This past weekend was definitely another eventful weekend, and I am SO grateful for my family and friends for all their help, love, caring, and being there for me!!! I know I say it all the time, in like every post, but my family, friends, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, athletic trainers, and everyone truly are the BEST!!! So I guess I should probably explain to you why this weekend was so eventful, maybe a good idea, right?! Haha!!!
Well, I guess things kind of started more earlier last week (the weekend was just the eventful part). So, just kind of going off of my previous post...I had talked with my endocrinologist last week and she had added an additional steroid medication to my regimen due to my lab results and increased my other (the original) steroid back up to 10mg due to me not feeling well. Anyways, Wednesday was when I had gone up to the 10mg and by later on Wednesday evening I was starting to feel better and doing pretty well. Thursday came and I was feeling well--I mean not your super great run around and do tons of stuff type of thing, but I was feeling better than I was and thinking okay maybe I just needed to get back up this dosage and things are going to gradually start getting better and I'll feel well again. Right--not too much to hope for or think of?! (Hint, hint as to what's coming!) Thursday night was great--I was able to go up to my institute class with my friends and it was a great class! I came home and gradually started feeling worse and worse. During the night I was up and feeling extremely sick!!! I was able to go back to bed however, and I thought that hopefully I was just not feeling well from being exhausted from the day and a good night's sleep would make me feel better. I love sleep!
Every morning my sweet mom wakes me up before she goes to work to bring me my meds over to me, make sure I'm feeling okay, and get anything I need. Well lets just say when she woke me up Friday morning, the "good night's sleep" I had been hoping for to make things go away, did not happen!!! I felt absolutely awful--nauseated, dizzy, lightheaded, just wanting to sleep, and just not feeling right! I took my meds and things, and figured I better check my blood sugar and blood pressure (due to the adrenal issues). Checked blood sugar, perfect! Checked blood pressure, low! My mom helped me with things I needed and was very hesitant to go to work, but I told her it'd be okay, to just go to work, I would stay in bed and just not get out (she was only working half a day), and that I'd call the on-call endocrinologist and things to see what I should do (increase my steroids more or what) and then I'd let her know. So she left, I called and waited for the on-call doctor to call me back, and checked my blood pressure again and it was even lower! The doctor called me, and as I explained everything to her she told me that I better go to the ER to get checked out. Thank goodness my sister that lives just a few minutes away was off work, so my mom called her and she sweetly came and picked me up, took me to the ER to meet my mom, and she stayed with me.
As we waited, my blood pressure at first had gone up a bit so we were happy, but it quickly went back down, and down! They gave me IV fluids, meds for the nausea and things, and I just finally fell asleep (well what I thought was just asleep--taking a nap); but when I woke up, about 4 hours later, they were admitting me to the hospital!
I looked at my mom wondering why they were admitting me all of a sudden and what had happened during my "nap"...well, turns out it wasn't a nap, and I had gone into adrenal crisis again and went unresponsive!!! The doctors couldn't wake me up, and my mom said that every 15 mins or so my blood pressure would just drop further and further until it like 80/44 or something like that! So the doctor had to give me a high dose of "stress steroids" which was like 125mg of my steroids in order to pull me out of it! So I ended up staying in the hospital until Sunday afternoon when I got to come home! Turns out I got a UTI (urinary tract infection) and since my adrenal glands aren't producing the needed steroids/cortisol and things that people need, my body just went into crisis!
We saw my endocrinologist today and she's running more lab work to see if we can figure out whether I have primary or secondary adrenal insufficiency. They said while I was in the hospital that I definitely have the secondary adrenal insufficiency, but they're not sure about the primary. So for now, they're tapering me back down from the 25mg I'm on of the steroids back to 10mg and keeping me on that. I need to be careful that I'm not around anyone sick, because, as I just learned, if I get sick it can throw my body back into adrenal crisis!
I am so blessed and lucky to have had the doctor to reach, my sister to take me to the ER, the doctors and nurses there and in the hospital, my mom staying with me, friends who came to see me (including some of my doctors and physical therapist who are just so caring they came to see me--I count them as my friends), and everyone!!! I honestly don't know what would've happened if I wouldn't have made it/gone up to the ER that morning, and I don't even want to think about that--I am truly blessed!!! Thank you to all my family and friends--I love you all!!! And I will keep you posted on things!!!
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