Blogging via Ambien, now we're talking!

well, I've had 10mg of Ambien and its not yet 5am and I'm awake but not, so this might be entertaining. As always, pardon mispellings, or if I mention the same chain of events 12 times, just nod and smile.

Yesterday was a tough day, emotionally for me, as well as feeling very sleepy. I think the limited and interrupted sleep from our first day and night here caught up with me. We had a very quiet day in comparison to others. Martha was our only day time visitor and it was mellow. I'm amazed at how much I really thrive on it being loud and full of people in our room. It was nice to have quiet too, but it was a bit too quiet yesterday. Our awesome PD friends were busy and all working hard so we didn't see too many friends on day shift.

I had been getting aggitated (imagine that) with feeling restricted, trapped, all around cranky, and melted down a time or two. I think given the circumstances of this new event, I'd been doing well and some yelling, kicking, and screaming was bound to happen. My first episode of tears was after Matt saying he wanted to get some exercise. I was ok with him going for a while and hitting the gym but I was jealous and upset that simple gym activities are now off limits to me. Later, he thought he'd distract me but strolling me around the unit, which no one said NOT to do. My BPs have been so stable that I pretty much rearrange our room and am up and down all day, avoiding the bed as much as possible. 2 nurses told me to go back to my room and the you know what hit the fan and I sobbed and cried on Matt about wanting to just walk, go home, go to the gym, just have some normalcy. I have to hand it to the guy for being as supportive as he is, he's all too often the voice of reason, and while I appreciate the reasoning that yes, this is TEMPORARY and I can go back to my routine in a few months, I just wanted him to get how trapped I felt and irritated. After this little incident, I knew I was tired, Matt and I were both a bit fried at eachother so Matt went home for a bit and to the gym and I napped. The world is just better when people nap.

After my nap I had my labs drawn and they continue to rise much to everyone's confusion. When Matt came back we were both in better moods but still essentially scratching our heads at why labs just weren't cooperating. I had been doing my daily fetal monitoring in the hospital bed and started to have intense upper back pain that seemed to radiate in a band to my front, followed by a neck and headache. This after some slightly elevated BPs (130 from 112). The discomfort seemed to come on suddenly and I'm  not sure if it was purely positional, I've given up on the bed by the way, or if this was something related to my liver or galbladder. I had a good 10 minutes of just feeling not well, similarly to what landed me here, but the symptoms resolved and our midwife checked on us and reminded us to let the RNs know if there were similar or worsening symptoms. Nothing else really presented itself so we went about our night.

Evening time rolled around and so did PD friends that just made the day go by so much better. I know that I thrive around people being here for the distraction but the more I watch, I think Matt appreciates it just as much as I do. Nathan and Makayle dropped by and let us know that they really had no idea we were here or what was going on. It was great to see them and catch up and laugh with them a bit. Allan and Bruce also joined us, followed by Betsy. Since Matt's actual squad is on their night shifts right now, one of our friends, Christa, offered to bring us dinner from our favorite mexican restaurant and between the company and the food, it was a great night. 2 other squad mates, Eric and Dave also came by, and stuck around long enough to watch me get queasy after getting my new IV. :)

IV's in the hospitals if flushing properly, last 72 hours. The one initially placed had been painful to flush the entire time and I had been asking for it to be removed most of yesterday but the nurses said anesthesia wouldn't do a new one until it stopped working or the 72 hour mark went up. I got lucky and it stopped flushing so not only did I get the joy of being free of anything for a bit, I got to get a new line, this one in my right forearm that is SO much more comfortable and flushes much better than the hand one. The hand spot is a bit infiltrated and sore today. Anesthesia was kind enough to humor me and just get the line in with less difficulty than prior sticks. Took 2 tries but the lido helped a lot. I did get woozy as I anticipated but the feeling of going to the dark side lasted far less time than my initial sticks. I dont know what it is about IVs but something about threading the catheter creeps me out and makes me dizzy and see spots when done on me. I'm hoping that this IV will last and not have any infiltration issues. I'm not sure if this will be my last IV here or not but at least I've got great line access for the next 72 hours.

Not much else to report, as I said, I'm on ambien right now, tired and groggy but just can't sleep right now. Matt stayed with me tonight and its been nice having him here. We both slept on the daybad, and went right to sleep initially. I'm not sure if we're crashing easily because of meds, sheer exhaustion, our white noise maker plus the hospital's humidifier or just finding some normalcy in going to bed together. Likely a combo of both but I settled a lot better when he was next to me. He's still sleeping even though I've been up for over an hour wandering around the room, trying to convince the nurses to get the lab techs up here sooner so I can sleep again and wake up to results. No luck yet, I'm sure as soon as I fall back to sleep, lab will come in. Nothing like being woken up from sleep by someone who simply needs to stick a needle in your arm and then leave.

Hopefully today will bring some new or better lab results, if not, the waiting game continues. Sounds like we'll have more visitors today, and I'm crossing my fingers for Randi and Landon to come by. Maybe today we'll have some more conclusive evidence of what we're dealing with, if not, we'll be here through the weekend!

Somewhat sleepily,
Matt, Rach, baby