Devon's Health Update

Hey, everyone! I just wanted to update what is going on with me. I'm doing alright...things are just kind of crazy here. I'm sure most of you know that I had several issues at the end of my pregnancy with Conrey. I kept passing out, had to have 2 iron transfusions and a blood transfusion, I had really low blood pressure, I was just kind of a mess with all of that. After my epidural during my labor, my blood pressure plummetted and really and truly I felt like I might die. They had to give me 3 doses of ephedrin (basically speed) before it stablized. The day after my delivery, I was doing really well and that continued until Conrey was about 4 weeks old. Then, the dizziness returned...in full force. The good thing this time is that I have not been passing out.

Enter the weird symptoms...

At first, it was just annoying dizziness that would happen at random...any time, any situation, any position or posture. Then, I would suddenly lose my balance. I would feel like when I took a step, the floor dropped out from underneath that foot. OR, I would feel like it came up and met my foot too early...either way, I'd stumble.

What concerned me more than that, however, was that whenever I would focus on something, my eyes would dart to the left and then back to the center where they would shake (nystagmus) a bit before stablizing. Dizziness can be a sign of many things, but jittery eyes just made me concerned.

It wasn't until the most bizarre of symptoms happened that I decided to go see a doctor. I was walking in our basement hallway when all of a sudden...for lack of a better explanation, I hit...well...nothing, but it was like I hit a forcefield or something. I was propelled backward a few steps. It was the most bizarr-o feeling I've ever experienced.

Tuesday night, I felt like I slept on a cruise ship that was constantly rocking back and forth. I've been on several cruises and quite enjoy the rocking motion...not so when there is really no movement. It's kind of unnerving. Wednesday afternoon is when it all came to a very, very scary head. I was talking on the phone to my sis-in-law, Michelle, when all of the sudden, the upper, left portion of my vision went white. I'm not sure if I have ever felt that scared of health things in my life...except for when I was afraid that my passing out was gonna hurt the baby, but that wasn't scared for me...that was scared for him.

I ended up going to the hospital for what was possibly the briefest ER trip ever. They did blood work and a CAT scan to make sure that I wasn't having a stroke, aneurysm, etc. Everything came back clear...thank the Lord. They attribute the vision disturbances to the impending migraine that plagued me that evening leading them to give me some very crazy drugs. They gave me Compazine and Benadryl. Let me just tell ya, those are a crazy combo. The Compazine is supposed to cause jitteriness, so they give the Benadryl to conteract it. Benadryl through your IV is a WHOLE different ballgame than the pills. For starters, it is immediate. Secondly, it burns like FIRE! It really conked me out and I was pretty doped up through the first half of the next day!

Anyway, yesterday morning (Fri), I had an MRI and I will have those results by middle of next week. What they are looking for is microscopic damage in the posterior fossa portion of my brain...the part that controls sensory stuff. My dr says that he feels that the passing out and blood pressure issues in my pregnancy and labor caused some microscopic damage to that portion of my brain due to lack of oxygen and blood. He thinks that it is trying to repair itself and therefore I'm getting "glitches" as it's healing. We'll find out soon enough, I guess.

Well, that's my story. Sorry it was so long. Thanks for all of the prayers and such. I appreciate it!