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Sunday, Jul. 28, 2002 - 10:54 p.m. - What I Did This Last Week
You know that I had some kind of appointment or function to attend each day this last week?? In fact, out of the 5 week days, I had some kind of medical appointment for 4 of those days! Each time I have an appointment with the doctor, either OB or RE, I have to drive at least 15 – 20 miles. Around here in Seattle that’s nothing. I used to drive 20 miles each way to and from work, but when the appointment is a simple blood draw, it’s a lot of driving for a 3 minute procedure. Oh well, those days are drawing to a close and fortunately I’m not working so I can usually avoid rush hour traffic when setting up most of my appointments. The good news is that all my appointments have been going well. On Monday I had a non-stress test. The problem is that all my non-stress tests are in the morning and my little Peep is a night owl and not a morning Peep. She’s most quiet usually in the morning. So she didn’t do a lot of moving. In fact, they had me drink some juice to get her going and even that didn’t do a whole lot. In the end I guess they saw enough to assure them that she was fine. Next time I’m going to ask the more about what they can see from the print out and what it all means. On Tuesday I had a blood draw to check my blood coagulation (to adjust my heparin dosage as needed) and was able to reduce my dosage to 7,000 units 3 times a day. But then I had to come in on Friday for another blood draw to check and see if that new dosage was ok. Fortunately the dosage is fine and I am to continue at that dosage for another week, at which point I was told I could stop my heparin!!!! I guess at 35 weeks they have you stop heparin so that your body starts building up the clotting cells so that if you go into early labor, your blood will clot as it should and you won’t bleed to death. I’ve course I’m a bit anxious about stopping since it does also mean more monitoring – meaning more non-stress tests. It also starts getting riskier since blood clotting the placenta is what is so dangerous for me with my APA+ and ANA+ issues. You can be sure I’m anxious to talk with my OB about my fears and worries. My appointment isn’t until Thursday, August 8th. I’ll already have stopped the heparin at that time. I wish I had more confidence in my OB, but I have to say that I don’t when it comes to monitoring me. Michael and I have quite a few questions and concerns to discuss with her at our next appointment. I just need to write them all down so I don’t forget any. Wednesday, saw us heading back up to Oak Harbor AND another visit to the Navy hospital with my Thai SIL! (Sheesh, I just realized that means I went to the hospital EVERY workday last week.) We went in to write out a formal complaint against the doctor my SIL saw, who was supposed to follow up on her anxiety and insomnia issues. As it was, she waited for over 2 hours to see someone and then the guy didn’t even read her chart to see that she was referred to him by the Emergency doctor that we saw for severe anxiety and insomnia issues. Of course, my Thai SIL didn’t mention that either (which is why I went with her to the doctor in the first place after her accident), but she did tell him that she was having kidney pain and was peeing so much she couldn’t sleep. His answer to her? Take some hot baths for the “lower back pain” assuming it was accident related. Ooooh, it makes me SO mad. Obviously he hadn’t read her chart and record at all. Well, by the time we came up, she was in real pain and was peeing every 10 minutes. We were furious with the care she had received and called her friend who worked at the hospital. She just happens to work next to the person who handles patient services and complaints, so she went to talk with her and that woman asked us to come in right away and file a complaint. So once again we dragged our SIL in to the hospital, filled out a complaint against the doctor and explained the situation to the woman. She agreed that it was completely negligent and she was concerned about M’s kidney pain. So she took us right over to the place where we could change M’s primary care physician, we did that and she is now assigned to supposedly one of the best physicians there. Unfortunately when we tried to make an appointment for her with him we found out that he is gone until the end of August. We did get her in to see another Dr for the following day for her kidney/bladder issue – a DIFFERENT doctor from the one she saw before who also had a good reputation and are getting her an appointment with her primary doctor for the anxiety/insomnia issue when he returns. Hopefully we will get all of her medical issues cleared up soon. It’s been hard for us since it is always quite a trip up there (2 hours each way) to get all this taken care of and unfortunately we have to do the majority of it in person. After the Peep comes it will get even harder for us to make the trip up there for things like this. Thursday I had my GD appointment. Fortunately my sugar levels have been great. I think I only had one or two readings where I went over my glucose limits for the last two weeks and one was a fasting level. My nurse was almost ready to turn me back over to my OB to monitor my levels, but I’m still a little concerned about my fasting levels and so is she. In her words, my levels are OK, not great, but OK. In other words they aren’t bad, but they could be better. All my other levels are excellent. So she wants to monitor me for another two weeks and if necessary I might start medication to help bring down my fasting levels. As I said before, I can’t say I have a lot of confidence in my OB, so I’d rather keep going to her for a while. Besides, she’s so really nice I really enjoy my appointments and seeing her. On Thursday evening we went to our 3rd birthing prep class. What made it fun was that we got to tour the Maternity Center and see the rooms. (Check out the link for all the details of the rooms, they are very nice.) I’d been looking forward to that although I’d already seen the rooms from when my SIL had my nephews there. It was different this time because we were talking about MY being there and it gave us a chance to decide what we might want/need to bring. We found out that they do have phone access that is compatible with a modem so we might even be able to post from the hospital room. That would be great. however since we have DSL at home, we don’t have dial-up numbers. We’ll have to figure out how to work all that out, or if worse comes to worse we got a crappy AOL CD and we’d just sign up for the free x number of hours and then cancel. Mainly we want to be able to send digital pictures to Michael’s family as soon as possible. On Friday, I already mentioned that I had another blood draw for coagulation. Afterwards, I ran around to Target and Baby Depot getting a few more necessities that I didn’t get at my showers. I did have a gift card for Target which was wonderful and came in VERY handy. I think we are almost set for the baby, but we still need a few small things like diapers, diaper wipes and such. Saturday, I attended my cousin’s bridal shower. It was very nice and she received a lot of nice gifts. She’s the youngest of us “Seattle cousins” and being that my sister is mentally handicapped, it is likely that hers will be the last family wedding (barring any divorces and second marriages). The best part of the shower was the drive there and back. I drove with my SIL (my brother’s wife) and it was nice to chat with her again. Our relationship is improving so much. I doubt we’ll ever be Kindred Spirits, but we are moving in a much better direction and that is nice. Which brings us to today. Today I met with a dear friend of mine and we had lunch together. It’d been much too long and it was good to hear about her trip to New Mexico. Then after I came home, I finished cleaning up the nursery and putting away all the new things we’d received at the shower. It felt so good to have those things washed and put away and the room in order again. Then we met with a relative of Michael’s who is here on business and went to dinner with him. Unfortunately, after all the nice weather we’ve been having it has been overcast these last few days and it looks like it might just stay that way the next few days. I don’t mind so much because it sure has been much cooler (I even wore a long sleeved shirt today because I was chilly), but our gorgeous mountains have been hiding. Of course, I always like to show off my beautiful city when people come into town, so I’m sorry when it isn’t “showing off” in all its glory. :o) I’m hoping it might be better tomorrow, but the forecast didn’t sound too promising. So this week is looking a little less hectic, but not much --only two Dr’s appointments (non-stress test and blood draw) and our final birthing class. Oh and we are doing a “meet and greet” with a Pediatrician in our area. We still need to find a Pediatrician for the Peep. Of course, I still have a number of phone calls I have to make and errands to run, so I’m sure to keep busy. And in any spare time I need to write 20 thank you notes yet! I’ve already written about 25!
Tomorrow is my parents 42rd wedding anniversary! This cute photo was taken on their 40th Wedding anniversary! Aren’t they just too cute???!!!
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