Severe Preeclampsia Almost Killed my Sister-in-Law this week...

Posted On Friday, January 11, 2013  by Tania

On Janurary 2, 2013, Beth had been told by her Co-Worker, Nathan, to go home. She started having difficulty breathing while at work. Shortly thereafter, my brother Jonathan rushed her to a nearby hospital where she underwent all the routine test plus, some. The on-call doctor for the OB that night was called in urgently to inform us that Beth had severe preeclampsia, a life threatening disease that occurs with an at risk pregnancy. ...(Eclampsia is most often characterized by a rapid rise in blood pressure that can lead to seizure, stroke, multiple organ failure and death of the mother and/or baby according to the Preeclampsia Foundation at http://www.preeclampsia.org/.) Beth's body had already retained a large amount of fluid called edema that had built within the tissue and her circulatory system. Baptist had already began administering Lasix treatment in conjunction with medication to keep Beth from going into a siezure or worse, a stroke or heartattack.

They transported her to a high-risk facility and we arrived around 4:30am where teams were waiting on standby and prepared to begin immediate treatment and care for Beth & the baby.

Approx. 8 am, the doctors came in and prepared Beth for an emergency C-Section to take the baby. Beth's blood pressure was at high levels while the baby's was steadily bouncing up and down. They successfully got Baby Kyndall and she weighted in at 3 lbs 6 ozs. Beth and Jonathan was able to see the baby for a very short period of time and then, she was rushed back to be treated and poked. Doctors reported that the baby was doing extremely well and in belief that Kyndall's organs had fully developed yet, there was a small amount of fluid on her lungs and they began treating her for that. Other than that, doctors believed she was doing very well.

In the meantime, Beth had been brought back to her room. She had a hard time resting. Hours later she began having an extremely hard time breathing and her O2 stat began dropping. She began expelling fluid with frothy blood from her lungs. The cardiologist and every doctor known to man rushed into the room. They ran electrocardiograms and found that Beth's heart had an underlying condition and she was rushed into the CathLab for emergency surgery after being placed on a ventilator.

The Head Cardiologist reported that they attempted to put in a butterfly stint and her heart went straight into Heart Failure. Her heart is only functioning at 5-10 percent due to induced medications that's keeping it pumping. They did find some fluid in the pericardium sac around her heart and certainly, still a very large amount of fluid on her lungs and body. Basically, she had a condition that no one knew about and her heart has under went a great amount of stress than what her heart can really with stand with the preeclampsia.

There's been a lot of new developments... We've set up a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PrayersFundraisingForBethAndIttyBittyKyndall so that everyone can stay informed of updates as they occur.

Please visit our Facebook page, Pray for this family... and certainly, we plan on spreading awareness of this illness that about like to have killed my sister n law this week... Pregnant women shouldn't wait until it strikes them & almost kills them to know about this disease... So I'm on board and will spread the same message in our area.

Thanks and God Bless you all!!!