The week of April 3-7, 2023, I started having headaches. I was about 35 weeks pregnant with my second child, and I was 27 years old. The headaches were consistent over the entire week, and Tylenol wouldn’t relieve the pain. All I wanted to do was lay down, but sometimes that would make my head hurt even worse.
On April 7th (Good Friday), the pain became intensely worse, but I tried to enjoy the day at my parents house for lunch. I needed a nap after I ate, so I went to lay down on their couch. My parents took my daughter out of the house for a little while, so I could rest, but when they came back I told my dad I think I have a fever and to check my temperature. When he came back with the thermometer and checked, it was around 102°. We then went straight to the Emergency Department.
From the moment I got to the ER, it took them about an hour to triage me, and when they finally did, they tested me for your basic COVID, Flu, strep, etc. When all of those came back negative, they questioned me a second time on how I was feeling. I proceeded to tell them how my head was throbbing, and it was the worst headache I’d ever had. So, my dad mentioned to the doctor in the room at the time that it sounds like meningitis. Once he said that, you could tell something seemed wrong. The doctor and nurses quickly moved me to a secluded room, and started ruining some tests. Meningitis is serious but rarely fatal in people with normal immune systems; however, my pregnancy made my immune system terrible! I was always sick this pregnancy with colds, flu, etc…
They checked my urine and blood work just to be sure something else wasn’t doing this to me. They even recommended doing a spinal tap on me so they could get more information. Unfortunately, I was told those results would take days to come back, but it needed to be done. So, they did a spinal tap.
We waited for about another hour or two until they decided I needed to be transferred to another hospital so that the infectious disease department could take over. They were sure it was meningitis; but they didn’t know which kind. Bacterial or viral. Once I was transferred, they started running so many test that you wouldn’t even believe it if I told you.
As the days went on, my headache got worse. Moving was hard, my head was pulsating, I had no appetite, etc. They pumped me up with tons of antibiotics. So many antibiotics that it started seeping through my pores; and that’s all I could smell. My fever wouldn’t break and it kept going up. They couldn’t give me certain medications such as ibuprofen because I was so far into my pregnancy. At one point, they even talked about trying to induce me because the baby started to become in distress with his high heart beat. (I think that’s because my fever was so high), but there is no way I could have pushed a baby out. I had no energy. At one point, when my fever went down, it went so low that they had to use some type of heated blanket (I think it’s called a bear hugger) to raise my body temperature back up. The nurse thought the thermometer was broken; that’s how low my temperature got.
Besides the pain, the worse part was the pokes from those needles…so many needles…ðŸ˜
I had three IVs in at one point. I didn’t even know that was possible…
I had bruises on my arms from being poked every six hours so they could run more blood work because EVERYTHING was coming back normal so they had no idea why was going on with me. They even had to insert a port to help with something at one point into the side of my arm, not sure what though. I don’t remember. The nurses and doctors tried to make me as comfortable as they could; even going to get me a different bed for my room because I couldn’t rest.
I had to miss Easter with my daughter that Sunday because I was stuck in a hospital bed, and my husband was stuck overseas on a deployment, and man my heart was broken for her…
My parents were approached several times about worse case scenario options because my health was declining so quickly; and that’s when it was decided they need to really push for the Red Cross to send my husband home. It was even brought up that ICU is the only option now because there is nothing more they can do for me. So yeah, it was time he needed to get back home because the outcome wasn’t looking too good. My son’s heart rate kept rising, my blood pressure was dropping, and my temperature was unmanageable.
After a very long week of having the worst pain imaginable in my head, it randomly started to feel slightly better one morning. It took almost a week, but it was so random! It’s like I woke up and it was gone. I was able to eat a little food and I started to sit up in my bed. I still had no energy but I knew I had to regain my strength. I started by slowly sitting up and then slowly walking.
After 6, almost 7 days of being In the hospital and being monitored 24/7, I had the pain under control and had just enough strength to be discharged to go home!
About two weeks being home, I still had no energy and my appetite was hardly there; but it did slowly get better as time went on.
So, in the end, they were positive I had viral meningitis and that’s what I was officially diagnosed with. (I guess meningitis in that stage of pregnancy is very uncommon and unheard of apparently). Weeks later when my other results came back, everything was still coming back negative and normal. It was so weird.
They said anything and I mean ANYTHING could have caused it; such as a simple sneeze from someone in a grocery store. Luckily, my son; whom I named Louie, made his grand appearance a few weeks later. He was the healthiest baby you could have asked for. A solid 8lbs!!!
Those doctors and nurses who treated me over that week deserve the utmost respect for never giving up on me and my baby when they literally couldn’t do anything else; but they kept trying.
And a HUGE thank you to all of my family who helped me in the hospital, especially my parents who told me that I need to go to the ER right now!…if it wasn’t for them taking me, I probably would not have woken up the next morning.
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