Thursday, January 29, 2009

Unexpected trip to the ER.

Dizzy, uncontrollable shaking, blurry vision.

The first months of the pregnancy were miserable for Jessica because of her constant nausea. When she wakes up she would vomit. She would eat crackers and will vomit them few minutes later, or eat yogurt, and vomit later; or eat cereal, or milk, or granola bars, or any lunch food or any dinner food; and vomit all of it. And even after vomiting, she would have to visit the bathroom again multiple times.

So, she started losing weight, instead of gaining it. The doctor was worry that she was not getting nutrients for herself. The babies will be ok for a while. So, he prescribed her the best medicine that he knows works for these cases. She got the medicine. And it was like a miracle. Finally, she was able to eat, go out to restaurants, and even allow me to cook or see any food without any nausea. It works like wonders!

But the pharmacy only gave us enough for 2 weeks. They said that the insurance company will not authorize any more refills. We got a letter indicating that this medicine was designed for cancer patients that are receiving therapy, and are nauseated. And her record doesn't indicate that this is the case for Jessica. So, they forced the doctor to prescribe a different medicine. There are only 2 other medications that are pregnancy safe. And both of those have side-effects.

So on Monday we got the new medicine that the insurance approved. Well, on the first day Jessica started filling a little bit dizzy, on Tuesday she was having a lot of back pains, and her skin was feeling like crowing. On Wednesday morning, she took the third pill, everything seemed kinda blurry. By the time that we went to church for dinner, she was shacking a lot, and she told me that she was not feeling good at all. I figure, the cold weather could be a factor. By the middle of the dinner, she started crying, and told me that she was having hard time breathing, I hold her hand and she was stone cold.

I figure I had to do something real quick. I called the doctor's office, got a number for the emergency number. Called that number, the call center sent a message to the doctor. The doctor called me back in a couple minutes; I told him what Jess was experiencing. And he immediately replied: take her to the emergency room now!

So, I scramble all our stuff. Run in the parking lot to get to my car, and 15 minutes later we were in the ER room. The doctors put her on a bed, she was shacking so much, and could not see clear anything farther than 5 feet. Her heart rate was over 133! And she was resting on the bed. Her blood pressure was high. They immediately put IVs on her. And we explained what happened. The doctor in charge quickly figures out that she was showing all the side-effects described by that medication. They injected Benadryl in her right away, and it was amazing that in few minutes her shacking stopped, she was able to breath, and her pulse went down to 88!

We waited for 2 hours, she had some IV fluids going into her, and to keep her hydrated. The blood tests came back all OK, the urine test came back with a low probability of urine track infection. The doctor said that he wanted to test again for it (this time using a catheter), to make sure 100% that she didn't have any infection, because this infections are common on pregnant woman, and if not treated it would harm the babies. So Jess agreed, and they re-tested. 45 minutes later, the test came back clean.

We finally, got to go home. Stupid insurance, they only worry about cutting corners, and overwrite doctors expertise. The ER doctor was mad at what they did. He indicated in his final report, that she must be put under the medication that the OB/GYN doctor had prescribed first. He agreed with the other doctor too.

Is kinda ironic that the insurance was trying to save money for a medicine, and now they are going to get hit by the ER bill. Well, I hope the insurance company doesn't give us a hard time with this ER visit. And thank you God that according to the doctor the babies are OK, they only experienced a rush of blood from their mom.

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