My OB Saved Me…and Then Almost Killed Me
A little background first. I had 3 miscarriages and had been on infertility treatments for two years before I finally had a successful pregnancy. When my infertility specialist was comfortable that this pregnancy had “taken” he referred me back to my regular OB/GYN for the rest of the term, despite the fact that I asked him to refer me to a high-risk OB due to a complicated health history (childhood heart disease, a bout with Lyme disease, recent abdominal surgery). My regular OB didn’t seem to think it was necessary for me to switch to a high-risk OB either. I wish now I had followed my instincts rather than listening to their advice. Especially since one of our local hospitals has one of the best high-risk OBs in the country on staff.
The first five months of my pregnancy were normal, maybe even a little easy compared to some, since I never had morning sickness. However, in the fifth month, I started having severe heart palpitations. I mentioned this to my OB, who dismissed it as a normal part of PG after verifying that my blood pressure was still normal. Later, I complained of swollen ankles and pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. The first was also dismissed as normal, once again because my BP was fine. The second was written off as a result of the baby kicking. Late in my 7th month I was diagnosed with a minor case of gestational diabetes, but because I was so close to term, the doctor didn’t take this very seriously either, and didn’t counsel me about diet or anything. He did pull me out of work for my last month, but only because I was complaining of extreme exhaustion and he didn’t want me driving or making the long walk from my parking lot to my office.
At 6 pm on Friday, October 23, my water broke. The contractions were about 15 minutes apart early on, but there was a lot of pain so I went right to the hospital, where I was put in an ER room at first. A couple hours later, when I was 6 cm dilated, they moved me into a birthing room. Shortly thereafter, I had an epidural.
6 hours later, my labor ceased to progress, and things started to go very wrong. My heart rate skyrocketed to 180 BPM, and my blood pressure to 200/160. I was in pre-eclampsia, kidney failure, and toxemia (liver failure). Thankfully, an immediate c-section saved me and my baby. Unfortunately, there was no time to administer anesthesia, so the pain was unbelievable, as the doctor sliced open my lower belly with no pain relief other than a fading epidural. Minutes later, my son was born. Thankfully, he was perfectly healthy. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the maternity ICU hours later.
I spent 3 days in the ICU on high levels of magnesium to treat pre-eclampsia and toxemia, labatelol for my blood pressure, and morphine for pain. I needed to have 2 blood transfusions for severe anemia. I couldn’t hold or nurse my son, but I was too drugged to care. I remember having weird, drug-induced hallucinations, but I don’t remember much else. One night a nurse stepped on my bladder catheter line, pulling it out. She simply reinserted it, which led to a staph infection, which wasn’t treated. I was later told by my cardiologist that the staph infection may have contributed to my later heart problems.
On the 4th morning post-partum, I was transferred to the regular maternity ward, but it was no better. The nurses there treated me as a normal patient, pushing me to take more responsibility for my son, despite my obvious exhaustion. They wanted me to breast feed, despite the drugs I was on, and my OB had to intervene to put a stop to it. They left my son alone with me for hours at a time. High doses of magnesium can cause sensitivity to noise, so his crying made me almost hysterical. They made me use the bathroom by myself, and one afternoon, attempting to return to my bed, I passed out, hitting my head on the floor. The day before my release, I started having chest pains and difficulty breathing. My oxygen levels and chest x-rays came back normal, and I’m not sure the nurses ever told the OB on call about my concerns. Though I was barely able to walk, much less take care of my baby alone, I was released from the hospital 6 days after delivery. They said it was because of insurance regulations, and that if I stayed any longer I would have to pay out of pocket.
Two weeks postpartum, my heart rate and blood pressure were still high. I was having heart palpitations and difficulty breathing while lying down. I also had a terrible cough that wouldn’t go away. I went to see my OB, but he wasn’t concerned. However, he did raise my labatelol prescription so high the pharmacist actually questioned it! A week later, I went to my PCP, still having the same symptoms. He diagnosed pneumonia and put me on steroids. I suffered for the next several weeks with a husband who thought I was faking it to keep him home so that I wouldn’t have to take care of the baby alone.
Two months postpartum, I passed out on my kitchen floor, unable to breath. My husband called me melodramatic, took the baby to his parents’ house, and went to work for the day. I made it through that day, but 24 hours later I ended up in the ER with all the classic symptoms of congestive heart failure. They did a huge battery of cardiac tests, and the next morning, December 19, I was diagnosed with postpartum cardiomyopathy. My ejection fraction was only 8%, and I was told without a heart transplant I had about six months to live. I was terrified, and my husband felt awful for not believing me. My family rallied behind me wonderfully.
