Good news for Bailey...

After over a month of nothing but bad news with Bailey we actually got some good news yesterday. Bailey went in for another blood draw on Monday to see where her kidney levels were and red blood count. The Dr. called and said, "I don't know why but I actually have good news for Bailey today." Some how something we have given Bailey has helped and her kidney level went down from 100 to 71 and her red blood count from 7.0 to 4.0. These are still not normal levels but they are better and we like better, so now we just wait and see. Bailey ends her ulcer medication this week, I wonder if this will affect her in any way. The only part that's hard is we don't know what helped, was it a bacterial infection we fixed? Or did the chemo she received help improve her health, it just took her longer to respond? So we have to wait and see if she stays happy and continues to eat and drink or if she starts to decline again. But we would rather wait and see then put down $1500 to look for cancer that may or may not actually be there. The Dr. has told us many times that's what she wants us to do, I sure it's tough for a Dr. not to know what is wrong with a patient. But she will have to wait as well. We hope and pray for the best with Bailey, she will go in for another blood level check in about two weeks. Maybe the numbers will be even lower then...you never know. :)

24 Weeks

What a roller coaster appointment yesterday. I had my 24 week apt with Dr. Becker at 2pm, this was also my blood glucose draw so hopefully those results come back good. First I had the hardest time finding a place to park, and ending up on the 5th level of the parking garage. It's difficult for a pregnant woman to get around so having to park so far away was already tough. Dr. Becker then did an alpha protein swab this can indicate a possible early delivery. Or a delivery that could come in the next two weeks, then we did the cervix check. Looked good to me but the technician didn't say anything while scanning, and then took some quick not so good blurry pictures of the babies. (If I was ever a ultrasound tech and would try hard to get a good pic of the baby for the mom's to take home.) After that it was back to the waiting room then called back for the glucose blood draw, I was bummed that I forgot to have them do a thyroid check with my blood draw so I will have to add then in my next appointment. After Dr. Becker measured my stomach which is measuring 34 weeks, and I'm only 24, (I am going to be so big) she showed me my ultrasound pictures of my cervix. What she saw was a funnel of black that was coming down the cervix, she said it looked like the water bag and I need to go see Dr. Adelberg to confirm, but because of this I will need to start bed rest that day. First I would need to be monitored for contractions and get my alpha protein results back. If I showed I was having contractions I could be admitted to the hospital, and if my alpha protein came back positive I could need a steroid shot for the babies. So my world just turned upside down, she was asking how I was going to tell parents about me being on bed rest. If I had some sort of help with Kayla and telling me what I can do while I lay in bed all day, and hopefully at home and not in the hospital. So I cry, freak out a bit about money issues, call Mike hope to not cry while talking to him but I can't keep it in. Mike was so positive usually I am the one who stays more positive in situations like this but he was my rock when I needed him. While I am walking to Dr. Adelbergs office everything is going through my mind, can Adam move in with us, what am I going to tell the parents. How are we going to handle this financially, I take a deep breathe and call my mom to update her. She can't believe it, so close to when I went in with Kayla and we thought everything was going so well. But she was staying positive too. I got to Dr. Adelbergs, while waiting to be called back I cry again these situations are tough, adding on pregnancy hormones does not help. I got called back and they put me on the contraction monitor and left me in the room until a room became available. I was thankful to see no action on the monitor, it stayed a very nice straight line the whole time. When a room became available I went in for another cervix check. When the tech looked she said it looked normal to her, I didn't know what that meant I was still in shock. The tech then told me to watch the black area on the ultrasound while they pushed on my stomach, when they did this my water sac should be protruding out but it wasn't. They tried this twice and both times noticed that the fluid didn't change, so I felt happy about this but still didn't know what it meant for bed rest and future. Finally Dr. Adelberg came in, and settled all my concerns, the black they are seeing must be mucus which also shows up black in an ultrasound. She doesn't think it could be amniotic fluid because nothing changed both times they pushed on my belly. So I can still work, but they were still up in the air about the steroid shot. Thankfully my alpha protein came back negative, and I was finally able to go home, I was there for three hours, cried three times and was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. But I do have to keep my life calm, no exercise, not much lifting, and sitting with my feet up as much as I can. This is much better than bed rest, I pray I can continue to stay "together" my next appointment in two weeks with Dr. Adelberg again. This will be at 26 weeks, it will be crazy to be home at 26 weeks with two babies healthy in my belly, even more crazy at 28 weeks, but I can do it with God's help of course. :)Keep the good positive prayers coming!

Doing well....

