Post partum: Week 4

Weight: 120 lbs
Waist: 33.5 inches

Aches & pains: upper & lower back, hips and knees.

This week was a terrible week. I picked up a viral infection somewhere and it wiped me out. On Tuesday, I dropped Mike off at the airport and then went up to the studio to check in with Rachele and take care of a few details for her. After the long evening of fixing dinner and getting Finnegan to bed, I fell asleep at 7:30 p.m. for the night. However, I noticed that my right ankle and knees were really aching and I didn't know why.

That night I woke up drenched in sweat and thought it was just part of the pregnancy process, but unfortunately it was not. On Wednesday I had the pleasure of experiencing nausea and diarrhea all day and of course had not appetite. As the day wore on I got worse and worse. When Doug came home from work, I told him he was on his own for dinner and I went to bed around 7:00 p.m.

I kept using the heating pad to ease my muscle aches and taking tylenol as well as really hot showers in the middle of the night when the pain woke me up. Nothing worked.

On Thursday, I was so bad by 3:00 p.m. I called Doug and asked him to take me to the hospital. We got to the emergency room around 5:00 p.m. and was finally seen by a doctor at 6:00 p.m. After several blood tests and examinations, it was determined that I had a viral infection or common cold. But, this one was especially virulent as it caused dehydration, low white blood cell count and extreme body aches. Yup, that's what I had and the doc said it lasts for seven days. Good Lord! I was on day three.

They treated me with a couple of IVs and some vicoden for the pain and I was released around 9:00 p.m. We went home and I fell exhausted in my bed, but slept relatively painfree with the aid of medication.

I lived on the couch until Sunday, when the symptoms started to dissipate. It was not fun. I didn't eat for about five days and I had to take care of Elijah the whole time. I really felt like I needed to have a nurse around to help me, but that wasn't possible. Unfortunately, in my delirium I didn't notice that Elijah was diuretic the whole time that I was, but at least he didn't get dehydrated as I nursed him faithfully the whole time I was sick.

Today was Elijah's one month check up and I told the doctor all that had happened this week and she felt so bad for me. But, she said that I had done a really good job taking care of Elijah because he had gained weight and that his diaper rash was not too bad and his yeast infection in his mouth was all gone.

Whew! We made it through a tough week, I just hope that we don't have to go to the hospital for a long while.