Went biking today. For the first time in two weeks. 30 miles. Felt okay while we were riding, but I was a little beat at the end. And quite dehydrated. The temperature hit 85° while we were out there. I guess that had something to do with it.
I guess life is slowly moving back into normality. Which is comforting.
Thursday, July 31, 2003
I've taken to living every day to the fullest. Not that I wasn't almost doing that before all of this happened. But I would have thought this experience would take the wind out of me. Make me timid, scared for my life, and that of my wife and daughter.
But that hasn't happen. Actually, I find myself needing to watch out a bit for this new lust for life. For example, I drove down to New York the other day, to pick up a friend at the airport. I had never driven the car out of the area before. And it is a fast car. So I drove it very, very fast. It was just like being seventeen again. The exhiliration of driving fast was back. For a day.
I won't be doing that again. But something has changed. Life is more colorful. More intense. More precious. It's actually a miracle, come to think of it.
But that hasn't happen. Actually, I find myself needing to watch out a bit for this new lust for life. For example, I drove down to New York the other day, to pick up a friend at the airport. I had never driven the car out of the area before. And it is a fast car. So I drove it very, very fast. It was just like being seventeen again. The exhiliration of driving fast was back. For a day.
I won't be doing that again. But something has changed. Life is more colorful. More intense. More precious. It's actually a miracle, come to think of it.
Sunday, July 27, 2003
I just got a funny e-mail from someone who actually reads this weblog. He complains about the infrequency of my posts of late. He points out that if I neglected my newborn like I do my blog, I'd be sued!
And he's right. I have been neglecting the blog. It's just that since a few weeks ago, time has started to accelerate. The minutes are shorter, and the days seem to whiz by.
But I promise to try, even though there is no try.
And he's right. I have been neglecting the blog. It's just that since a few weeks ago, time has started to accelerate. The minutes are shorter, and the days seem to whiz by.
But I promise to try, even though there is no try.
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
We are slowly healing. And realizing how close we came. How everything almost stopped last week. That it could have been over now. Permanently.
Defining moments usually come unannounced. And it can take you a while to discover them, after they are gone. But this was a defining moment.
Somehow, the colors are more vivid now. The trees have never been more green.
Maybe it's just the rain.
Defining moments usually come unannounced. And it can take you a while to discover them, after they are gone. But this was a defining moment.
Somehow, the colors are more vivid now. The trees have never been more green.
Maybe it's just the rain.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Thursday, July 17, 2003
We just experienced a close call. A very, very close call.
On Tuesday afternoon, my daughter had a scheduled appointment for her routine two-week examination. When we were walking out of the pediatric department, my wife felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her abdomen. We immediatly went over to the OBGYN department, from where she was sent to ultrasound. The ultrasound showed her uterus only partly contracted, a large amount of fluid in there and a bright spot, indicating a likely bleeding.
She was immediatly admitted to the same-day department, and an hour later she went in for a procedure, which was supposed to take 10-15 minutes, to clear out what was believed to be remnants of the placenta. We were pretty cool about it, since this is a fairly common procedure, short and low-risk. I waited for her in the surgery waiting room.
The 10-15 minutes passed. So did half an hour. An hour went by. After 1 1/2 hours, the surgeon came out and said "We better sit down". I paniced. She started to describe how they had started the procedure by dilating the cervix to get to what was in her uterus. First, out came the fluid that had been stuck in there. Then the bleeding started.
She bled continously through the operation. All their attempts to stopped it failed. They tried every medication in the book to get the uterus to contract, but to no avail. When she had lost more than half her entire blood volume, they started thinking about drastic measures. They started putting balloons up into her uterus, and blowing them up, in an attempt to stop the bleeding through counter-pressure. When that didn't seem to work, they prepared the interventional radiology team for an emergency procedure to stop blood flow to her uterus completely. They also started to prepare for having her uterus removed. Completely.
After the fourth balloon had been inflated in her uterus, the bleeding finally began to subside. Having lost such massive amounts of blood, she was in an extremely weakened state, and her blood pressure went down to 70 over 29. It stayed low through the night, and when she didn't seem to be recovering blood pressure and hemoglobin volume by herself in the morning (yesterday), it was decided to start giving her blood transfusions. That did stabilize her, and her blood pressure started to slowly go up again.
Yesterday afternoon and night, she stayed stabilized, even recovered a little. She was still really beat though, and could hardly sit up, let alone stand up. This morning, even though her blood pressure was off the lows, her hemoglobin levels were still critical. So more transfusions were ordered, and have been given to her through the day. That seems to have finally started to move her towards recovering, to the point were optimists are guessing she might be able to go home tomorrow.
In any case, she has a considerable recovery period ahead of her, probably some weeks. And there is also the risk of infection from having foreign objects in her uterus for almost 20 hours. So we're not home yet, but at least we're out of the woods. She is safe, and the outlook is good.
We hope we'll be able to look back on this in a few years and go "Yes, what was that all about?" More likely though, this will become the stuff of my nightmares.
On Tuesday afternoon, my daughter had a scheduled appointment for her routine two-week examination. When we were walking out of the pediatric department, my wife felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her abdomen. We immediatly went over to the OBGYN department, from where she was sent to ultrasound. The ultrasound showed her uterus only partly contracted, a large amount of fluid in there and a bright spot, indicating a likely bleeding.
She was immediatly admitted to the same-day department, and an hour later she went in for a procedure, which was supposed to take 10-15 minutes, to clear out what was believed to be remnants of the placenta. We were pretty cool about it, since this is a fairly common procedure, short and low-risk. I waited for her in the surgery waiting room.
The 10-15 minutes passed. So did half an hour. An hour went by. After 1 1/2 hours, the surgeon came out and said "We better sit down". I paniced. She started to describe how they had started the procedure by dilating the cervix to get to what was in her uterus. First, out came the fluid that had been stuck in there. Then the bleeding started.
She bled continously through the operation. All their attempts to stopped it failed. They tried every medication in the book to get the uterus to contract, but to no avail. When she had lost more than half her entire blood volume, they started thinking about drastic measures. They started putting balloons up into her uterus, and blowing them up, in an attempt to stop the bleeding through counter-pressure. When that didn't seem to work, they prepared the interventional radiology team for an emergency procedure to stop blood flow to her uterus completely. They also started to prepare for having her uterus removed. Completely.
After the fourth balloon had been inflated in her uterus, the bleeding finally began to subside. Having lost such massive amounts of blood, she was in an extremely weakened state, and her blood pressure went down to 70 over 29. It stayed low through the night, and when she didn't seem to be recovering blood pressure and hemoglobin volume by herself in the morning (yesterday), it was decided to start giving her blood transfusions. That did stabilize her, and her blood pressure started to slowly go up again.
Yesterday afternoon and night, she stayed stabilized, even recovered a little. She was still really beat though, and could hardly sit up, let alone stand up. This morning, even though her blood pressure was off the lows, her hemoglobin levels were still critical. So more transfusions were ordered, and have been given to her through the day. That seems to have finally started to move her towards recovering, to the point were optimists are guessing she might be able to go home tomorrow.
In any case, she has a considerable recovery period ahead of her, probably some weeks. And there is also the risk of infection from having foreign objects in her uterus for almost 20 hours. So we're not home yet, but at least we're out of the woods. She is safe, and the outlook is good.
We hope we'll be able to look back on this in a few years and go "Yes, what was that all about?" More likely though, this will become the stuff of my nightmares.
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