Your Group B Strep Questions — Answered!

July 13, 2012 By 4 Comments

July is Group B Strep Awareness Month.

I wrote last week about Group B Strep and GBS Awareness Month. Please read (and share) that post if you haven’t already.

I promised to answer YOUR questions about Group B Strep during July, right here on the blog. I was thrilled to get some great questions almost immediately, but I know there are more out there. Please let me know if you have questions — tweet me, FB me, email me. You ask, I’ll answer!

I was strep b positive with Cora, what does that mean for future babies? (you can answer in a post if you’d like) — Kristine (@KristineBrite) July 1, 2012

Because you were GBS+ does not mean that you will be GBS+ with any future pregnancy. Your status changes over time, as the bacteria “colonizes.” You will be tested between 35-37 weeks in your next pregnancy and antibiotic protocol will be followed according to that test.

CDC protocoldoes state that if you have a baby who contracts GBS, you should be treated in any subsequent pregnancy. GBSI advocates you and all pregnant women be screened for GBS bacteriuria (GBS in urine) in early pregnancy and treated if positive.

I’d like to know if its possible to pass gbs to the babe with a c-sec. I honestly thought it was only passed through the birth canal — Nicci (@Sticky41284) July 1, 2012

Yes. It is possible, but not as likely, to pass GBS to the baby with a c-section. In these cases, the womb becomes infected by one means or another. Bacteria could be introduced to the womb by internal exams, excessive monitoring or from what I call, random, natural means. It can happen and it does happen, but it’s rare, especially when the c-section is started before your water breaks or labor begins.

If you know you’re GBS+ and your doctor tells you that since you’re having a c-section you won’t need antibiotics, you CAN request them. Talk to your doctor about the risks v. benefits of having antibiotics before your incision is made.

Why don’t they test once you go in labor? Isn’t that the only way to be truly accurate? (and thank you, mama) — Sara (@SaraJOY) July 1, 2012

There are highly effective point of care or bedside rapid (less than 1 hour) tests available in a small number of hospitals. Yes, testing RIGHT THEN is obviously a way to get an updated, accurate reading. But unfortunately hospitals haven’t grabbed on to the rapid tests like we, the GBS community, wish they would.

The CDC and ACOG states that if a woman has not had the GBS test results given to her and a rapid test isn’t available, antibiotics will be administered based on the following risk situations:

    • baby born before 37 weeks
    • water broken for 18+ hours (12+ increases the risk)
    • you have a fever higher than 100.4°

@revsmf why don’t they automatically test all babies for group b strep postbirth? My daughter died at 2 days old, likely due this! — Sarah (@revsmf) July 1, 2012

I asked Dr. James McGregor, our best friend in the GBS fight, about this question. He said that, unfortunately, nobody has studied this. The community is interested in invasive disease and it just hasn’t gotten there yet. He hopes that one day this will be studied. One avenue of research for early onset (pre-signs and symptoms) include GBS antigen or infection biomarkers in the newborn’s urine or blood

This leads me to mention that the GBS bacteria moves quickly. If you feel like something is “off” in your baby, ask about it. Get him or her checked out. Know the symptoms (which are symptoms of other things as well).

Remember, your gut is rarely wrong.

Knowledge is power and your doctor is there to help you.

Do you still have questions? Ask and I shall answer!

Tweet me, ask on FB, ask in the comments, email me at janasthinkingplace@me.com!

 

Filed Under: Charlie Tagged With: , , , , , ,

SOC Sunday: Quick Observation in NYC

December 11, 2011 By 10 Comments

I’ve fallen off the SOC Sunday bandwagon for a few weeks… glad to be back with it! Here go my 5 minutes of unedited, raw writing.

I just spent 3 days in New York City. My favorite city in the world. I took my niece and we beat the town to death. By “the town”, I mean my joints.

I’ve put on 20ish pounds this year. I wrote about that a few weeks ago and about my weight loss goals. I’m proud to say I was down 10 when I left for NYC on Tuesday.

It’s very obvious, though, when you’re walking in NYC that there are very few overweight people there. I commented in my head about it as I have many times before but it was even more apparent this time for some reason. Maybe because I’m fighting my own battle with weight. I don’t know.

The abundance of fresh foods in the delis and corner stores is great. People grab fruit bowls on the go and the beverage section in stores is largely waters and fruit juices instead of carbonated beverages. It’s in interesting observation.

And the walking. So much walking and going up and down stairs in subway stations. A trip to the corner is exercise. A trip down the subway stairs is exercise. We know that in one day we walked at least 5 miles of the city. There is no sedentary lifestyle in The City.

For three days, I semi-abandoned the diet plan I’m on. I tried to choose smart foods when I was just grabbing something, but there were things that I was going to eat no matter how many millions of calories they contain. Like this Nutella and Banana French Toast.

I came home two more pounds lighter. I’m hoping that it kick started my body again and when I hit my plan back hard on Monday I’ll be moving down the scale even more!

Reckon I should ask for some new pants for Christmas since mine are falling off now!