Well this last week has been very nice for us, we got to see a "normal" side of Bailey. She has been eating and drinking pretty normally these last couple of days. Although she won't drink from her normal bowl she has to drink from the bath tub or bowls outside. She has been eating right when I put the food in her bowl, treats when we leave the house and it's so wonderful to see and hear. It's so strange we don't what is wrong with her or if we fixed something with the medicine we have given her but we will take it. It's weird that Mike and I got a little excited when Bailey got into the trash the other day or when she steals food from the table. But we are just so excited to see her eating, drinking and not shaking anymore. We will have to go in for another blood draw next week and see where her levels are at. Maybe she can be a miracle dog and her numbers will be down, you never know with Bailey. :)

23 weeks

I am starting to get nervous, 23 weeks is only two weeks away from 25 weeks. 25 weeks was when I went into the hospital with Kayla. Although I am feeling confident that this pregnancy will be full term it's still messing with my head a bit. I have been doing a bit of the nesting stage pregnant mom's do, because for me I feel I need things ready by 28 weeks. It's been nice though because I have been getting stuff done, we got the second crib with Adam's truck, thank you Adam. Then I was also able to start cleaning and organizing the garage so we can move things out of the room, and start cleaning and organizing the room which has been fun. The bummer part of this week was some new uncomfortably, I think my belly is growing again because I have been in some good pain. It's been really hard to sleep and then Kayla got sick with a fever which kept her up at night too, so it was a bit of a hard week for us this week. But I was able to get some protein shakes that I will try, GNC stuff sure is expensive! But now I want the pregnancy pillow which looks like a big pillow shaped like a C. I am hoping it might help me sleep, the reviews have been good and many pregnant moms said once they got it they weren't able to sleep without it. Hopefully I can get some new relief soon and more sleep, Kayla's fever has gone away and she is sleeping better now.

22 weeks

We went to the perinatologist for my 22 week check up, and I and the twins are doing great! I always get a cervix check when I see the peri because of my incompetence, and amazing enough my cervix was measuring even longer than our last exam. So that was very wonderful for I and the doctor to see. Then at our last peri appt Baby A had some larger kidneys that the doctor wanted to keep an eye on. Larger kidneys could mean that the urine isn't able to to get out normally so it could create small to big problems when the baby was born depending on the growth of the kidneys. Well today Baby A's kidneys were back to normal size and looking wonderful, so we got even more good news. Lastly Baby A is currently head down, it would awesome if she would stay that way so I can deliver vaginally. So I pray she is head down in the next couple of ultrasounds we have. The doctor told me she can't find anything to complain about, so I hope we can keep it that way. I will be doing my glucose test for my next 24 week appointment so my next prayer is that there is no gestational diabetes and I can continue on with a pretty "normal" pregnancy. Hooray for a good appointment!!

Hard Times

So this last Friday was Bailey's first day of Chemotherapy, we had a much longer day than anticipated because we also had to do a blood transfer. Bailey's red blood count was up to 80 which in a "normal" would mean they are close to death. But in Bailey's case she is still an active, happy, barking dog. So they do a process of taking out blood until the blood isn't as thick anymore and runs for smoothly, then replace it with IV fluids. So we did that first then the elspar treatment was next, I was most nervous about this and if Bailey might have a reaction or not. So did great, yea! So now we hoped and prayed we would see some drastic changes in Bailey in the next couple of days so we knew were are treating the right thing and can move forward. Well that wasn't the case, even though Bailey had been eating and drinking the days before her first treatment the day right after she stopped. We are on three days now of not eating or drinking much at all and Bailey has also had bouts of vomiting as well. So she did not respond well to her first treatment. This means we will not do elspar again and we need to figure out what the next plan is. Well today Bailey decided to add more stress on to me by vomiting with some blood. I again started to cry this is not what I want to deal with, I wanted her to just be better. I hate that this is all happening while I am pregnant and I am trying my best to take deep breathes and "try" not to stress to much. But it is very hard to do, there is so much up in the air for Bailey so much decisions we have to make for her. Because there was blood in her vomit today the Dr. thinks Bailey might have an ulcer so now we start two more medications, thankfully she is almost done with the other medication she had been on. She is more tired today and doesn't have a lot of energy. Dr. would like us to do another aspirate of her kidney and liver and see if we have more abnormal cells in the kidney and if we find any in the liver. It could come back negative like it had before, but because of today we don't want to try any other chemo that could possibly only make Bailey more sick. So like I said more decisions to make more medications, more of the unknown. I am getting so tired of this and just want one normal day with Bailey again. Will let you know what we decide to do next as we move forward into the next days and see how she does with this new medication.

Decisions Made

Mike and I have decided we are going to have Bailey treated for lymphoma cancer, the other tests just seemed to be tests to look for cancer. We feel if we are spending more money to look for cancer than we need to start treating cancer. So Bailey's first chemotherapy appointment will be Friday at 2pm, she will start with an injectable medication called L-asparaginase, or laspar. If Bailey responses well the this treatment and starts acting like normal Bailey again Dr's were correct and Bailey does have cancer and we will continue treatment. But if Bailey gets real sick from treatment, not fatal sick just sick we know we aren't treating cancer and something else is going on. Which will be more testing, so it's somewhat of a double negative but we feel good about finally starting something with her. We want our Bailey back and we hope and pray this might be the solution for her.

