NICU

On Sunday morning Cheryl woke up with a headache.  It was something like 3:00 A.M.  So I gave her a backrub and anything else to relieve the pain.  And like all good husbands, I snored louder.

Cheryl fell asleep for a few hours then she was crying over the pain.  I asked if it was a reaction to the medicine and she said she did not know.  At 7:30 to 8:30 I took her blood pressure and it was really high.  So I said to her "We go to the hospital now"

At the hospital they rushed her into the emergency before all of the paperwork cleared.  If I was smart then, I would of realized that this is bad.

After a litany of tests, only one stuck to our minds and that was the urine test.  Her urine showed that she had protein it it.  Both Cheryl and I knew that it meant that she had Preeclampsia.

Now Cheryl was given a stretcher ride to Labor and Delivery where they stuck all kinds of IVs in her and given her a steroid shot.  At that moment we knew it was bad.  The shot was to cause Chloe to start to develop her little lungs and prepare for the world.  She also got a blood test.

At this point the doctor was more concerned with stabilizing Cheryl and giving Chloe the best possible chance of survival.  So the shot was precautionary.

Well, the blood work came back and it shows that her platelet count dropped from 150,000 to 96,000.  Hoping they can stabilize it they continued all of the procedures to stabilize Cheryl as well as prepare for the worst.

They took another blood test and had a Neonatal doctor talk with us about Chloe's chance of survival.  He said that because of her weight it is about 85%. And we thought that Cheryl can last a few weeks in the hospital and give Chloe time to bake in the oven.

The second blood test came back and the results were bad.  Her platelet count was 56,000 (36,000 means comma -- less means death) which was extremely low considering that it was only about 4-5 hours since the last blood work.  I was at home picking up things to make Cheryl's stay enjoyable and then I received a call from the doctor which went like this.  "Hello Mr. Lewis.  How far do you live from the Hospital? . . . 20 minutes, ok you need to get here right away, but don't speed.  Cheryl needs to go into surgery right away."

What happen was that she had HELLP syndrome and she needed to be operated on right away under a general anesthesia.  Because she could only be operated on under a general anesthesia, the surgeon must get Chloe out of the uterus in under 5 minutes (egg timer surgery).

Friends from our church and work came and gathered around me when Cheryl went under the fastest scalpel on the East, which was great comfort.  We prayed and just thanked God that this was discovered in time.

The doctor came to the room we hijacked and told us about the surgery.  At that point I knew that it went well, because the doctor did not ask to see me alone or asked the room to be cleared (we call that very very very very bad).  She (the doctor) spoke the most eloquent words about the operation. She told how Chloe, came out kicking and screaming and that Cheryl was doing well.  She told that Chloe's Apgcar score was 8, 9 which everyone told me was very good.  Extremely good for a preemie.

The doctor asked me if I had any questions, and I said, "I have a healthy wife and a healthy child, what more do I need to know."

A special thanks to all of the people who came to us that day.  Each result was devastating, but the people made it easier.  Special thanks to God, who gave us enough sense to make it to the hospital with plenty of time for surgery.