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This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

  • Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
  • Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
  • Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
  • Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post (on Fadra’s sidebar)
  • Link up your post on her SOC Sunday post.
  • Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

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ps: If you want to know more about the plan I’m on, contact Bonnie at Simple Health and Nutrition at bonniefaske@att.net or via her Facebook Page.

Filed Under: Adventure, SOC Sunday Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

My Tipping Point

October 27, 2011 By 5 Comments

My body has decided that at the ripe old age of 35.9 (so close to 36) it’s going to desert me. It’s going to just up and quit and start acting like it hates me. Right now I weigh more than I ever have. It’s not fun. And it’s not pretty. And I’m not happy in my own skin.

I know it’s not completely to blame for the extra 25lbs I’ve got on me or the fact that my only real exercise is walking Henry to school, but it IS to blame for the insane swelling and joint pain. And for the random rashes on my lower legs. Oh, and the fact that my hormones are way out of whack. Yeah, Body, I’m talking to you.

Body, I’m putting you in your place.

Monday I see my doctor to try to figure out why I’m swelling like a puffer fish. Something is going on in my body and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it. My feet and hands and elbows and knees shouldn’t be as swollen as they are. And no, they’re not just fat. I can feel the difference.

I’m tackling the fat, too. All those extra rolls around the middle — UGH.

Starting today, my sweet friend Bonnie at Simple Nutrition and Health is putting me back on track to take my Body back. I’ll be very open and honest, though. My real plan won’t start hard core until Monday. (Tomorrow is Henry’s birthday party and all weekend we have Halloween stuff, so I’m out for one last – in moderation – hoorah!)

Anyway, Bonnie’s whipped me up a meal plan based on my body, what it’s doing, what it’s NOT doing, how I feel and what my end goals are. I have a simple, but powerful, workout plan that I can do at home without spending a fortune on a gym.

Her approach is great. From her website:

We want to make eating right as simple as can be, so you can enjoy your life without it revolving around your diet.

Simple Nutrition and Health’s entire purpose is to give you the knowledge and tools to be the healthiest, happiest you can be. Whether it’s taking control of your health or providing the best nutrition possible for your family, we want to help you!

I saw the words “simple” and “happiest” and that’s what sold me.

She can do this all via Skype, email and chat and is a dream to work with. I’ll be updating y’all on my progress. Monday will be my kickoff day, complete with a picture and all that!

Stay tuned!

ps: Go follow Bonnie at Simple Nutrition and Health on Facebook! She gives out great recipes. Also, contact her if you’re interested in her services. Her rates are great and the support is even better!

Disclaimer: All opinions here are mine, however, Bonnie is providing me with her services in exchange for my posting my results and generally pimping her business out! 

Filed Under: Food, Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

They Love Him Before He’s Even Born

August 1, 2011 By 4 Comments

I don’t know exactly when or how I met Jason and Denise (aka @iHubby and @snazzy_mcgee) but it was honestly love at first tweet. It’s probably been at least a year and a half now. Internet time is so strange!

You may remember Jason from the great National Championship BlogBet as he’s an Oregon fanatic and well, Auburn won! 

I think the most amazing thing about Jason and Denise has got to be their spirit. Even though I’ve never met them or even talked to them on the phone, I know that they are special people. They’ve had some setbacks (cancer and lingering effects of it) but are on a mission to become the most amazing parents ever. I mean, if I were in the market for new parents, which I’m not because mine are kinda cool, I’d totally be heading out to Oregon so they could take me to school, make me clean my room and pay for my college! Because that would be awesome to make Jason pay for me to go to Auburn again, right?

I asked Denise to share their story with all of you. Jason has told their story from his side but I know there’s another side to the story. The side from the wife who stood by his bedside, who mourned the loss of an innocent adulthood and who mourns the loss of the ability to have their own biological children. But also from her side is hope. Lots and lots of it. She IS truly snazzy. 

What am I waiting for? Here she is: Snazzy, I mean, Denise! 

 

It’s a pretty risky deal to start off a guest post with telling you about my dream, because who actually reads long-winded diatribes that aren’t real? Especially the dreams of someone you don’t even know? I hate reading about people’s dreams, and in the interest of your time I will keep this short and sweet: I dreamed that my husband and I had three children delivered to us by a stork, and even though I didn’t physically have the kids I knew that they were ours.

This was before my husband, Jason, had cancer. It was before they removed his testicle and before he went through chemo, though he went on to do all of that.

When I had the dream, our lives were fairly inane and remained that way until two weeks shy of our first wedding anniversary. That’s when he thought he had a stomach bug that turned out to be a lump in his left teste. We went to the ER on Sunday night. They removed the tumor and teste to which it was attached on Tuesday morning. On Friday morning we got the dianosis: cancer.

He went through two rounds of chemotherapy and we were instructed to wait six months before trying to have children. We weren’t really ready to have kids then, but at his year-after-chemo doctor’s visit, we requested a sperm analysis be done. Four days later we found out he had no sperm.

