Ups and Downs of Week 1

Sorry for the lack of updates, it’s been a busy week with many ups and downs. The boys are all doing great, Jenni is another story I’ll get to in a minute. The boys all arrived and were initially put on oxygen, given IVs and then were introduced to Jenni once they were stabilized. They were put on feeding tubes. They’ve done well most of the week, trying to learn to feed, and had their feeding tubes out later in the week.
Jack has not been able to meet his brothers as the hospital has instituted their flu-lockdown. Meaning, only 2 visitors at a time, and no one under the age of 12, I count as a visitor, no exceptions.

Jenni was doing well initially. Jenni was discharged on Monday, and made a boarder at the hospital, meaning we kept the room across the hall from the nursery, but she was free to come and go from the hospital as she pleased. Jenni initially had some difficulty breathing, only able to breathe in half the volume one would normally. This was thought to be from the massive amount of fluids in her body from carrying the triplets for so long, and once she was able to dispense of the extra fluid everything would return to normal.

Jenni actually had preeclampsia at the time of delivery, accounting for the massive amounts of fluid in her system. Her kidneys and liver were barely functioning Saturday night, but they were functioning and able to get them up and running normally by Sunday morning. Tuesday Jenni still felt shortness of breath, the main concern they were looking for then was surgical pneumonia, though she still retained a lot of water. Her oxygen levels remained high, but her blood pressure was still fairly high as well. Wednesday night Jenni stayed at home and I stayed at the hospital. Jenni called me at about 2am as she didn’t feel like she could catch her breath and couldn’t sleep. She called the on call doctor, and she had me bring Jenni up to the hospital to check her vitals, which looked fine.

By Wednesday morning Jenni had not really slept in 72 hours. Dr. Storey prescribed Ambien. After taking the pill around noon, she still couldn’t fall asleep. I called Dr. Storey’s office and let him know she still wasn’t sleeping and something wasn’t right, he asked that I bring her up to his office right away so he could take another look at her. He checked her out and then let us know we needed to go get some tests done. He was hoping she was anemiac, but wanted a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia. If it wasn’t either of those then he needed us to see a pulmonary specialist. We were sent to the hospital where Jenni was readmitted for blood work and a chest x-ray. Both came back fine.

Jenni saw the pulmonary specialist on Thursday, he informed us unfortunately it was 1 of 3 things, congestive heart failure, a pulmonary embolism, or cardiomyopathy. He said we needed to hope for the congestive heart failure, as that would be a result of the excess fluid and would be easier treated. Jenni was sent for a CT-scan. We came back to his office, and were given the news that it Jenni had clots on her lungs. She was readmitted and we requested to be returned to her room across from the Nursery. Dr. Storey and Dr. Tett made that happen.
Jenni was immediately started on heparin Thursday. The heparin was almost immediately at the therapeutic level, meaning the clot was being broken up and was maintained through this morning (Saturday). They are switching her over the Coumadin today. Jenni also had an Echo Friday morning as well as another chest x-ray. We spoke with Dr. Tett today to discuss the results and treatment. Unfortunately Jenni had all 3 of the conditions he spoke of, but thankfully she is still with us and being treated very well. All of the conditions may be entirely reversible, and heal with time. Jenni is doing better, and can breathe better as she dumps the extra fluid and breaks down the clots.

The boys had their 1 week birthday feeding with mom at noon today, aunt Jen helped.
I cannot say enough about the staff of nurses and doctors at the hospital. Everyone has been AMAZING with both Jenni and the boys. Dr. Storey in particular for recognizing that something was very wrong with Jenni, and it wasn’t just some water retention and the anxiety of having the boys. For many people they don’t find out what was really wrong until it’s to late. He methodically checked each possibility, and kept going until we found what was wrong.
Originally Dr. Tett had prepared us that Jenni may be in the hospital through next Friday. As she responded well to the heparin and they were able to get it to a therapeutic level right away and keep it there as long as they did, we’ve knocked days off that. He said this morning worse case she’s still in her studio apartment through mid-week, hopefully we get her home sooner.
We have 3 35 week boys that are doing better every day, that didn't have to make a trip to Denver, and Jenni is on her way to recovery as well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers at this time, keep them coming.

Jenni and Trio