My love/hate relationship with food

I am so glad I can eat a full meal right now because soon enough I know I won't be able to anymore and it will be back to eating many small meals. But at the same time, it hurts to much to eat a full meal. Now when I eat a big meal my stomach feels like it rests in my chest, but it's not a heartburn feeling thankfully just a really annoying can not get comfortable in any position feeling. I will take on any and all of these uncomfortable feelings with a smile on my face because I am so blessed. But I can't help but wondering, if I am only 21 weeks what am I going to feel like in another month. I guess I should just say bring on the uncomfortably, I need to find a wonderful prenatal masseuse and I will proudly wear my tiger stripes when they come. :)Because I still couldn't be more excited to bring twins into our family.

Results

Well we got the newest results for Bailey today, and unfortunately it wasn't much news. She had her urine culture done to check for leptospirosis, a rare disease the many dogs get immunization for. It's rare but some dogs can still sometime catch it if they lick an area outside that has been peed on by a fox, squirrel or raccoon. But that result came back negative, so we also did a blood test for other bacterial infections such as e-coli and other rare but possible infections. But that result also came back negative leaving us at the place we were in before...the unknown. So we were given three options the Dr. would like to do a biopsy of Bailey's kidneys to give her a answer to if this is lymphoma cancer or not but it is expensive. Also because Bailey is having kidney issues a biopsy could be very harmful to her, she has to go under and could lose a lot of blood. She is already pretty week since she hasn't been eating and drinking much so that idea didn't sound wonderful to us. Second option is to do another aspirate but the Dr would extract from her liver this time instead of her kidneys. Again to see if they find the same abnormal cells they saw in the kidneys and try and confirm a cancer diagnoses. Thirdly we could treat lymphoma cancer without a full diagnosis of lymphoma cancer. But to us we feel there isn't anything else they could find, we have looked for everything and Dr's are just trying to find cancer. So it seems to them that cancer is the only option for Bailey being so sick. So now Mike and I decide what we want to do, the Dr can't really tell us what to do because she is at a loss as well. So will chat and decide on what we think is the best option for us and Bailey, we really just want her to get better and hope we can get her better sooner than later.

Little Doggy Steps

Bailey is taking baby steps I feel, hopefully toward the better but she hasn't eaten a regular meal for three days now. But she hasn't been shaking as much today which shaking usually means she is dehydrated, so it's nice to see her not shaking. We haven't done the IV since yesterday morning. But her drinking hasn't been as wonderful today so it's a strange place to be with her. I feel we continue to make a few steps forward then a step back. We should get our blood results and urine culture results back by tomorrow at the latest but I always wish we would hear sooner. I might do a skin IV tonight if Bailey doesn't drink much this evening. Hopefully we are getting better, I do know that the medication Bailey is on usually needs a full belly or it will make her tummy hurt. Because she hasn't been eating much I hope she just doesn't feel wonderful so she doesn't want to eat as much and once we are done with the meds she will get her appetite back. We will see tonight is the last night of the e-coli big pills that she absolutely hates so we are excited to take a break from those. Let's pray for some results and maybe some good news too? We will see.

21 Weeks

Because we had to cancel our appointment last week for a vet appointment for Bailey I had my Becker appointment today. Becker appointments are always simple and pretty uneventful, I was told I am gaining enough weight for two so that was nice to hear. I feel I don't eat as much as I thought I would eat with making two babies. But seems I am doing alright, I think I am going to start getting a protein shake supplement I don't crave protein as much as I should and I know the babies need it so I plan to put that on the "to get" list as well as a belly band. I mentioned my trouble sleeping and pain in my lower back to Becker and she said it would be a great idea to get one of those. The babies are doing great, growing and moving like crazy. I can't feel all the movement yet that Becker could see on the ultrasound but I feel more and more each day. The bummer news for the day was that both the babies are breech and I really want a vaginal delivery not a c-section. If baby A stays in breech position and is still that way at 32 weeks I will have to plan a c-section. So that is my new prayer that baby A will do a good flip and then stay that way. :) So good news for the day, we are very excited for our perinatal appointment next Friday the 18th. We were told we would be able to do the 4D ultrasound those are amazing! So hopefully we will have some good pictures to share.

Good Day

I am so very happy with Bailey today, she has been eating all day today and has also had some water. Not a lot of water but at least she is drinking some, she hasn't been drinking any for the last couple of days. I will still do the IV tonight since she still seems to be getting the shakes but I hope this means she might be turning a corner and getting better? I guess you never know but it makes me happy when she has a good day and I need happy days these days. :)