I was put on a huge cocktail of drugs, including lasix, Altace, Coumadin, Toprol XL, digoxin, magnesium, folate, and iron supplements, and protonix in case the rest of it upset my stomach. I had to see my cardiologist every month in the beginning. But the worst of it was that they put me on a 5 pound lifting restriction, which meant I wasn’t even able to pick up my newborn son. I had to get at least 10 hours of sleep per night, which meant I couldn’t get up with him when he cried. The day before I was released from the hospital, my husband, my parents, and my in-laws got together and decided that I would go stay with my parents, my husband would move in with his parents, and my son would be shuffled between my parents house and my in-laws house every weekend. It wasn’t a happy solution, but our parents lived too far apart and my husband’s job involved a lot of travel, so we didn’t feel we had much choice. My husband and I also agreed to put our new house on the market since even if I lived I wouldn’t be able to work again, and we couldn’t afford the mortgage payments on just his income. I was discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve, and it was probably the worst Christmas of my life.
I remember those first couple of months post-diagnosis were the worst. Having my son away from me every other week was so painful that only my doctor’s orders to try to remain calm kept me from crying constantly. Every time I saw a baby on TV I would nearly break down. I held him during his naps and wondered how long I had left to spend with him. My first visit to the cardiologist was extremely depressing. It was 2 weeks after my diagnosis and the doctor was concerned that my ejection fraction had only gone up to 10% despite the drugs. She said again that I would need a heart transplant if I hoped to live more than another six months. Unfortunately, when I did the lung capacity tests needed to get on the transplant list, my lung capacity was so poor that I couldn’t even make the list because I was deemed a poor risk, and a history of difficulty with general anesthesia basically clinched it. A transplant wasn’t going to be an option. I was also feeling awful about leaving my boss in the lurch, as I had originally planned for a 3 month maternity leave followed by a return to work. Now I had to tell him I couldn’t come back at all, and at the same time he had just lost one of the other women on his team as her husband had been transferred across country. I was really depressed about this because I had really loved my job and was good friends with all my co-workers, and the woman who moved away had been a close friend who had been there for me since all this had started.
Miraculously, by my next visit in February, my ejection fraction had shot up to 22%. By April, it was 35%, and they took me off the coumadin and gave me permission to pick up my son, which was SO incredible. I was exhausted and miserable, but things were improving. I had to rush to the local ER a couple of times with symptoms of cardiac trouble, which was terrifying and expensive, but by the grace of God we got through even the hardest days. March was a hard month, at the same time I was improving, my father developed appendicitis and my son and I were shuffled off for 2 weeks to stay with my aunt while my parents were at the hospital. Shortly thereafter, my father-in-law was diagnosed with lung cancer, and had half a lung removed, followed by chemo, so he was exhausted and my in-laws at this time opted out of their turns with the baby, which was great for me but hard for my husband, who was growing more and more distant.
In August of 2004, about 8 months post-diagnosis, my ejection fraction was over 40%. They lowered my Toprol XL and Altace, and switched me from lasix, the strongest diuretic, to Aldactone, which meant I wasn’t peeing every 2 hours anymore. A lot of my restrictions were lifted at this point, and I finally got to move my son’s crib from my parents’ room into mine. I still wasn’t allowed to go back to work, and for some reason I never did fathom, Social Security disability denied my claim, so we were pretty strapped for cash as the house hadn’t sold and we were still paying on the mortgage. But I was so thrilled to still be alive at a year post-diagnosis that I wasn’t complaining about money.
In early 2005, things really started to look up. My ejection fraction was 50% in January, and my cardiologist visits were cut from every 3 months to every 6. In March we finally unloaded the house which was a major relief. We had some major car repair bills in April, but we dealt with that as best we could. My life was pretty much back to normal by now except I still wasn’t cleared to go back to work, and my son and I were still living with my parents while my husband continued living with his. We only saw him on weekends due to his constant traveling for his job, and we continued to grow apart. I was starting to doubt that my marriage was going to survive.
Fast forward to March, 2006. At my January visit to the cardiologist, my ejection fraction was 60%. I happened to see a cardio that day I hadn’t seen before, and he told me that my heart function had normalized to the point where, if he didn’t have my charts right in front of him, he would never have believed I’d had a problem, much less such a serious one. He cut back my meds drastically, switching me to over the counter amounts of folic acid and iron, and taking me off the diuretics except on an as-needed basis. And he told me I could go back to work part time, which was nice to hear even though it wasn’t high on my list of priorities anymore. I have started working from home selling clothes and books on Ebay, and doing some freelance writing, so I’m not too worried about finding a job just yet, and even if I did, it wouldn’t’ make sense financially right now as day care would probably cost more than I could make part time.
Unfortunately, the only thing that hasn’t improved is my marriage. My husband only sees us on weekends, and only a few hours a day then. Lately he’s been talking about getting himself an apartment closer to his company’s headquarters, which would put him even farther away from us. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, but if there is nothing else I have learned in the past two years, it’s to leave things in God’s hands, because He will work everything out for the best.
