Midwest Exotics
CnQ member since 2003
Just to give the run down..
Last saturday (april 18th) my cousin(35) gave birth to her & her husbands 3rd child. All went well other than a lingering headache & stayed well until the wee hours of april 23rd. Her husband tried to wake her up to feed their newborn son as he was crying at nearly 2:00 am. She didnt wake & was rushed into the ER to try to figure out what it was. They thought at first it wasnt AS serious & was something diabetic, but over the week we have learned it is much more serious. Upon tests & her unconsciousness they discovered that she had the worst stroke you can have, more than likely due to pushing & the hormone changes her body went through upon delivering. They still arent sure if this was caused from something viral that had stayed dormant in her body until the hormone change OR if this was just a harsh "typical" postpartum stroke. They think viral because of the symmetrical shape of the bleed, however all of her blood tests show nothing. As the CT scan showed there was bleeding in her basal ganglia (Thats in the middle of the brain & a very sensitive part close to the brain stem) They couldnt stop the bleeding & needed her body to stop it. She happens to be a "good clotter" so she HAS stopped further bleeding into her brain, however, she is no where near out of the woods yet. There is still major swelling & bruising going on. They have her fully sedated now & didnt want to do that to start with because more in her dulls things & isnt as good as a "clean" functioning body. On day three they decided to as her flinching when touched meant that shes in an immense amount of pain & put her into an induced coma to prevent her from waking.(the docs put it to us as imagining the worst headache youve ever had times 10) not good. On top of that this past weekend she got mastitis from not being able to nurse her son & the docs dont want to pump her as that will cause her body even more stress. She needs ALL her energy to be saved for healing. She had a fever due to all of this, but the fever broke a day or two later, which is also good news.
From what they can tell her responses were fairly good before being heavily sedated, but again they tell us that means very little right now. Tomorrow or later this weekend they are going to try to lower her doses in hopes to retest her responses & brain activity. Please pray for her.
They believe she can hear whats going on, which i find to be the hardest part to deal with right now. It would be one thing if she were in la la land, but it seems as though she does know whats happening, just cannot move, communicate, etc. (before the sedation of course) However, as my mom said, perhaps she will take some comfort in knowing we are all there for her.. Either way this is very upsetting.
My family & i still remain hopeful that she will wake up & either walk away from this OR will at least wake up. We have been told the best case outcomes & the worst case outcomes of how others have done with this type of issue. We are all willing to pitch in to do whatever to help no matter what happens, we are a very large & loving family, esp in times of need. She's certainly got the best of families to be there to help & stand behind her. This has made our family much closer, but its been very hard & stressful to keep things together.
There is a lot of misunderstanding going on with WHY this happened & WHY it was her. Those things cannot & more than likely will not ever be answered & is always hard. She is a great person, always helpful & kind & a phenomenal mother. She of all people didnt deserve this & most of all, her kids dont. They have barely even seen life & to see the rest of it without her will be a terrible thing. They are 5, 3 & one week. Her youngest son really needs to at least have a memory of his mother & her middle little girl is QUITE a mommy's girl & hasnt stopped asking for her since Thursday morning. This has been extremely hard on the kids, even though they take comfort in being with their aunts, uncle, grandparents & cousins. Also keep them in your prayers.
I am planning to head over to the house to spend time with the kids & do photos of the new baby. I want to capture as much of him right now as i can so when she DOES wake up, she can see she didnt miss everything. Plus i think it would be nice to hang up their pictures in her room.. if she wakes up & knows who they are she may take a lot of comfort in that, if she doesnt have a clue its not going to hurt.
Anyways, the family has created a web site so we can have a plan of whos to get the kids from A to B, meals, house & yard work, etc. Im going to be taking the kids here & there when i can to help out, but also wanted to send over a few meals in the next coming months.
Im not a great cook, but want to put all my efforts into helping where i can to ease the pain & take away some of that extra stress & to do's.
I am hoping to find things like casseroles or crock pot dishes that are easy to make, travel & make a lot at once as they have family that has also come in to help. Something that can be reheated easily & perhaps on the go style dishes would be best for them right now.
Please pleas please stop & take a few moments to pray for her, her husband & kid & the rest of my family during this time.
I thank my cnh family for any support & words to the big guy for us! She needs every bit of prayer right now to pull through!
