A Diagnosis… (Part 3)

The next morning I woke up to use the bathroom. I braced myself for the pain that had accompanied sitting or standing for the past five days. I sat up and didn’t notice any pounding in my head. I cautiously stood and slowly walked to the bathroom. Still no pain. I felt like I could fly I was so grateful that the blood patch had worked! 

We stayed in this hospital for another 4 days. More tests were run and more tests came back normal or, mostly normal, with no clear answers about the cause of my condition. My heart rate however, did improve and jump back up to a normal range. What was nice about this new hospital was that we had the same doctor and many of the same nurses the entire time we were there. It was nice not to have to re-explain my situation every morning. It felt like we were making progress as we sifted through test results and information. 

Eventually doctors started to circle back to what had originally been suspected when I arrived at the ER on the two previous occasions. Postpartum preeclampsia. Many doctors had suggested it and all had been immediately shut down by a variety of OBs and MFM doctors. When I showed up to the ER for the first time at 7 weeks postpartum they were sure it was too late for it to possibly be postpartum preeclampsia. A simple google search told us that while extremely rare - it was possible. After running tests to look into all the other possible causes of my symptoms and not finding anything, my doctor returned to the OB and asked them to reconsider the possibility of it being postpartum preeclampsia. She told them that she had done research and found that it has been recorded to happen up to 3 months postpartum. The OB conceded that it must have started developing around 6 weeks postpartum but I didn’t get any noticeable symptoms until the 7 week mark. 

And finally, I had a diagnosis. 

At this point I was ready to go home again. Hospitals are great at keeping people alive, but I don’t think they’re great for healing. Your mental health starts to really diminish as you sit in the same tiny room for days or even weeks in a row. The monitors and constant beeping makes you hyper aware of everything your body is doing. Did I hold my breath just a little bit there and now the alarm is sounding because my oxygen level dipped slightly. Take a deep breath. Make it stop beeping. When a tech would come and retrieve me to get another scan I felt like a schoolgirl excited for a field trip! The hallways and people and glimpses of outside were invigorating! Eventually I had enough strength to take a lap around the hall once or twice a day. That was always exciting. 

I missed being outside. Living on a farm you spend a good amount of time outside. Do you know what lowers blood pressure? Being in nature. Touching the grass and feeling the breeze on your face. Sitting under a tree and watching the leaves dance in the wind. Watching cows graze, chickens bicker, or your dog chew on a bone. Hearing the sounds of a creek and watching the water flow over rocks. 

And children. Now, don’t get me wrong - children also raise your blood pressure. To be sure. But when they aren’t raising it then they sure are lowering it. I missed being in our home with our children. 

The TV is always available to be watched. We don’t have a TV in our home and we watch a show on our laptops maybe a handful of times a year. Turning on the TV felt foreign and soul sucking. If we had it on it was usually on mute because the noise was just so annoying. But watching people look for homes to buy on HGTV or watching some fictitious monster be defeated did help the time pass when we were feeling low on morale. 

I started asking about going home. What needed to happen for them to feel comfortable for me to go home? My blood pressure. The darn blood pressure needed to drop and stay lower for me to go home. They had given me three different medications over the course of my stays in the hospital and nothing seemed to make my blood pressure budge. It started to feel like an impossible task. I started losing hope. 

Then my kids FaceTimed me. My 2 year old was crying out for me: “I want you! I want you! I want you!” His crying shattered my heart. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t come home to him and he was at the end of his rope. The call ended and I was filled with a force and longing strong enough to rip out my IV and drive straight home without saying another word to a doctor. My son needed me. I was so angry at the situation. I was so frustrated that my blood pressure wasn’t changing. I felt helpless. I felt like a failure of a mother. 

Again I was reminded that I still had not said a formal prayer to my Father in Heaven. In all of my pain and struggle over the last week I had called out to Him in brief moments of desperation - mostly for my children. “Heavenly Father, please help!” I knew He was aware of what was in my heart and mind. I knew He heard the prayers in my heart. I was not angry at Him, I did not feel abandoned, and I had full faith in Him. But I could not fully approach Him in plainness and open my heart to Him. I felt that if I did so I would completely fall apart and not be able to pull it back together. It felt too vulnerable. I felt I didn’t have the privacy or ability to allow myself to fall apart. People were constantly coming and going in my hospital room. I never knew if my kids were going to call. I felt unable to pray and that had never happened to me before in my life. 

But I also knew that the medication wasn’t working (at least not as fast as I wanted it to) and I needed to go home. I needed to go home. My children needed me. I could not stay any longer in that hospital. If I couldn’t pray then I needed others to pray for me. I knew there were already some people praying for me, but I needed as many people as I could get. I downloaded social media onto my phone and logged in. I made a post requesting for people to pray for me so I could go home. 

Immediately, my post started getting responses from people I love, people who I hardly remembered, and people that I didn’t know. I started receiving more messages of support and love on my phone. 

I can’t describe the impact that those prayers and messages had on me. Many of the messages I received mentioned that I was in their prayers and then said that they wished there was something more they could do. I understand where they are coming from. I’ve felt helpless before when a loved one is going through something and all I can do is pray. 

But what these people didn’t understand was that in that moment the most critical and meaningful thing they could be doing for me was to pray. In a moment of desperation they were doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. It was humbling and empowering. I could literally feel the power of these prayers and faith lifting me higher and bringing to pass a miracle. 

And a miracle did happen. My blood pressure dropped late that night - several hours after I made the post. It stayed low throughout the night and into the morning. Finally they were letting me go home. 

The last time I had left the hospital Corey had to bring me to the car in a wheelchair. This time I was determined to walk to the car in the parking lot. I wanted to feel well enough to do that. So that’s what I did. It was a slower walk and I didn’t dare carry our baby, but I made it and only felt a little winded by the time we reached the car. 

We drove back home as quickly as we could and coming home felt like the best day of my life. Seeing the kids, seeing their smiles, hearing them play, looking at their drawings, hugging them, watching them wrestle with Corey on the rug, seeing them so excited to see their baby sister and watching them cover her in kisses and hugs. It was pure heaven. It felt euphoric. I was home. I was finally home and it felt right this time. It felt like I was here to stay. 

The next morning I said I wanted to go outside. I wanted the fresh air I had missed for too long. So we piled into the side by side with Grammy and our dog in tow and headed up the mountain. The smell of sagebrush. The cold autumn chill. The leaves were all brown and shriveled. The juniper trees and their berries. The grasses had lost their rainbow colors I had been trying to photograph just a couple of weeks ago. Trees were bare. Winter is so near. And I am finally home. 

I can breathe. 

I am alive. 

I have my children with me. 

My husband is ever my steady place to lean on. 

We live in a spectacular place. 

I am loved. 

God heard the pleas of my heart. 

God heard the prayers of my community. 

God is good. 

Life is good. 

I am so grateful.