I also realize I am coming off as essentially unlikeable. I’m not in person; chalk it up to the deficiencies of the internet I suppose. To illustrate, a few years after the stomach churning events around the death of my son, who now sleeps in the arms of my grandmother, I was back in Yokosuka. Intel support to force protection and all that. My across the hall neighbor at the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters was a nurse at the Naval hospital. We became good friends. One Friday night I hear pounding on the door of my apartment. It’s her and she’s in tears. The hospital had discovered that a Sailor who had come in for a exam 5 TO 8 YEARS earlier had in fact come back positive for some form of cancer.

This was all shortly after 9/11 so there are some fine details I can’t recall. What I can recall is that she was devastated in the face of what she had to do. I offered to hold her hand while she made the call but she figured due to patient privacy laws I shouldn’t be in the room.

I told her after she got off the phone to knock on my door again because I had a bottle of Glenlivet with her name on it.

She had to tell somebody before she made the call. Why me, if I’m essentially unlikeable? I’m sure she had dozens of friends. But she picks on me. Maybe because if she needed a shoulder she knew I had one on offer. I never asked, I just offered. As I waited my blood began to boil. All of it reminded me of why I despised the Naval medical establishment that in my opinion killed my son. Not each and every person in it as I hope my genuine friendship with my neighbor nurse should illustrate. But as a line officer my instinct was to be a leader. If I were in charge of the hospital and I found out that someone had tested positive cancer years earlier I would have sucked it up and made that phone call myself. I definitely would not have let s*** roll down hill to traumatize a Lieutenant Junior Grade nurse.

We split the bottle of scotch. I slept in my bed and she slept on the couch. Nothing hinky happened. I unlike nearly the entire Catholic clergy kept to my vows, and she was just a good girl. If I remember correctly in the morning I made her coffee and eggs and bacon.

“It isn’t really pre-eclampsia that threatens life. It is eclampsia which includes seizures. Pre-eclampsia just warns you.”

According to the article at the link the woman in question had not yet suffered seizures but her doctors expected her to at any moment. She was also approximately six months pregnant. I realize that at that gestational age the odds of survival are very slim. But still even slim odds are worth taking.

“The mainstays of management of the neurological symptoms of severe preeclamptic and eclamptic patients are the rapid lowering of blood pressure, administration of MgSO4 and delivery of the fetus.”

I went into the Catholic doctrine of double effect as delivering the fetus is, I understand, the only way to cure pre-eclampsia/eclampsia.

Neo, Mike, I’m not a doctor but my now ex-wife had a very difficult pregnancy. Eventually we lost the baby to hydrocephaly. So while not a doctor I learned more about complications and birth defects than I ever wanted to know. My ex never trusted Navy medicine and continued to see a Japanese doctor. The Japanese doctor could tell there was something wrong with the baby and told my wife what questions to ask. The doctor thought the hospital at Naval Station Yokosuka had to better equipped than her small clinic. When the Navy hospital didn’t deal with the problem she finally checked my ex into a Japanese hospital in Yokohama. I don’t know if there ever was anything anybody could do. I do know hydrocephaly can be treated but by then it was too late.

The infuriating thing was the arrogance of the Navy doctors. When I called her doctor he at first demanded to know, “Where did you get your medical degree?” Right here right now, m*****f*****, My second concern, since we were going to lose the baby anyway, was who was going to pay the bill. At first the Naval hospital was going to deny payment since we had gone outside the system, but eventually they agreed as there were problems that they should have discovered but didn’t.

Then came another infuriating blow. The Navy doctor told me that since the hospital at Yokosuka wasn’t equipped to deal with complications during pregnancy they don’t look for them. Mike K, I didn’t mean to insult all doctors. But when that Navy doctor told me that my blood boiled. Neo, I didn’t mean to come across as a Know-it-all, but like my ex I lost nearly all my faith in Navy medicine and Navy doctors and decided that if we ever tried again I needed to know as much about complications during pregnancy as I could. As much as my doctor if possible. And that I needed to question everything the doctor did because I considered it criminal that they simply didn’t look for complications they weren’t prepared to deal with. It’s why I kept harping on the fact that doctors don’t always look out for the patient’s best interest. This doctor told me just that!

Your book sounds interesting.

I am pretty sure that poor immigrants who don’t get any prenatal care are still seen today. Maybe even more often than before.

Yes, the remedy is a C-section, and that usually is what is done.

We are talking about very very rare cases, however, such as the one described in the link I offered. I don’t know enough about the medical details of the case, but it seems that it had something to do with details connected with that particular case that meant time was of the essence.

Not true but the condition develops in the third trimester and the treatment is c-section, not abortion. My niece, who is a 40 year old OR nurse, had pretty severe pre-eclampsia. Her baby is fine and now three. She had a milder case last fall with her second baby which is also fine. Both c-sections.

I have a 38 year old daughter who is pregnant for the first time and her mother and I are keeping a close watch on her.

It isn’t really pre-eclampsia that threatens life. It is eclampsia which includes seizures. Pre-eclampsia just warns you.

I did have one woman with metastatic melanoma who refused abortion. After we did a c-section, her melanoma melted away. The story is in my book.

Glad it worked out for you in the end.

My second pregnancy was perfectly healthy, with a full-term baby. My third pregnancy, I had a harder time throughout and developed preeclampsia again, and delivered at 38 weeks (a very healthy boy), but did not recover swiftly. In fact, I developed HELLP syndrome, which is very rare and often lethal. It took months to recover from that, and I still (5 years later) must take blood pressure medication.

Just pointing out that preeclampsia does not always respond to treatment while the mother is pregnant. My preeclampsia could not be brought under control while I was pregnant, because the medicines safe to use while pregnant were not getting the job done. And with HELLP syndrome, I had to stop nursing my baby because my medicine would have gone through breast milk and harmed my child.

I’m grateful to have three healthy boys and to still be alive. I’m blessed my doctors were committed to keeping *all* of us alive.

Neo is right to say that sometimes preeclampsia cases are not properly controlled. My daughter had a frightening late pregnancy and emergency c-section this year, and two visits to emergency rooms after birth. Her OBGYN practice didn’t properly treat her, however. They looked at blood and urine tests and didn’t look at the patient, whose blood pressure was not in good control and who had extensive and visible edema. She has changed doctors, and fortunately did not have long-term damage.

Not every woman goes for prenatal care. Maybe the first time she saw doctors she was in the delivery room.

But actually, you are wrong in your assumption that it can always be controlled even when a woman does get decent prenatal care. Not true. Read up on it.