Light at the end of the tunnel....

I think finally I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I've been sleeping a lot and my cough today doesn't seem to be as bad as it has been. I called the school today and said I am taking off tomorrow so that I don't drain myself before I give my body time to heal more fully. Then, I will try to come in on Thursday for a full day. Basically, it's been a chaotic time out of work. Hopefully this isn't a false hope that I am getting better, I suppose even if it is at least it is a day of not feeling too crappy. Just need to keep looking at the little blessings. Hope everyone is doing alright with all this sickness. I know a lot of people are very sick and it is not fun. Thoughts and prayers go out to you.

With love,

The Clark Family

Update....

So I apologize to all who read that last blog and thought TMI!!! My husband had way too much fun writing it, I think he just had to share how awful it was for him. Anyway, the nose situation has improved. I still have a terrible cough and on Saturday morning, I succeeded in cracking a rib. Now, my mom has cracked several in her life and after watching this, I did everything I could to make sure this didn't happen, I always braced myself when coughing, etc. Apparently it was meant to be. So instead of just having coughing fits, I get to have more than extremely painful coughing fits. I still don't know if I should go to work tomorrow. I am no longer contagious, however, I cough so hard that I throw up sometimes and don't even know it's coming. That would be fun, not! Basically, I'm just trying to stay afloat and say someday this will all be behind me and I won't even remember it. Right? Hopefully.

We pray that all is well with everyone and their families, knowing full well there is a ton of sickness going around right now. Take care.

God bless,

The Clark Family

WARNING WARNING if you are squemish do not continue!

So, a couple of weeks ago Loralie did a speech for her Speech class about how she never does things the "normal" or "easy" way. The speech had to be about a quote or proverb, so she chose "Murphy's Law", and equated it to her college career. Earlier this week she commented that she had it all, and any pregnancy could only be better, and this couldn't get any worse. Well...she proved that even more could go wrong. Won't make that mistake again!

We spent Wednesday night in the ER (again). I (Alan again!) went to Bible Study in Grand Forks Wednesday night since she had been doing OK (all things considered, other than being sent home from work!). About half way back I get a call, and she asks me how to stop a nose bleed. I tell her pressure and when it slows take a kleenex and plug the nostril (not the most medically sound advice I know, but it has always worked for me, and I get them relatively frequently!). So she does this but it takes about 30 minutes to get it slowed down, by this time I am about 15 minutes from home. About 5 minutes later I get a call that it started again. I speed up a bit and get home to find her in the bathroom with our basin FULL of kleenex and blood clots, and more smeared on the floor. It was kind of like a scene from NCIS. As I walk in the door she takes the kleenex out of her nose (not something I recommend until it has been in there for about an hour!) and a 4 inch clot comes out with it and it starts all over again. Then I call the ER and ask if we should come in or if they have any other suggestions, they say come in if it has been an hour with pressure and not stopping. So we go to the ER at 11:30.

At the ER (and on the way to it) Loralie continues to bleed...and bleed...and bleed. I sign her in because she is preoccupied with her nose (I can't imagine why!). We go back and the nurse gets her onto a bed and gives her a box of kleenex (as if the box I was carrying wasn't good enough!) and a barf bag since the cough is hacking up the blood going down her throat. The nurse does all the pre-Dr. visit stuff, and she has lowish blood pressure (I wonder why). The doctor comes in and takes a look, he does some probing with the little light and can't see a thing. He then takes a Q-tip and starts to "clean" her nose (he made sure to tell the nurse that he didn't want one that was as large as the large ones, but he didn't want one as small as the small ones, he wanted one in the middle). In the process of "cleaning" he dislodged what clot there was, and it went back...then out...right into the barf bag. After she did that one I thought to myself that she looked like she had gone 10 rounds with a prize fighter, and came out with the short end of the stick. She had blood in her teeth, on her lips, and running down her chin, it was a sight. The nurse was good though and immediately went and got a cloth and cleaned her up.

After all that (and not being able to find anything that resembled a cut in the nose) the Dr. decided to pack it. He didn't want to do anything by half measures, so he had the nurse go look for the 7 cm nasal balloon, the 5.5 cm ones definitely would not do. As a stop gap he used a nasal tampon (yes, that is what they are called!) which is a hard piece of surgical sponge that expands as it gets wet. This piece of sponge got rammed up her nose for about 4 inches, and had about 2 inches hanging out of the nostril. Then he decided that she hadn't lost enough blood he needed more, so he had the lab tech come in and pull some out (one thing about the lab techs at Mercy hospital, they are very good at their jobs, they only poked her once, unlike most, which have to stab and jiggle it around to find a vein). I figured that there was enough in the barf bag, but apparently that isn't quite good enough! The lab results came back saying that the clotting factors and hemoglobin were both good.

