So the weeks progressed and the routine of poking and prodding remained. I was lucky to have a wonderful friend who made me delicious lasagnas and such so I didnt need to add hospital food poisoning to my list of concerns!!! The hardest part other than the insecurity of what was happening to Jazz, was missing my other 3 kids. Generally Storm, Kai and Paige are very healthy and rarely get bugs.....but of course 2009 was to become a very germy year for them, and the hospital didnt want them near me as they had upper respiratory tract infections. So more often than not, when they visited, i had to stand on the balcony with them below. It was so hard not to be able to hug them, kiss them and tell them everything would be ok. We talked on the phone too of course, but nothing replaces physical contact. Paiges 6th birthday was precisely as described, me on the balcony, calling out to my beautiful babies. Mum and Dad were looking after them, they have been absolute gems, best parents ever!
Paul visited every couple of nights, and after a week or two visitors dwindled. My amazing mate Jo Mc of course, ever vigilant with her delicious lasagna was one exception of course!!
Another mate, Mel, visited a few times and at first it seemed as though the hospital wasnt going to let her in because she had just had her gorgeous baby Adel.......I had to tell them it was ok. Despite what was happening with Jazz, life does go on and I was so happy for Mel!! At times friends couldnt visit for ages due to illness, which was of course to become standard, you have any bug, dont come near!!!!
No one could tell me why this was happening, theories were thrown around, including the possibility that as this was my first child with Paul, perhaps something about his DNA triggered an immune system response in me and my arthritis was attacking Jazz. They came to me at around 23 weeks and told me they were going to test me for parvovirus....my initial response was 'woof'!! I had never heard of a human parvo, but as it turns out it is supposedly slap face disease, which curiously enough was going around my kids' school the week before everything went pear shaped! But to this day, 2 years later, I still dont know the results!!
I finally got to 23 weeks and was popped in an ambulance and sent to Monash for foetal diagnostics, again, I begged both casey and Monash to leave me at Monash, to no avail. On the plus side though, the foetal diagnostic specialist was happy with Jazz. He said her fluid was low, but the hard thing is that they really dont know yet precisely at what point it begins to be too low for lung development. Other than that he said he could almost certainly say there were no chromosomal abnormalities, the most exciting part was when I said that I was aiming for 24 weeks and he said 'why only 24?' I didnt know how to respond to that!!! I'd been told for 3 weeks that she would never even make it to 24!!!! In fact, it was only the night before that I told a young doctor about my 24 week goal, with face and voice full of pity she said ' you know, even if you get to 24 weeks, theres no hope for her, dont you?' Now this specialist was insinuating I could go much longer than 24!!!! To top off a brilliant day so far, my lovely ambo's stopped off at maccas for me on the way 'home' .
As soon as I got back to casey, it was clear they'd been given the results as their entire attitude changed, within the hour I was given my first steroid shot to help my jazzies underdeveloped lungs just in case she wanted to come any time soon! I had the second shot the following day.
Finally I hit 23+5....yay, time to go to Monash!!! I was soo excited! I knew we still werent anywhere near out of the woods, but at least now she had a chance, it would just all be up to her.
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