Well it has been almost 2 weeks since the birth of my baby girl and I sit here wondering where to start to update everyone on the last week and a half. I will start with what we thought would be a lovely Friday afternoon, we were discharged from the hospital around 1:00 PM on Friday. We came home and introduced everyone, and of course Mercedes was trying to mother little Addison and surprisingly Alexis was curious and seemed OK with the addition to the family. Around the 4:30 feeding Lora started to complain that she felt like she had fluid in her lungs and of course me being myself, I told Lora "go get a cough drop and I am sure that will help." She took the cough drop and didn't say much for the rest of the night. Uncle Joe and future Aunt Kendra came up from Oklahoma and Grandma and Grandpa Knepper also came down from Dyersville. Around 12:00AM we finally went to lay down and get some rest. Addison was swaddled up like a little burrito and I was falling asleep fast when Lora said she couldn't take it anymore. When she went to lay down she felt like she was drowning and was very short of breath. I looked at our discharge papers and it explained that if you are experiencing any shortness of breath to call the doctor immediately. We called the doctor and he recommended that we go directly to the emergency room. We hastily scooped up our little girl, buckled her in and got Uncle Joe to move his jelly bean racer of a car. I remembered to compile a make shift diaper bag full of formula, nipples, diapers and wipes as I realized it was Friday night in Des Moines and we were going to the ER. Once we got to the ER we were quickly checked in and given a small room. A nurse with funny shoes on put in an IV and did the initial vitals check. A short while after the initial check a tech came in the room to do a EKG of Lora's heart. Another 15 minutes passed and the doctor came in with a brace on his leg and white hair. He explained that the concern after any surgery would be a blood clot in the lung and we would need to do a CT scan and a x-ray to rule out a blood clot and fluid build up. The x-ray tech wheeled in a portable x-ray to do the chest x-ray. About 3 hours had passed and we still had not had the CT scan yet, apparently there were a lot of people needing CT scans at 4:00 AM on Saturday morning? We finally had the CT scan around 5:00 AM and were anxiously awaiting the results. The doctor received back the results and told us that Lora had a Pulmonary Embolism and had fluid around her lungs. Once we were told this we asked how much longer we would be there (the severity had not yet set in) and she told us that we would most likely be admitted to the hospital. With all of the life sucked out of the both of us we sat in the ER with tears in our eyes and wondering how we were going to take care of our beautiful little girl with her Mom in the hospital. We got a new nurse at 7:00 AM and she took great care of us. She placed us in a suite up on the cardiac floor or geriatric floor as some refer to it. The hospital provided a crib from the maternity floor and plenty of blankets for Addison. We were admitted on Saturday and did not get much information on Lora's condition until well into Monday or Tuesday. During this time Lora had received a lasix that made her drain over six liters of fluid in the mater of a few hours. As some of you may know Lora started to retain fluid in her lower extremities after week 30. We had some great nurses and some of them were referring to Lora's condition as CHF, we sat there not knowing what that stood for until one of them said Congestive Heart Failure. We both almost hit the floor. Apparently that is what they call patients with fluid on their lungs. On Monday Lora had an echo cardiogram of her heart to determine the efficiency of her heart. A cardiologist read this and determined that Lora has perinatal cardiomyopathy, which is referred to as heart failure due to pregnancy. Her heart is pumping about 28% efficient, 55-75% is normal. Needless to say we were both scared to death about what the future holds for us and our new family. Back to the pulmonary embolism, that is a something not related to the heart condition but just as serious. Lora will be on drugs to make her blood very thin for the next 6 to 12 months. This is done to ensure that the blood clot does not get bigger, move or any new ones form. The heart condition is being treated with a cocktail of meds to basically keep her heart from growing any larger and build it back up to become more efficient. To top all of this off we were told that more children would not be recommended and breast feeding needed to end. After everything we have been through in the last 2 years with cancer and a miscarriage I don't know how much more we can take. But at the end of the day all I have to do is thank whatever or whoever that I have my life, my wife and a beautiful little girl to lay on my chest and watch in amazement. Just as the tattoo says on my arm "I walked through the valley of the shadow of death and now I fear no evil..." I can truly say that after this experience I now I am ready for anything parenting has to throw at me. We would like to thank my parents, Lora's parents and everyone else who came to help us during our difficult time. I will show off now a little bit with more pictures of my baby.
Ma - This one's for you!
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