7 Doctor's offices in 6 days

I've been sitting on this blog post for about a week now, not quite sure what I wanted to do with it. Clearly, I've finally decided to publish it. So, rather than beat around the bush any more, here's the post. The week in question here is May 11th - 16th.

Shannon pulled off the remarkable feat of visiting 7 different doctor's offices in 6 days last week.  That sounds tough to pull off, even if you wanted to.  We didn't want to, but that's how it worked out.  It's not exactly a happy story, but it's probably a story worth telling.

Just to get this out of the way now, Shannon had a miscarriage last week.  There you go.  Now the tale:

Visit 1: Monday at the OB/GYN (at Hospital #1 campus)
This was supposed to be the find-a-heartbeat visit, as Shannon was about 8 weeks along. Sadly, there was no heartbeat. The purpose of this blog post is not to cover the topic of miscarriages.  Miscarriages happen, and people are often hesitant to talk about them. It's not so much that I don't want to talk about it or anything, but that I'm currently not at the point where I'm going to write a whole blog post about it. I don't really know what I'd say. Anyway, while the ultrasound pointed towards a miscarriage, it wasn't for sure, so they ordered a blood test to be repeated 48 hours later.

Visit 2: Tuesday at the Pediatric Hematologist (at Hospital #2 campus)
This was a checkup for Ella, to verify that her red blood cells have stopped self-destructing. Good news! She's still fine. They still want to see her 6 months from now, though. This was, by far, the best doctor's visit of the week.

Visit 3: Wednesday at the clinic
Shannon went to the walk-in clinic by our house to get her blood drawn again.

Visit 4: Thursday morning at the outpatient clinic (at Hospital #1 campus)
Cardiologist #1, who was not even included in this week's fun, wanted Shannon to get an extra echo (which is essentially an ultrasound on her heart) prior to seeing Cardiologist #2. This was done at the hospital.

Visit 5: Thursday afternoon at the OB/GYN (not at a hospital, just a doctors office)
This was the same doctor as visit #1, but at a different office, because that's just the sort of week that it was. This visit confirmed that indeed the miscarriage was for real. The blood test showed that various hormone levels were falling instead of rising, so it was pretty much official. Shannon scheduled a D&C for Monday.

Visit 6: Friday at the Cardiologist  (at Hospital #2 campus)
This was with Cardiologist #2. When you're special like Shannon, you get to have your cardiologist refer you to another cardiologist. I think I'm nearly qualified to be a cardiologist myself - all you have to say is "I'm a bit concerned about this thing, we'll need to keep a close eye on it and have you visit another cardiologist." On a recent echo, Cardiologist #1 saw something that looked suspicious, so they sent Shannon in for an MRI to get a better picture.  The "something" was diagnosed as noncompaction cardiomyopathy.  For those who don't speak Latin, cardiomyopathy means "heart muscle disorder".  Very helpful, right?  Basically, this is an issue where a small part of the heart muscle just doesn't do anything.  It doesn't compact.  This is very likely congenital, and probably isn't getting any worse, so essentially Shannon is exactly as healthy as she always has been, just now we have better pictures. Cardiologist #2 also wants Shannon to wear a heart monitor for a day and then go see yet another Cardiologist (#3) who specializes in heart rhythms (cardiac electrophysiologist).

We made it through Friday.  Surely the doctor's visits are over, right?  Of course not!!!!

Visit 7: Saturday at the ER (at Hospital #1 campus)
Saturday evening we found ourselves in the ER because Shannon was bleeding a lot. I don't like blood in real life, or on blogs, so I'll be brief here. Basically, Shannon's body decided to not wait for the D&C and take care of the miscarriage by itself (which, I suppose is what bodies are supposed to do in these situations) and there was lots of bleeding. The doctor had previously told her to go to the ER if this happened, so in we went Saturday evening. We were there for a few hours, they did an ultrasound to see how things were going and we finally got home about 1am. Things have all basically resolved themselves and now we work on getting through the physical and emotional recovery. The added bonus of this visit (because clearly we need to add more to this) is that Saturday night was the make-up day for our 11th anniversary because I was at work for 12+ hours on the actual day of our anniversary.  Not like it was some elaborate, fancy evening or anything, but it wasn't supposed to end in the ER.

It was a long and stressful week, and I was only there for visit #1, 6 and 7.  (Not to mention blowing a tire on our new car on Friday.  Thankfully that was under warranty.) We are very grateful to the many friends here who have watched our kids this week, who have brought food, or flowers, or who have simply offered kind words and hugs. The week would have been at least twice as hard without all of their help.

I don't know what the future holds for our family, but I, for one, pray that it includes fewer doctors visits.