told N I just wanted to go to the house, but when I described the pain to him he said he was taking me to the ER. I did not want to go at all and kept telling him I was fine and just needed to rest. Well, being the cardiac nurse he is, he didn’t take no for an answer and took me anyway.
We got taken back almost right away, despite the full ER waiting room (they were getting slammed, what with it being the day after Christmas). They took blood, gave me aspirin, some morphine for the pain, and put a nitro patch on my chest. I then got the WORST head ache of my life (later found out it was the nitro). The blood work came back normal, but they wanted to keep me overnight for observation and to continue to do the blood work every 6 hours to make sure everything was okay. Well, to our surprise, the 3 AM blood draw showed a bump in my troponin level (it was a 0.4) even though it had been completely normal 12 and 6 hours earlier. For those of you that don’t know (I didn’t until yesterday), troponin is an enzyme that is produced when there has been damage to the heart muscle (like in a heart attack). So with this bit of news they decided they’d need to continue to take my blood every 6 hours and possibly run some other tests as well. They did a CT scan (can’t do MRI on me because of my ICD), which came back normal. The troponin level continued to be slightly elevated, but it gradually went down with each blood draw. By this morning I was feeling very much like a pin cushion (and looking like one big bruise!). The troponin had gone down to “normal” finally and I was told I could go home as long as my INR was looking better (it had been 1.7 when I arrived on Friday). Unfortunately, someone forgot to order that for the morning’s blood draw, so they had to come back and stick me once again! Around noon the number came back at 3.1!! Yippy! I was cleared to go home. We still have NO clue what caused the bump in my troponin numbers, but at least I’m back to “normal.”
I’m still in lots of pain from the surgical site, but after talking to the surgical resident today, this isn’t unusual. I sure wish they had warned me that this would be more painful than open heart surgery had been! He said that I should expect to have soreness for the next two months! Yikes! I am hoping that I’ll at least be good enough to drive next week, since I will need to get back to work. We shall see…
Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!
12.26.08
Survived
I survived Christmas. That’s about all I can say. I’m still in a LOT of pain. Much more than I’d anticipated, which frustrates me, of course. I’m used to bouncing back quickly. Doesn’t look like I’m going to bounce back quite as quickly as I’d like. I still have to have N help me sit up in bed. Without him I look like a turtle on its back!
We talked to LD yesterday to see how she was doing and wish her a Merry Christmas. She says the twins woke her up early Christmas morning. She could feel both of them kicking/moving. 
Then she felt like she was going to throw up and had to jump out of bed. 
She felt sick most of the morning, but was at least able to eat lunch. When I called she was taking a nap (oops!) and her mom was making dinner. I hope the babies were much nicer to her the rest of the day! And now that we’re officially in the second trimester, they need to get over this whole making her sick thing!
We’re supposed to go out to lunch with N’s family today… I really hope the pain meds kick in and I can go!
12.24.08
I’ll be home for Christmas…
And not just in my dreams! The on call doc just came by and I get to go home today!!! We’re waiting on the results from my blood draw today and the paperwork to be completed, but after that I get to go home. I’m a tiny bit worried about getting into and out of bed, but I know N and Mom will help me with that. I also can’t figure out where in our livingroom would be the best spot to sit while opening presents… I may have N pull the rocking chair out of our bedroom and into the living room…
12.23.08
On the mend
Whew! Recovery is HARD. I’m in mucho pain, but it is getting better. The chest tube and several other wires and tubes have been removed, so at least it’s a little easier to get around. I did end up in ICU, but only because they had no available beds on the regular cardiac floor. However, I’ve just been moved to a regular room. This one is MUCh more spacious, which is a good thing for Nathan and Mom (we were pretty cramped in that ICU room today). There’s even a mini fridge in here!
I expect I’ll be getting out tomorrow. The only thing that might prevent that would be if I get a fever or don’t work on my breathing. Believe me, I’ll be working on my breathing!
LD had her OB appointment and the babies are doing great. We have new pictures, but I can’t get them uploaded right now. Our next appointment is going to be January 19th, which is PERFECT, because it’s a holiday for me and I won’t have to miss school for it! Dr. K even said it would be likely to be able to see the sex of the babies at that appointment. We’re still on the fence about finding out, but it will probably end up being a game-time decision as frequently as we change our minds.
Oh, and LD talked with Dr. K again about delivering naturally and not having an epidural in place even for “just in case.” He was hesitant, of course, but he is going to let us try! I’m so happy about that! Obviously if something is wrong, we’ll reevaluate, but she’s such a pro at labor and delivery I don’t expect there to be a problem so long as Baby A is head down (so prayers about that will be appreciated ).
Well, I’m getting pretty worn out and will probably doze some more (I’ve been doing a lot of that the last two days). Thanks for all of the prayers! They really work!
12.22.08
Off to the races
We’ll be heading out to the hospital any minute now. Hopefully I’ll be able to update tonight. If not, you might try my caringbridge site http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/inputSiteName.do?method=search&siteName=nicoleherron . I’m hoping N or someone will update it. See you on the other side!
LD has her OB appointment today as well (at 2:15). So hopefully we’ll have an update on that as well.
