Trading your health for your dream

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After 15 years of trying to get pregnant and finally giving up I found out that I was expecting. It was a dream come true! Besides the all day (not just morning) sickness my pregnancy was pretty perfect. Then, on March 7 2015 I experienced excruciating, ripping pain across my chest and my back, up the left side of my neck and down and across my abdomen. I screamed to my husband that I was dying or losing the baby. He threatened that he was going to take me to the hospital and I begged him to. He knew something was wrong then. I walked into the ER screaming that I was dying and they took me straight up to labor and delivery to check on the baby. For 15 minutes I plead with the nurses to take me to the ER before I died, the baby was fine but she wouldn't be if I died. They finally agreed and took me downstairs. For 7 hours I rolled around, writhing in pain as the doctor decided I was having back spasms because the scar on my back was shrinking to nothing and then relaxing over and over. He gave me muscle relaxers and sent me home. Because I have had back surgery for scoliosis I was told my body wasn't handling the pregnancy well and was just going to have back spasms. For 3 weeks I laid in the bathtub in pain. Not sleeping, dehydrated, 29 weeks pregnant and in the worst pain of my life! I finally went to my OB for a checkup and she gave me IV meds for pain, nausea and fluids. She sent me to a cardiologist and they did an ultrasound. At this point the pain was over, thank God! The cardiologist told me he had never seen anyone walk in under their own power in the condition I was in. He told me to call my family and have them meet me at the emergency room, which was across the street. Within 15 minutes I was being transported to Duke. Dr. Hughes, my cardio thoracic surgeon looked at me and said I was fine, he had never seen anyone that was presenting the way I was presenting without pain. The next morning they scanned me and found that I have a dissection from the very top of my aortic arch "all the way down" as far as they checked. He told me to get comfortable because I wasn't going anywhere any time soon. After 2 weeks I was having migraines everyday and started losing parts of my vision. They decided at 31 weeks my baby would make it and they didn't know what was happening to me. So April 14, 2015 they did a C-section in the Cardiac Surgery Center in case the extra fluids in my body caused the dissection to get worse. They said the first 24 hours after pregnancy would be the most critical because of the pregnancy hormones, fluids and blood given during C-section and the strain from the surgery. I stayed in the CCU for 8 hours and then was sent to a regular room because I was doing so well. I am still waiting for surgery, 19 months later. My doctor said most likely within the next 5 years, but he wanted to wait as long as possible. There has been very minor growth in the aneurysm in that time, which is great! They have also found an aneurysm in my brain, which also seems stable.