That stung more than the cancer diagnosis. Despite never having imagined myself pregnant, I felt crushed. I always figured it would be something I would do eventually and I was starting to warm up to the idea of morning sickness and loss of bladder control.

Having the choice of pregnancy be ripped away from me was more painful than I ever thought it would be. I mourned for myself a little bit; I mourned for the loss of options. One night I had a full-blown pity party, ugly, snot filled cry present and accounted for. Not my finest hour, no, but it was absolutely necessary.

It’s hard to explain why I was sad about something I never thought I wanted; I suppose because the alternative was so foreign that I was scared. I was scared of all of the waiting and the money and the telling my child that she’s adopted and having her hate me; I was scared of being different and unable to relate to my friends who did not adopt. I was angry that so much had happened to us in the past two years; I was pissed because it wasn’t fair. Juvenile, right?

I’m better now. We both are. It’s been six months since the sperm-free confirmation and our irrational fears and hesitancy have been dealth with. I still get little twinges of jealousy and I still sometimes have near-hyperventilation experiences when I think about how long this will take and how expensive it will be, but we will find a way.

We are ready to be parents, and as that is our ultimate goal, becoming parents through adoption meets those needs to a tee. We will provide a safe home, a home that fosters creativity and uniqueness.

There will never be a day that our child does not know how much we love him and that how special he is for being chosen twice: once by his birth mother who chose to carry him and let him go, and once by us, his parents, who loved him before he was even born.

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She didn’t mention it, so I will. There has been a Chipin site set up for them to help offset some of the fees that it will take to make their adoption happen. It’s a long process and every little bit will help them make it happen sooner than later. It’s quick and easy to donate a couple of dollars… They won’t agree to naming rights though, I already asked! 

Denise and Jason, thank you for sharing your story and opening your heart to a sweet soul who will possibly never understand how much he/she was loved well before they were even born! 

Filed Under: Guest Post Tagged With: , , , , , ,

There’s No Substitute for Some Things

June 1, 2011 By 7 Comments

Like KLEENEX®.

I remember sitting in the PICU, receiving the “bad news” about Charlie and watching the nurse fumble around to find me the “good tissues,” which if you’ve ever gotten the “good tissues” in a hospital you KNOW they’re only one step above government-issued Russian tissue. (aka cardboard)

For someone about to blow their nose 1.5 zillion times in an hour, this didn’t bode well. One of our first calls to friends, they asked what they could do. My answer. “Bring REAL FREAKING KLEENEX®.”

They did. Obviously they are keepers.

Even with real Kleenex®, and I mean REAL, name-brand with the little round ®  thingy or whatever Kleenex®, your nose is still going to get angry with you. About 48 hours into the waterworks, the nose was rightly chaffed, red, dry and hurty. So hurty that you resort to rubbing chap-stick all over your nose just to get a little relief. (Shut up. You know you’ve done that, too.)

I do believe this was all before lotioned Kleenex® came about, so we were doing the best we could. It was eleventy billion times better than hospital-issued tissues, though.

After Charlie died, we provided bags of necessities to families in the PICU in his memory. They all included REAL Kleenex® packets and we also donated large boxes of Kleenex® to the nurse’s station to give to parents who were receiving bad news or mourning the loss of their child.

Fast forward to present day.

I will report that my ENT’s office uses Kleenex® in their rooms. Good sign as soon as you walk in. If they’re gonna be all up in my nose with probes and stuff, they better have something good for me to wipe my nose and tears when they’re done. That’s one of the only reasons I agreed to let them do the surgery on me… they know good tissues and PROVIDE THEM.

Nose surgery equals lots of nose wiping, or dabbing as it really has been. Lots of Kleenex® has been used. By lots, I mean two full giant boxes in 4 days. The husband was kind enough to buy the lotioned kind for me and aahhh, can I just say how heavenly that’s been?

(side note: Kleenex® boxes also make great bedside trash cans.)

I didn’t realize how heavenly the lotioned Kleenex® was until yesterday when I ran out and resorted to a fresh roll of toilet paper because I didn’t feel like taking my pitiful butt across the road to Target to get some more.

Now, I buy good toilet paper. I don’t buy the awesome pink stuff that feels like it’s made of kitty cat fur (my Grannie does, or she used to), but I do buy nice, soft, absorbent, triple ply stuff. But this toilet paper has left my nose dry, scratchy on the outside and begging for a nice layer of chap-stick to ease the burn.

Good toilet paper’s got NOTHING on Kleenex®. NOTHING.

So today I will go out and buy another box or three of real, lotioned Kleenex® because I don’t see an end to the nose-wiping in my near future. And there’s no reason to skimp on something that is going to cause you pain, heartache and chaffing.

**Kleenex® did not give me any product or money or anything to make me write this post. I buy Kleenex® and all opinions contained in this post are mine and mine only. If they want to sponsor me to get Kleenex® into hospitals for ALL patients, not just those who get bad news, I’m down with that. Otherwise, this is just me, still slightly hyped up on pain med, blabbing on about wiping my nose on their fabulous product.

 

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