Praying for Chris

Tuesday April 14, 1992

I wake about 6 a.m. but force myself back to sleep until 8 a.m. At 8:30 Frank takes off to walk to his carving class at the senior center. I spend the morning finishing the huge wash I started yesterday. Then I change my clothes, bringing my summer clothes into our closet. My left foot heel still has the same pain in the bone since we went to Florida.

Chris called last night. They now think she is diabetic. She knows now her blood pressure was 80/0 when she had her heart problem. She's worried about damage to the baby at that time. The diabetes could cause complications too. She's still sick everyday and must go back to work on 2 days and doesn't know how. I said we must continue to pray for her health and for a healthy baby. I pray daily for her and others. Please God give her a normal healthy baby and restore Chris' health.

A few months before my appendectomy I had to visit the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa due to my racing heart (tachycardia) that refused to slow down. They checked my blood pressure at that time and it was 80/0. My pulse was 180 beats per minute, about 3 times faster than normal. I was very uncomfortable and was sweating profusely. I had these episodes several times per year since I was a little girl, but had learned how to slow down my racing heart. I was told by my doctor that during pregnancy the volume of blood increases dramatically in the mother, putting more stress on the heart. I was no longer able to get my heart to slow down when it was racing. The resulting low blood pressure was indeed dangerous to the baby. Before I got pregnant with my last child, Ryan, I had heart surgery in San Jose to burn (called "Ablation") the portion of my heart that had an electrical malfunction. Amazingly, when Ryan was born the following year (1995) he too had a heart issue and had heart surgery when he was 5 years old. So six months into my pregnancy I had already experienced heart problems, appendicitis, possible diabetes, and the neverending nausea and vomiting that kept me bedridden much of the day. Maybe that is why they suspected diabetes. My diet consisted of a box of soda crackers everyday along with 7-Up! I couldn't keep much of anything else down.