Last saturday (april 18th) my cousin(35) gave birth to her & her husbands 3rd child. All went well other than a lingering headache & stayed well until the wee hours of april 23rd. Her husband tried to wake her up to feed their newborn son as he was crying at nearly 2:00 am. She didnt wake & was rushed into the ER to try to figure out what it was. They thought at first it wasnt AS serious & was something diabetic, but over the week we have learned it is much more serious. Upon tests & her unconsciousness they discovered that she had the worst stroke you can have, more than likely due to pushing & the hormone changes her body went through upon delivering. They still arent sure if this was caused from something viral that had stayed dormant in her body until the hormone change OR if this was just a harsh "typical" postpartum stroke. They think viral because of the symmetrical shape of the bleed, however all of her blood tests show nothing. As the CT scan showed there was bleeding in her basal ganglia (Thats in the middle of the brain & a very sensitive part close to the brain stem) They couldnt stop the bleeding & needed her body to stop it. She happens to be a "good clotter" so she HAS stopped further bleeding into her brain, however, she is no where near out of the woods yet. There is still major swelling & bruising going on. They have her fully sedated now & didnt want to do that to start with because more in her dulls things & isnt as good as a "clean" functioning body. On day three they decided to as her flinching when touched meant that shes in an immense amount of pain & put her into an induced coma to prevent her from waking.(the docs put it to us as imagining the worst headache youve ever had times 10) not good. On top of that this past weekend she got mastitis from not being able to nurse her son & the docs dont want to pump her as that will cause her body even more stress. She needs ALL her energy to be saved for healing. She had a fever due to all of this, but the fever broke a day or two later, which is also good news.
From what they can tell her responses were fairly good before being heavily sedated, but again they tell us that means very little right now. Tomorrow or later this weekend they are going to try to lower her doses in hopes to retest her responses & brain activity. Please pray for her.
They believe she can hear whats going on, which i find to be the hardest part to deal with right now. It would be one thing if she were in la la land, but it seems as though she does know whats happening, just cannot move, communicate, etc. (before the sedation of course) However, as my mom said, perhaps she will take some comfort in knowing we are all there for her.. Either way this is very upsetting.
My family & i still remain hopeful that she will wake up & either walk away from this OR will at least wake up. We have been told the best case outcomes & the worst case outcomes of how others have done with this type of issue. We are all willing to pitch in to do whatever to help no matter what happens, we are a very large & loving family, esp in times of need. She's certainly got the best of families to be there to help & stand behind her. This has made our family much closer, but its been very hard & stressful to keep things together.
There is a lot of misunderstanding going on with WHY this happened & WHY it was her. Those things cannot & more than likely will not ever be answered & is always hard. She is a great person, always helpful & kind & a phenomenal mother. She of all people didnt deserve this & most of all, her kids dont. They have barely even seen life & to see the rest of it without her will be a terrible thing. They are 5, 3 & one week. Her youngest son really needs to at least have a memory of his mother & her middle little girl is QUITE a mommy's girl & hasnt stopped asking for her since Thursday morning. This has been extremely hard on the kids, even though they take comfort in being with their aunts, uncle, grandparents & cousins. Also keep them in your prayers.
I am planning to head over to the house to spend time with the kids & do photos of the new baby. I want to capture as much of him right now as i can so when she DOES wake up, she can see she didnt miss everything. Plus i think it would be nice to hang up their pictures in her room.. if she wakes up & knows who they are she may take a lot of comfort in that, if she doesnt have a clue its not going to hurt.
Anyways, the family has created a web site so we can have a plan of whos to get the kids from A to B, meals, house & yard work, etc. Im going to be taking the kids here & there when i can to help out, but also wanted to send over a few meals in the next coming months.
Im not a great cook, but want to put all my efforts into helping where i can to ease the pain & take away some of that extra stress & to do's.
I am hoping to find things like casseroles or crock pot dishes that are easy to make, travel & make a lot at once as they have family that has also come in to help. Something that can be reheated easily & perhaps on the go style dishes would be best for them right now.
Please pleas please stop & take a few moments to pray for her, her husband & kid & the rest of my family during this time.
I thank my cnh family for any support & words to the big guy for us! She needs every bit of prayer right now to pull through!
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