OK, so a long story short, the nurse wasn't able to find a balloon, so she was stuck with the tampon up the nose over night. This tampon expanded and was putting pressure on her eye as the clot formed, so she was in some pain, and thus didn't get any sleep that night (I didn't either, but we did have some quality time together watching a movie!). Around 6 she was exhausted enough that she did get about an hour and a half of sleep, and I got about 1. We then called the Dr. office to make an appointment to get the packing out. We got it out around 9:30, and it wasn't bleeding, so we didn't have to go to an ENT Dr. and we went home and got some much needed sleep (about 2 or 3 hours worth!). So that was our exciting night.

As an update on the rest of her condition, she is still coughing and is nauseated. I count the coughing as BAD, but the nausea as good, at least that means that the pregnancy is still on track! Hope all is well with everyone, and we really appreciate all your prayers and help through all this!

Love,

The Clark Family

H1N1

Apparently everyone going to the Dr is assumed to have H1N1 because the regular flu should not be spreading this fast at this time. I stayed home today and will probably stay home again tomorrow. I have a cough that hurts right down to my stomach, but the Dr said I have to deal with it as everyone else is doing poorly and taking a long time to recover as well. Apparently 175 kids gone from the district today and there were 4 staff members gone from our school alone, with no subs to cover, so what does that say about teachers in the rest of the district? We are apparently going to be one of those countless towns that gets hit hard. I just pray that once it is over, it is over. Then, maybe I'll only have to deal with run of the mill bugs that come along later.

I do have to admit it is pretty boring in the house, I wish Alan had been home, but someone has to make money while I sit here and lose pay! I think I watched 3 movies on Netflix, some pretty cute ones, and one really stupid one. Thankful to report today that I did not throw up! (Yet). Yesterday was terrible, the coughing gagged me every time. I guess the way I can look at it is that hopefully any other pregnancies I have can only go up from here. Right now I'm smelling the delicious smell of pineapple chicken served over rice, so I'm going to go eat and hope it tastes as good to my crazy body as it smells! Take care all and don't forget to wash those hands!

Love,

The Clark Family

Flu...

Well, I am excited to say, I have the flu, not H1N1, just the flu, well as far as I know, the Dr said they wouldn't even call with the results of that test. Generally, it's not accurate anyway, the society we live in today, taking tests that are less than 30% accurate. My goodness. So I am supposed to stay home until fever has been gone for at least 24 hours. Well, my fever has been gone for that long, but my terrible cough has not. I couldn't sleep at all yesterday because I kept coughing, so finally evening came along and I wanted to go to sleep. I gave up on that as well and came out to sleep on the couch. My adorable husband came out and crashed on the floor next to me. Every time I woke up coughing, he would startle awake, "are you okay", and I would possibly respond or not (if I could) and fall back asleep. Needless to say, it's going to be a rough few days until this cough goes away. Please pray that it will go away soon, it is not fun for sure.

Out here in North Dakota we had snow on the ground, but are now left with mud, lots of it. Almost as bad as spring. This will be an interesting winter it seems. I don't think the Mainers have had snow yet. I'm sure it will be coming soon though.

I guess that is all, I'm going to contemplate sleeping again, if I can. Take care all, remember to wash your hands well, cough into your sleeve, run from others who have germs, and finally, don't work in a school!

With Love,

The Clark Family

P.S. Congratulations to Josh and Holly (my cousin and his wife) for purchasing their first home! It looks gorgeous, can't wait to go home and see it.

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Well, not much to update in terms of baby. I have nausea all the time and threw up for the first time this morning. Hopefully that won't be a continual trend. I've decided my body does well with bacon. I won't eat too much of it, but if there is nothing else to eat, I can fall back on that.

Now on to the subject, oh my goodness, snow, snow, and more snow. Last night we drove home from Minot in almost blizzard like conditions at points. It was crazy. We have had snow for the past 4 days, not large amounts, just enough to settle some on the ground, and we had to pull out the ice melt for the sidewalks as it was so slippery.

Also, today we didn't have kids at school, we had parent teachers and I got to do a bunch of tedious stuff, I really like doing this, so I decided I could work at a school so long as there weren't children there! Terrible of me I know, it is just so exhausting with them there. Anyway, that's all for the day, probably going for a short walk, nauseous again, hoping to get rid of it.

