Pat_Elliott
<font color=blue>Kimberly's proud papa!</font><br>
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2001
- Messages
- 1,213
To all my friends here at Disboards:
I want to thank the moderators for leniency in my posts. While my trip is now canceled and this certainly has nothing to do with planning anyone else's, it's become a rather handy piece of therapy in the last four days. I'm home for a few hours tonight. I'm still cutting through the replies to my original post, not to mention the mountain of PM's I've received. They have been a source of information, inspiration, support, solace, and sanity.
My wife Amy is a person who takes fitness seriously and has never spent a day of her life in the hospital, sans half a day of knee surgery for, naturally, pushing it too far on a Vermont ski slope. Never could we have imagined she would now have eleven (that's eleven, count em) doctors eyeballing her every heartbeat, and that's not counting nurses, PA's and residents.
After my last post Friday night, things had to get worse before they got better. Already suffering from a rather painful cervical polyp, we'd been diagnosed with three massive fibroids (a sort of benign tumor of the uterus), and two weeks ago a placenta privia.
After massive bleeding led her to the hospital and six mini contractions within an hour sufficiently spooked her OB, she was life-flighted to Danville (PA) medical center, where she was put under observation for potential labor in week 23. That's where I left off in my last post.
When I returned Saturday morning, I found Amy in hysteria. The doctor had told her (while I was gone, naturally) that while we still had to run a battery of tests, she believed the bleeding was not coming from the polyp, as we'd hoped, but from the placenta itself. To compound matters, the fibroids, while actually no problem at the moment, are about six weeks away from crowding the baby and stunting it's growth. The final indignity, and pardon the explicitness of this: the odor emitting from the polyp during examination suggested a high probability of cancer.
Let's say that around noon on Saturday, life wasn't going so well. I've got a saying. I accept that in life, I'll get slapped upside the head with a baseball bat now and then. But I prefer life smack me in the face, rather than in the back of the skull. I like to see it coming. I came back to the house after a run at 5:15 Thursday expecting to begin packing for Disney. Two hours later, I was watching my wife helicoptered to a high-risk neonatal care facility. 36 hours later, they were testing her for cancer and believed the placenta had begun to detach from the uterus. Life, on occasion, has a rye sense of humor that I don't understand.
Luckily, the story takes a northward turn at this juncture. To the three fellow Pennsylvanians that suggested Danville is a first-class facility, you're right and I now understand why. Three hours of painful and intrusive testing later, we've found the following.
The polyp had apparently been there quite a while. Why it wasn't caught before now, we'll never know. When the OB pinched it with forceps, it broke right off. Again, sorry for the biology lesson, but it was rotting, which explains a lot of blood, the nasty smell, and some activity on the ultrasound that had been a mystery. We have to wait seven to ten days for a pathology report, but our Dr. says she'd now take the odds of cancer from fifty-fifty Friday afternoon to less than one percent now. Knock on wood.
Those blessed fibroids are apparently acting as a guardian angel. The problem with all this BS is the weight of all this stuff on a privia can trick the cervix into thinking it's time for birth when it isn't. The fibroids are acting like little bumpers to keep the baby from bouncing on the sensitive, low-lying placenta. Amy's shown no major contraction activity (up to four an hour is allowed and only slightly higher than normal at 24 weeks) since Friday morning.
In the end, we're day-to-day. Amy's had no bleeding since 10 AM Friday morning. Should this continue until tomorrow morning at 10 AM, I'll be allowed to take her home. What will follow is tense. Any signs of bleeding, and she'll become a resident of Danville. No offense to Danville, but we'd like to have her home. It appears to now be a simple fact of life that we'll be delivering not in State College, where we live, but in Danville, and it will be happening no later than week 36. We hope to nurse her as far along as possible, but we've begun steroid treatment to enhance lung development. In the end, we need another week for a viable fetus. We need four more weeks for better than fifty-fifty odds. We need 33 weeks to get out of the woods. Of course, just for kicks, the baby is in breech position. But since we're looking at a c-section (no questions asked), we're not too worried about that.
Although I'm a generally upbeat guy who makes a habit of finding the good in everything, I won't trivialize this by saying "no big deal." However, we were feeling despair 48 hours ago, and now we're feeling like we're in a fight. I don't mind a fight. As long as I see it coming, I can prepare, and I can win. And Amy pointed out to me today, we have hopper passes and DQ passes in the safe. We have a lot to look forward to.
