Getting serious

Okay, it's getting serious now.

I went home on Wednesday (two days ago) at lunch time to check in with Luciana, and took her blood pressure. 171/92. Alarm bells went off for me.

Unfortunately, I was in the middle of my own medical crisis. Two days earlier a slowly resurging problem with trigeminal neuralgia suddenly went critical, subjecting me to very intense attacks of pain in my lower and upper jaw and around my right eye. I had gone to the doctor that morning and had started on tegritol, which I used in the past to control the symptoms, but I knew I was facing anywhere between 3 to 5 days on ongoing pain attacks before the tegritol would control the problem (and then I could enjoy the experience of being medicated with this anti-convulsant, which leaves me feeling a little delayed).

Alarm bells lead to a couple of things:

• my face pain escalated rapidly
• I called the hospital and they told us to come in
• Luciana went into her "Stop over reacting, this is not a big deal, and help me pack up my school-related work so I can be productive in the hospital" routine
• Luciana went into her "let's call someone we can pay to drive me to the hospital so you can keep seeing clients this afternoon" routine
  

It only took us about 20 minutes to get out of the house, but by the time we were on the highway I was really ovewhelmed. The pain was terrible, and I was very upset because she was telling me that when we get to the hospital I should drop her off at the front door and go back to my office. I started crying, partly with pain but mainly because I couldn't tolerate her pushing me away. Crying actually helps -- not with the pain, but with the interpersonal problem. She agreed I could park in the driveway and join her at labor and delivery.

We got a bed at Labor and Delivery without any problem. The people there are really great. They are very used to people showing up in all kinds of mental states. They took her blood pressure -- of course, it was back down to a health level. But they checked her urine and blood - there was protein in the urine and her hematocrit was low. So they elected to keep her in the hospital at least 24 hours to study the situation.

That was Wednesday. Yesterday was relatively calm. I spoke to her last night -- unfortunately just when I was having an awful pain attack, so she thought I was in terrible trouble. I wasn't in terrible trouble, I was just suffering pointless nerve pain.

Today we got the news. They have officially diagnoses her as having pre-eclampsia. That means that the babies may be having an adverse affect. Somehow pre-eclampsia and eclampsia affects the placenta's capacity to supply the baby with oxygen and nutrition. So she is going to stay in the hospital for the duration, and at some point the balance will shift. Right now, it's better for the babies to be in the womb. At some point the balance shifts, it gets too dangerous for Luciana to keep the babies inside and it begins to degrade their health as well. That's when they decide to deliver.

We are now officially waiting for the balance to shift.