yes, i am the "pyelo"

That is how i spent my afternoon. Being referred to as “the pyelo”. For the underinformed (that would be me) – “the pyelo” means, that extremely large pregnant woman with the two kids who looks like death on a log warmed over and crapped on with a possible kidney infection, or pyelonephritis as is the medical terminology.

WHY oh WHY can’t i just cruise on through to the end of this pregnancy like i have with the other three? My appointment today was one huge confusing mass of people running in and out of my room, shoving papers at me, sending me to L&D (the birthing wing of the hospital), hooking me up to monitors, threatening IV meds, and in general – the left hand having no effing clue what the right hand was doing. Except i was in a crapload of pain. Still am. Have been since early last week.  From what i gathered of the chaos and my discharge papers , here is what is going on(cause i know you’re all just DYING for these personal details involving my pregnancy and hooha) –

I was tentatively diagnosed with a UTI (urinary tract infection – think peeing hot knives, 73 times a day and nite) last thursday at my appointment. They took a urine sample, sent it to culture and called me Monday to confirm that yes indeedy, i was actually peeing hot bloody knives. Awesome. So we start on antibiotics. As an added bonus and a special little love gift from heaven, i am also Group B Strep positive. This is basically symptomless strep throat, except in your hooha, instead of your throat. (And this is why you should never search for medical info on the internet, cause you end up at sites like mine with info like this to describe your condition!) So neat. Now i have not only a UTI, but I have this GBS which doesn’t affect me, but CAN cause massive brain damage if the baby happens to get any in her eyes or mouth or nose on the way OUT of the tunnel of darkness. The usual treatment for GBS in pregnancy is to give the mildly laboring woman who comes in 8-10 hours from delivery calmly feeling contractions an IV antibiotic in the hours leading up to birth.  However, if you have had a chance to peruse my lovely archives back in July of 2007, you would see that there was NO TIME for that neat treatment with Kaylen. Who I was also blessed enough to be GBS positive with. (*note to self: ask God why I can’t get this good of odds when i play slot machines in vegas…) Anyhoo. My midwife being the proactive and smart woman that she is, saw that on top of this UTI, I also was GBS+ again and so prescribed an antibiotic guaranteed to knock out every kind of bug, foreign and domestic, in my system and the systems of those within a three mile radius of me. This should have guaranteed IMMEDIATE relief from the pain, fevers, soreness, achiness, etc etc etc that came along with the UTI.

No go.

Instead mine has gotten worse. So much worse that I thought i had passed out from the pain of the stabbing knives last nite at Costco (I don’t think I actually did or else ben would have said something)…but it was bad enough that I really really really wanted to swallow about 92 vicodin all at once. or however many i could get my hands on. which is exactly none. but its still nice to dream. Anyhoo.

So today when I go in for my regularly scheduled appointment and they hear that my symptoms are NOT going away, and indeed are getting worse, and my back pain is worse, and my fever was 101 – they kind of panicked and sent me to L&D for what they thought was “pyelo”.  The kind hearted Dr. on Call over there who didn’t even deign to come check me out herself decided that it was NOT pyelo (presumably because I was not in active labor and my fever had come down a little) and so I was sent home. And my 32 year streak of never having had an IV in my life continues. i was seriously freaked out about the IV. i can handle needles. i just can’t handle SEEING them, in the back of my hand. Or anyone else’s hand for that matter. its just not natural. But at least i didn’t have to deal with it.

So i guess i DOn’T have a kidney infection – i just have the other two infections which are being very slow to respond to this antibiotic from hell. I LOVE exercises in futility which require the payment of hundreds of dollars, the calling home from work of a very busy husband, and the dealing for three hours with two cranky hungry children in a small hospital room while strapped to a bed and monitors. SHOOT ME NOW.

and that, dear readers, is my life today. I do’nt even have the energy to expound on my horrified fears and thoughts for our country, and the future of my family, after last nite’s tragic decision. i can only pray that God brings clarity to the other leadership of our country.

Maybe tonite will be the nite that the antibiotics start working. i hope so at least. I can’t wait to start feeling remotely close to “normal” again.

May you never have to be referred to as “the pyelo”.

Go in peace.

 

terra