Brenna Kearney was seven months pregnant in December 2019 when she experienced what she thought were bad flu symptoms.
Her husband, Casey Trumble, drove her from their Chicago home to her OB-GYN’s office at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital downtown. With suddenly elevatled blood pressure and protein in her urine, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a potentially fatal but treatable pregnancy complication. Doctors admitted her to the hospital, saying she could expect to stay up to six weeks and have an induced delivery.
Then Kearney developed a bad headache and her blood platelet count plummeted, signs she was experiencing a rare, dangerous type of preeclampsia and requiring an immediate delivery by cesarean section.