Right now, I hope first and foremost I get to bring my wife home tomorrow. After that, I hope she can keep the baby another week. After that, I'll shoot for 28 weeks. Then 29, ad nauseam. Ask not "why me?" Ask "What's next?" And what's next is I'm going to take care of my wife, have the daughter I've fought five years to create, then take her to meet Cinderella. Mark my words.
You've all been so wonderful. Do not think any message has gone unread nor unappreciated. I've received letters of solice; letter's of prayer; letter's of information from the PA folks and the ladies who've been through this; and just plain old nice letters from folks that let me know I'm not such a long-winded jerk. I'm touched by the responses to my post, which are approaching ten pages. Normally, to get such length on a post one must suggest micro-waving in their Resort is a great idea.
Although it scares the crap out of me to post my personal address, I'd like to ask a favor. Amy's about to be house-ridden for two long, tenuous, frightening months. And let's hope it gets that far. We love Disney, and I'm starting to realize I have amazing amounts in common with like-minded people. If anyone has a favorite picture of Disney (Epcot is Amy's favorite, along with the AC) and can send it with a short word of encouragement, it would go a long way towards keeping her spirit up. We're heartbroken to miss this trip, but are begining to realize that the Magic Disney offers is abundant. One doesn't have to go to Orlando to get pixie dust. It just happens to be abundant there. You people have taught me that the last four days.
Amy's contact information:
Amy Elliott
111 Buckhorn Road
Port Matilda, PA 16870
I should also point out we're having a daughter. A week ago, I was telling people her name will be Kimberly Jane. But come on: it's already Kimberly Jane.
Thank you for listening to my soap opera. I promise when Kimberly is born, I'll post her picture. And there will never be a better trip report than that chronicalling Kimberly's first visit to the Magic Kingdom.
I wish I had the time right now to write everyone individually, and at the very least, over the next month or two I will write everyone that PM'd.. Family is important, but they're hysterical. You folks are making sense. I stand down for the moment. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you.
My undying affection and appreciation,
Pat
I want to thank the moderators for leniency in my posts. While my trip is now canceled and this certainly has nothing to do with planning anyone else's, it's become a rather handy piece of therapy in the last four days. I'm home for a few hours tonight. I'm still cutting through the replies to my original post, not to mention the mountain of PM's I've received. They have been a source of information, inspiration, support, solace, and sanity.
My wife Amy is a person who takes fitness seriously and has never spent a day of her life in the hospital, sans half a day of knee surgery for, naturally, pushing it too far on a Vermont ski slope. Never could we have imagined she would now have eleven (that's eleven, count em) doctors eyeballing her every heartbeat, and that's not counting nurses, PA's and residents.
After my last post Friday night, things had to get worse before they got better. Already suffering from a rather painful cervical polyp, we'd been diagnosed with three massive fibroids (a sort of benign tumor of the uterus), and two weeks ago a placenta privia.
After massive bleeding led her to the hospital and six mini contractions within an hour sufficiently spooked her OB, she was life-flighted to Danville (PA) medical center, where she was put under observation for potential labor in week 23. That's where I left off in my last post.
When I returned Saturday morning, I found Amy in hysteria. The doctor had told her (while I was gone, naturally) that while we still had to run a battery of tests, she believed the bleeding was not coming from the polyp, as we'd hoped, but from the placenta itself. To compound matters, the fibroids, while actually no problem at the moment, are about six weeks away from crowding the baby and stunting it's growth. The final indignity, and pardon the explicitness of this: the odor emitting from the polyp during examination suggested a high probability of cancer.
Let's say that around noon on Saturday, life wasn't going so well. I've got a saying. I accept that in life, I'll get slapped upside the head with a baseball bat now and then. But I prefer life smack me in the face, rather than in the back of the skull. I like to see it coming. I came back to the house after a run at 5:15 Thursday expecting to begin packing for Disney. Two hours later, I was watching my wife helicoptered to a high-risk neonatal care facility. 36 hours later, they were testing her for cancer and believed the placenta had begun to detach from the uterus. Life, on occasion, has a rye sense of humor that I don't understand.