12.19.08
Quick update
This is just a quick note to say that I went in for pre-op testing today and was informed that the surgeon has decided he will NOT be doing any work on my pulmonary stenosis after all. However, I will still be having a TEE and the lead surgery. We arrive bright and early at 5:30 for a 7:00 OR time.
12.17.08
Can we say stress?
I was gonna write a big, long update about today (which feels at least two days long), but I just spent the last hour on the phone with my mom and now I’m exhausted. So instead, you’ll get the condensed version…
Today I got a phone call from Dr. R’s office saying that he wants to do the surgery on Monday, but he wants a TEE done beforehand to decide if working on my pulmonary valve would be beneficial. Unfortunately, Dr. B (the one who will be doing the TEE) is booked this week. Dr. R doesn’t want to postpone the surgery any later than Monday, so he said to have the TEE done immediately before the surgery and they’d only put me out once instead of twice. I was told I’d be getting a phone call about times, but never did. I’ll try calling tomorrow, I guess.
And in the midst of fielding phone calls from various PAs I got a phone call from LD. She was feeling awful and throwing up everything she put in her mouth, so she had her mom take her to the ER where they discovered she has a virus, an upper respiratory infection, and a UTI. They gave her fluids and anti-nausea meds through an IV, then checked for the babies heart beats with a doppler, but couldn’t find them. They sent her to get an u/s and immediately found both babies wiggling and moving like nothing was going on. Below are the pics:
12.16.08
God (or Mother Nature) had other plans
We did not get to go to OK today. Partially because of the weather and partially because I didn’t get away from the doctor’s office until 6:00 PM. We saw Dr. W at 10 (we were taken back at 9, but he was delayed by the weather, we think).
At that point we knew we wouldn’t make it to OK, since we would have to drive much slower than usual and it would be pushing it to get there even without the weather complicating things. So when Dr. W said I would need to meet with the surgeon, Dr. R, and a cardiologist, Dr. B, we asked if it would be possible to see them today so I wouldn’t have to take another day off from work. They sent me down for an x-ray while they tried to set up those appointments.
While waiting for the x-ray we got a text from LD that she had rescheduled the OB appointment because the weather was getting worse. It’s now scheduled for Monday at 2:15.
When we came back from there (around 11:30) we were told we had an appointment with Dr. B at 2:00 and Dr. R at 4:30. We left to go eat lunch and swing by a book store so N could pick up a book to help pass the time. We got back to the office shortly before 2:00 only to find out that insurance won’t pay for two cardiologist appointments in one day (Dr. W and Dr. B). They didn’t seem to have a problem with seeing the surgeon, though. I asked if it was necessary to see Dr. B in order to get the surgery scheduled and the receptionist talked to Dr. B who said she would just talk with Dr. W and skip seeing me for now. We then had to wait to see Dr. R. At 3:45 we were taken back, which absolutely amazed us, since the appointment was for 4:30. However, we shouldn’t have been surprised that we didn’t actually see Dr. R until 4:45.
The appointment with Dr. R went well. He is going to try to get things moving along to get the surgery in during the holidays, but he wants some more data first. He’s thinking that as long as we’re opening me up, he wants to make sure there’s nothing else we could do to help me feel even better. In particular he’s thinking there might be a way to open up my pulmonary stenosis and ease some pressure in my ventricles. But before he makes that decision he wants to do a TEE. While I don’t particularly love the idea of having open heart surgery, if he says he recommends it, that’s what I’ll do. After all, I want to feel as good as I possibly can before the twins come.
So now I’m waiting for the TEE to get scheduled. Hopefully I’ll hear from them tomorrow. Oh! And he also wants to discontinue the IV antibiotics. So I plan to call Dr. H’s office tomorrow morning and let them know so I can go in the afternoon and get this PICC line removed!
12.15.08
Surgery and lactation
The two have nothing to do with one another, but I will be writing about each in this post and couldn’t come up with a catchy title that went with both… Oh well.
To begin with, I got a call from Dr. W’s office this morning saying I needed to set up an appointment with them for tomorrow at 10. Um… Thanks for consulting me about this… I called and asked if it was possible to either have the appointment earlier in the morning, or today, since I need to be in Oklahoma by 1:30 and it’s a 3 hour drive. They were hesitant, but finally moved me up to 9 AM. As long as we’re out of there by 10:00 we should be okay (as long as the weather cooperates). I hope! Of course, there goes my plan to have lunch with LD! Hopefully I’ll find out when my surgery will be!!! At least I don’t have to get a separate sub for the appointment. I already had one lined up!
As for the lactation issue, I’m a bit down today. I started taking the domperidone for inducing lactation on Thursday of last week. I’d talked to my GP about it and that I wanted to start it on the 11th, but I didn’t hear back from him, so I just started it anyway. Well, I got a call from his office today saying “That drug you were asking about isn’t available in the US because it isn’t FDA approved because of how it effects the HEART.” I knew about it not being FDA approved, but I didn’t realize it was heart related…. So now, I’m guessing I shouldn’t take it. And I SO wanted to induce lactation… I know it may still be possible, without the domperidone, and I’m not going to give up completely, but I can’t say I didn’t get a little teary over the whole thing. Especially since I’d started taking it. I hope I didn’t do any damage to myself! I don’t think I did, but I can’t help wondering what kind of effect it supposedly has on the heart… Time to start researching again!
