Well, just when you think you’ve heard it all……
I woke up Friday morning (June 22nd) and felt terrible. I had chest pain, nausea, sweating, couldn’t breath, both arms hurt and throbbed. I was scared because I didn’t know what exactly was wrong.
Nathan got me to the hospital . Much to our shock I was told I had suffered a heart attack! Well, it did feel like a heart attack, but you just didn’t expect it to actually have been a heart attack! I was put up in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and after much testing the Drs decided that it was best for both baby Luke and I to deliver him on Monday. His head was so stuck up into my ribs on my left side, that it was what triggered the heart attack, just a weird fluke that no one could have foreseen. Even some Cardiac Drs visiting from the Mayo Clinic stopped in to see me because none of them had even heard of such a thing.
Luke was delivered on Monday June 25th at 1:11pm. He is 6 lbs and 12 ozs, 20 inches long. He has light brown hair. He is cute as can be and we were so happy to see him. He was only 35 wks 4 days old and unfortunately having some issues due to being premature. His lungs are wet (very common at this stage) and was taken from Fairview Southdale to the Level III NICU at Fairview University (same hospital I did my 2 month stay at) He has all of the navel IVS and has been on a ventilator to help him breath. It’s really hard to see him all hooked up, but we know he is having the best possible care.
Tuesday I has surgery again and they did an Angiogram and threaded a catheter from my groin up to the my heart to assess the damage from the attack. Luckily there is only one small spot they confirmed was the site of the “episode” and I shouldn’t have any long term damage. Whew! But time will tell.
They released me from the hospital this morning, so that I able to go to Luke and bring him some milk for when he is ready to eat. I had not seen him but twice for a brief moment as we were both in different ICUs, then at different hospitals, that was hard. They did pull out his vent today, but had to put him back on a C Pap as he is still not able to breath without difficulty on his own. It will be trial and error for a few weeks. I got to hold him for about 45 minutes today and it was good for both of us, I just sat there and beamed!
The good news is, we don’t expect any long term problems from the premature birth, he’ll have to fight for awhile, but should get strong and heal and thrive. I am about as weak as I ‘ve ever been and very sore, it will take some extra time for me to heal from all of this. However I’m well and happy to have the hardest parts of this behind us. Wyatt will get to meet Luke tomorrow, none of us can wait. Nathan and I think Luke looks a bit like Wyatt. We're all very happy.
Love Tess