Love to all,

The Clark Family

Ultrasound and Smells

Now it's my turn (Alan) to try my hand at blogging...so here goes! Loralie went to have another ultrasound today. The Dr. wanted to see if the baby had a heartbeat. It officially does! The person doing the ultrasound said that she couldn't count the rate of the beats, since the embryo is so small (2.6 mm). She will probably not have to have another one until 20 weeks. Oh, speaking of weeks, we are apparently a day farther along than we thought. It is officially 6 weeks tomorrow (Thursday) . The morning sickness is getting worse, which I take as a good sign, although we haven't been able to get rid of the smell of supper from two nights ago...(the infamous Cornish game hen incident). we have washed the dishes, cleaned the whole kitchen, and taken out the garbage...the whole nine yards, and still the smell remains! We took an excursion to Wal-mart this evening, to see if there was any candle or spray that she could stomach, no luck (ok, providence :-) We were successful at getting a garbage can that has a more sealed top (and smaller so it has to go out more often...I am not so sure what I think about that! But, I suppose I can take one for the team ;-) When we got home the smell was still there, so I took Pledge to the sink and countertops (I'll wash them again to get rid of the chemials!)to see if the lemon smell would get rid of the other one! We shall see. Thank you everyone for your prayers, they are all greatly appriciated!

Love,

The Clark Family

P.S. We are now telling people, I know it's still early technically, but it's fun, being the first baby and all. We are just not telling students, in case, as they won't understand, but since no one gets this blog who works at the school, we are fine on that account! :)

Good news

Well today I had labs done and saw the Dr. The Dr. said that all was fine, my HCG levels had more than doubled. Also, that random comment he had made about seeing something in the cervix, the tech had seen it and the radiologist said it was nothing. I have an ultrasound on Wednesday to look for a heart beat and if they see a heart beat then all is fine and there is less than a 15% chance of miscarriage. However, continue to be in prayer for things like swine flu and some other contagious, harmful things that are going around the school. Today I discoverd I could eat chili and vegetable lasagna, however, the thought of them makes me ill, interesting, oh and me, the chocoholic, similar to Aunt Lois, cannot stomach the thought of chocolate! It makes me very ill (and happy). The reason I say happy is because it means that I won't be craving chocolate all the time and gaining all that pregnancy weight (which is technically not pregnancy weight)! :) The things I am craving today are pizza and pizza. Last night Alan made cornish hens and did this fancy recipe with them. Oh my goodness, the apartment still smells like them and every time I step foot in the apartment, I feel extremely nauseous. That did not go over so well with me last night. My husband will be amazing if he still loves me at the end of all this!

With love,

The Clark Family (mostly Loralie on this one) :)

Interesting day today....

Well, today was an interesting one. I have to say that I think all must be going well because I cried over pancakes. Not kidding! I woke up this morning and wanted pancakes, the kind I have always made with freshly ground whole wheat flour and some apples in them. I was determined to have them, and I suppose if you have been pregnant you know what I'm talking about. Alan started making me pancakes and he put the oil and eggs in the flour before putting the milk in the flour and so it got all clumpy, well I have never before had this happen. I was a little upset that my pancakes were going to be ruined. Alan got the beaters out and whipped the clumps out, but then the pancakes were so runny, they wouldn't have stayed in form to even make a pancake. I got the flour out and as I was adding flour to the pancakes, I was crying, crying because my pancakes were not going to taste the way I wanted them to. Luckily my husband is wonderful and tried to hold in his chuckles as he hugged me and let me cry on his shoulder. Man oh man, if that isn't hormones, I don't know what is. That must be a good sign. Not to mention I've taken two naps today. Basically, this is ridiculous :) How am I going to get through the first trimester working if I could sleep all day, given the option? Needless to say, hopefully all is well at this point. As I said, Dr's appt on Monday will tell if HCG levels are going up, maintaining, or falling. For those of you that don't know, we want them to be going up, that means baby is growing. I guess that is all for now. I am ready to go to bed, it is almost two hours past my bedtime. Take care and goodnight!

Love,
The Clark Family

Crazy few days...

Well, here goes my first blog....I went to the Dr on Wednesday for some concerns regarding the pregnancy. I had a minor procedure done and was told all was fine. Then, I stayed home from school yesterday and took it easy. I ended up in the ER last night and had bloodwork done to measure my HCG levels to see how everything looks. The levels measured between 3-5 weeks pregnant, so okay, from what I understand. I was told that I couldn't work until Monday and to go to my OB Dr today. I was going to drive to Grand Forks for appts, which is 90 miles away, but I have decided to go with my family Dr right here in town. Especially if there is going to continue to be complications. I had more bloodwork today, I was told I would find out if anything was wrong, otherwise I have another Dr appt on Monday afternoon. I had a pelvic ultrasound and a regular ultrasound. I saw a little black sac, but that's all you can see right now, it's too early for much else. The Dr told me that they saw the black sac, but it's too early to know if there is anything growing in it, I also have may a cyst on my ovary, which they are watching to make sure it is not an ectopic pregnancy, and they also said it appears there is a sac or something coming out of my cervix. So three things somewhere around my uterus, one that is where it is supposed to be and the others not. What a rollercoaster! I guess we have to wait until Monday to see HCG levels again and make sure they are going up, not down. If you could all just pray that we can remain calm and not be worried and if something does happen that we can remain positive and look to God for our help and support. Thanks everyone, I'll update as I hear more.

With love,

The Clarks