Another Difficult Day - More Time at the Hospital

Today's "adventures" .....

After being placed on oxygen yesterday evening, I had a difficult night.

This morning, I called my local physician and she requested I come to the office. I had a 99.2 temp (my normal being around 97.4). She decided to order a chest x-ray. She also ordered blood cultures, a repeat CBC, and a D-Dimer test (we both had concern about the chance of this shortness of breath and low oxygen sats being related to a pulmonary embolism since I have had one in the past).

The chest x-ray brought welcome news -- perfectly clear with no areas of leukemic infiltration or infection. However, the D-Dimer results came back elevated (700). My Dr. orders this as a screening test if she suspects a Pulmonary Embolism (PE). If negative, the D-Dimer assures us that there is not a clot. However, a positive reading can be a false positive or an indicator there is a PE. Since the D-Dimer returned positive, she felt we had to have a nuclear lung scan. So I was sent back to the hospital and had the nuclear lung scan and it was clear as well. (We were delighted to know that.)

Unfortunately, I have become very claustrophobic. My beloved doctor called the chief of nuclear medicine and requested that they allow my Mom to go in with me for the scan. I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. I was strapped down and a mask of nuclear material was strapped tightly onto my face as I was in the scanner. Mom held my hand and comforted me. I was grateful to have her with me. She put my earbuds to my MP3 player in my ears and we turned up the volume to cover the sounds of the scanner. It was playing CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST and I sobbed and sobbed as I asked the Lord to rescue me once again. My thoughts were on Lil Man and if I would live to see him born. I cannot express the relief I felt when the nuclear medicine physician relayed the report that no blood clots were discovered.

The down side being, we still do not know what is causing such drops in my saturation levels. My doctor sent home a pulse ox monitor from her office with me for the weekend. She asked me to monitor my oxygen saturation levels (with and without oxygen on; at rest and while active).

I am so week tonight. Please pray with us that:

-the source of the problem will be revealed and simply treated
-I will gather strength for Lil Man's arrival.
-I will not become dependent upon the oxygen.
-that blood cultures will be clear for infection