Levedy

Oh, and by the way, you could die.

Copy of an email sent to my parents and to Sophie on Thursday:

Dim and I went to our OB doctor's appointment this morning. The nurse took my blood pressure and noted that it was a little high. The doctor came in and said "It might be a sign of PREECLAMPSIA. Lie down for a while and try to calm down. We'll take your blood pressure again in a few minutes."

She could have said "If your blood pressure doesn't go down, we'll shove bamboo shoots up your nails. No worries. Just calm down and we'll measure again in a few minutes." It would have had the same effect.*

So - big surprise, my blood pressure didn't go down. It was taken three times by two different nurses. They couldn't get the same result twice. To be sure, my doctor sent me to the hospital so they could check me out.

So we went to the hospital and three hours later I had been poked and prodded and cuffed and inflated only to find out that my blood pressure was better than that of any of the nurses on the OB ward and that my liver enzyme levels were the envy of anyone who saw the phlebotomist's report. The nurse said that I was the second of Dr. Tyre's patients to come in that morning for phantom blood pressure problems. It was probably something as simple as the nurse's blood pressure gauges being wonky and giving bad readings.

Dim stayed by me the whole time, even though there was nothing wrong. The nurse told him a few times "You can go, you know. She's not going anywhere." He wasn't budging. Awwww.

So the moral of the story is: I was at the hospital today, but there was NOTHING wrong and I am FINE. I didn't call you guys because I didn't want you flipping out. Having three grandparents-to-be (ed note: who am I kidding? One in particular) flailing their arms and gnashing their teeth and ringing Dim's cell phone off the hook would not have helped my blood pressure** (which is still FINE, by the way).

*Preeclampsia is the sudden and dangerous onset of geyser-level high blood pressure in pregnant women. The only cure is delivery of the baby, be it full-term or no. It's scary as shit, especially considering I'm at 29 of 40 weeks, which would put Spanky smack dab in a NICU (assuming she made it through an emergency C-section.) No wonder my blood pressure wasn't going down, eh?

**Sophie was predictably pissed off that she wasn't called. She said "I wouldn't have been flailing my arms. I would have just made sure everyone was doing their job properly." I said "Exaaaactly. That's why we didn't call you." thinking: if I didn't have a blood pressure problem before going to the hospital, I certainly would have developed one watching you bark orders at the Labor and Delivery nurses. The monitors I was hooked up to would have prevented my running and hiding in the parking lot, which would be a damned shame, considering.

Posted by Jen at February 25, 2006 9:58 AM