There's no place like the hospital for the holidays...

Good Lord, ya'll. I no sooner finish my last post about Billy's medical issues and hospital visit than I wind up here myself. Yep. I am in the hospital as we speak (type?). I've had some swelling in my left leg/ankle over the last month and my OB/GYN had me undergo a Doppler sonogram last month to make sure there were no blood clots causing the swelling. At the time, the answer was no. Well, fast forward to this morning. I woke up to get ready for work and noticed that my leg felt tighter than usual and that there were two actual lumps on my calf. I called my doctor and she told me to go to the ER. So, this time Billy and Will got to take me to the hospital. Once here, they did another Doppler sonogram and this time the news wasn't so good: two deep-vein blood clots in my left calf. This can happen more commonly during pregnancy and my mom had a pulmonary embolism after she had my older sister, so I am being admitted at least for the night to start taking anticoagulants and monitoring to be sure the clots don't travel to my heart or lungs.

Obviously there are all sorts of medications you can't take during pregnancy, and it turns out there's only one anticoagulant I can take, which can only be administered via a shot in the stomach. So, for the rest of the pregnancy and 6-8 weeks post-partum, I'll have to give myself a shot in the belly two times a day. Um, did I mention I don't particularly care for needles? I guess this will get me over that phobia pretty quickly.

So now my OB/GYN will be working closely w/ a hematologist during the rest of my pregnancy and delivery to make sure the clots don't cause a problem and also to make sure that during delivery I don't hemorrhage (due to being on anticoagulants). The good news is at least we know and we can be proactive about it. And my doctor is VERY thorough, so I feel like I'm in good hands.

Remember how I said I was unfazed by all the Christmas busy-ness this year in my last post? Well it's a good thing because I still have some shopping and other things to do, but being in the hospital the next couple days means that's not going to happen. Now if only I could be as blase about getting so behind on work...