Luckily, the story takes a northward turn at this juncture. To the three fellow Pennsylvanians that suggested Danville is a first-class facility, you're right and I now understand why. Three hours of painful and intrusive testing later, we've found the following.
The polyp had apparently been there quite a while. Why it wasn't caught before now, we'll never know. When the OB pinched it with forceps, it broke right off. Again, sorry for the biology lesson, but it was rotting, which explains a lot of blood, the nasty smell, and some activity on the ultrasound that had been a mystery. We have to wait seven to ten days for a pathology report, but our Dr. says she'd now take the odds of cancer from fifty-fifty Friday afternoon to less than one percent now. Knock on wood.
Those blessed fibroids are apparently acting as a guardian angel. The problem with all this BS is the weight of all this stuff on a privia can trick the cervix into thinking it's time for birth when it isn't. The fibroids are acting like little bumpers to keep the baby from bouncing on the sensitive, low-lying placenta. Amy's shown no major contraction activity (up to four an hour is allowed and only slightly higher than normal at 24 weeks) since Friday morning.
In the end, we're day-to-day. Amy's had no bleeding since 10 AM Friday morning. Should this continue until tomorrow morning at 10 AM, I'll be allowed to take her home. What will follow is tense. Any signs of bleeding, and she'll become a resident of Danville. No offense to Danville, but we'd like to have her home. It appears to now be a simple fact of life that we'll be delivering not in State College, where we live, but in Danville, and it will be happening no later than week 36. We hope to nurse her as far along as possible, but we've begun steroid treatment to enhance lung development. In the end, we need another week for a viable fetus. We need four more weeks for better than fifty-fifty odds. We need 33 weeks to get out of the woods. Of course, just for kicks, the baby is in breech position. But since we're looking at a c-section (no questions asked), we're not too worried about that.
Although I'm a generally upbeat guy who makes a habit of finding the good in everything, I won't trivialize this by saying "no big deal." However, we were feeling despair 48 hours ago, and now we're feeling like we're in a fight. I don't mind a fight. As long as I see it coming, I can prepare, and I can win. And Amy pointed out to me today, we have hopper passes and DQ passes in the safe. We have a lot to look forward to.
Right now, I hope first and foremost I get to bring my wife home tomorrow. After that, I hope she can keep the baby another week. After that, I'll shoot for 28 weeks. Then 29, ad nauseam. Ask not "why me?" Ask "What's next?" And what's next is I'm going to take care of my wife, have the daughter I've fought five years to create, then take her to meet Cinderella. Mark my words.
You've all been so wonderful. Do not think any message has gone unread nor unappreciated. I've received letters of solice; letter's of prayer; letter's of information from the PA folks and the ladies who've been through this; and just plain old nice letters from folks that let me know I'm not such a long-winded jerk. I'm touched by the responses to my post, which are approaching ten pages. Normally, to get such length on a post one must suggest micro-waving in their Resort is a great idea.
Although it scares the crap out of me to post my personal address, I'd like to ask a favor. Amy's about to be house-ridden for two long, tenuous, frightening months. And let's hope it gets that far. We love Disney, and I'm starting to realize I have amazing amounts in common with like-minded people. If anyone has a favorite picture of Disney (Epcot is Amy's favorite, along with the AC) and can send it with a short word of encouragement, it would go a long way towards keeping her spirit up. We're heartbroken to miss this trip, but are begining to realize that the Magic Disney offers is abundant. One doesn't have to go to Orlando to get pixie dust. It just happens to be abundant there. You people have taught me that the last four days.
Amy's contact information:
Amy Elliott
111 Buckhorn Road
Port Matilda, PA 16870
I should also point out we're having a daughter. A week ago, I was telling people her name will be Kimberly Jane. But come on: it's already Kimberly Jane.
Thank you for listening to my soap opera. I promise when Kimberly is born, I'll post her picture. And there will never be a better trip report than that chronicalling Kimberly's first visit to the Magic Kingdom.
I wish I had the time right now to write everyone individually, and at the very least, over the next month or two I will write everyone that PM'd.. Family is important, but they're hysterical. You folks are making sense. I stand down for the moment. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you.
My undying affection and appreciation,
Pat
).
