Day 302 - Thursday October 11, 2012

Bridgett woke up today saying that her heart pain was a four or five on a scale of 1 to 10.  That concerned me right away.  She keep holding her heart and looking worried.  Her neck was also hurting again and the pain was up to a five.  I gave her a Lortab and a muscle relaxant and some mag phos to relax the muscles and had her lay down and read while I called the doctors office.  The only time they could see Bridgett was while I would be in another appointment at the ophthalmologist's office with Stephany--more about that later.  Mark said he had political meetings and couldn't help out and so I enlisted Tyler to take Bridgett to Michelle Helwig's office in the early afternoon.  I then put a rice bag on her heart and that helped ease the pain.  Bridgett explained the pain as feeling like an arrow was stabbing her; I told the doctors office it felt like a knife was stabbing her and she corrected me saying it was an arrow and that was very different.  I'm not sure I can picture how it would be different but she was very emphatic about this' maybe the pain felt more piercing.  Everything went fine at Bridgett's appointment. They did an EKG at the office and her heart is doing just fine.  Michelle said that she believes that Bridgett is experiencing pleurisy. She told Tyler that it could be caused from the accident and that Bridgett might always have the pain off and on.  Bummer!  Thinking about it afterwards, Mark has had pleurisy for a long time and both Scott and Tyler have had pleurisy occasionally in the past.  So, maybe it's just hereditary and we won't worry too much about it.  At least now when she gets the pain we know it's not her heart and also we can reassure Bridgett.  In the past when her heart has been hurting she has asked a lot of questions about when people have heart attacks.  I finally asked her straight out if she was worried that she's having a heart attack.  She answered in a round about way saying that she is young and healthy and shouldn't be having a heart attack.  I know therefore that she worries about it, as would probably anyone so this can reassure her.  About Stephany....the CMV can have a complication of retinitis-which can cause permanent blindness.  This is only supposed to happen in HIV patients or those that have had an organ transplant.  They list those with compromised immune systems--which Stephany does have.  I called and talked to Michelle Helwig's office and just mentioned the eye pain and they immediately referred us to the eye doctor, so we went.  Stephany's eyes have been hurting really bad and her vision has been blurry at night.  Her appointment went well and Dr. Olson said her eyes are just fine.  He said most likely it is pain from her sinuses causing the problem.  Since I have had optic neuritis before I was a little concerned and he definitely could understand that. It was definitely reassuring to know that her optic nerves are doing just fine. This CMV is pretty weird.  Anyway, Vern tested Stephany yesterday and gave us something and sure enough her eyes are feeling better.