Back to the Hospital

If you have been wondering why Gin hasn’t been posting to the blog or returning calls it is because she is back in the hospital again:-( It is a long story but I will try to summarize everything since it is late and I need to get some sleep.
Thursday 8/7/08 - Gin complained of a massive headache and thought she was suffering from a migraine.
Friday 8/8/08 - The headache continued on Friday and her vision got somewhat blurry around noon but then stayed about the same the rest of the day. At about 7:40pm we (Jan, Jason, Gin, and Ollie) were watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics when Gin says to me, “Jason I can’t see anything!” When I turned over to look at her she was convulsing on the couch and experiencing a grand mal seizure. I laid her down on the couch and called 911 while trying to keep her from flailing herself onto the floor. Once connected to 911 I passed the phone to my mom but she has a really weak stomach for medical emergencies and was going into shock as well. She laid down and talked to the paramedic while I kept Gin from choking. After about 2 minutes the seizure subsided but Gin was still unconscious, the paramedics arrived within minutes and Gin started to regain conciseness after about 10 minutes. As the paramedics started to carry her to the ambulance she had a second seizure which lasted another couple of minutes. I went with Gin in the ambulance to the hospital where they rushed her into the ER. It is a little unclear if she had a third seizure once she got into the ER but she started to regain consciousness after about 30 minutes in the ER. She spent the night in the ICU with the doctors keeping her stable through the night.
Saturday 8/9/08 - Saturday morning Gin was transfered to the antepartum unit and they told us she had likely suffered from Pre-Eclampsia (what we thought was the migraine) which then, being unchecked, escalated to full Eclampsia. They did a CT scan in the morning and did not see anything abnormal with her brain, so they then did an MRI later that afternoon. She was placed on Magnesium Sulfate to keep her from having another seizure and they continued to run blood tests through the rest of the day.
Sunday 8/10/08 - Sunday was a lot of the same with additional blood work, we were told that afternoon that she might be ready for release on Monday afternoon if all went well the next day.
Monday 8/11/08 - At about 1am Monday morning they took Gin off of the Magnesium and just monitored her through the night and morning. By the afternoon her blood pressure was up to 170/108 and the headache was returning so they took her back down to the ICU and started her on an IV drip to lower her blood pressure again (I can’t remember the name of the drug). This continued through the night and they scheduled her for a cerebral angiogram in the morning.
Tuesday 8/12/08 - After the angiogram in the morning they took her off the IV’s and started giving her Nimodipine pills to control her blood pressure. Her blood pressure remained very good through the evening and on Wednesday she is scheduled to return to the ante-pardium unit. We are hoping that she will be released sometime this week but the neurologist is still investigating the possibility that she suffered from vaso-spasms in the vertibal arteries, rather than Eclampsia, so we will see. I will keep everyone posted as things develop. Please keep Gin in your prayers, we are confident everything will work out.
Wednesday 8/13/08 - Nothing much to report other than a small spike in Gin’s blood pressure that landed her another night in the ICU. We have been told that if she is stable through the night she will be released to antepartum.
Thursday 8/14/08 - Gin was finally released from the ICU and is now much more comfortable. We have Ollie here with us and we are in a very large comfortable room. She has a few tests tomorrow morning and if all goes well she might be discharged on Friday, but I think Saturday is more likely.
Friday 8/15/08 - Today was just another waiting day. However the neurologist came by around 7pm and said that if all goes good tonight Gin will be released on Saturday, I hope he is right because Gin is about ready to just sneak out of here.
Saturday 8/16/08 - We returned home tonight at around 7pm and Gin is doing great. She is still  taking Nimodipine which is a blood pressure/vasospasm medication. In a few weeks she will have her 4th MRI to see if the vasospams have fully ceased; this will tell us if the vasospams were caused by the pregnancy, or if there are ongoing abnormalities in the blood vessels of her brain. Currently her diagnosis is Cerebral Angiopathy caused by postpartum hormonal imbalances. The doctors all said that this was likely a one time occurrence, however we must closely monitor Gin's blood pressure during her next pregnancy. We want to thank everyone for their support, prayers, and comments, we will update this posting if we have any new information.