What's going on with me?!

I spent Tuesday all day in the hospital. I should have gone in Monday, but I just didn't realize how big of a deal passing out is. I've never passed out before. Right now I look like I got in a fight with a bee or something. Monday morning I went in to get the girls and was talking to them. The next thing I knew I was lying on their floor with a bloody nose from hitting it on their dresser. That set the tone for the rest of my day. I passed out 5 or 6 times, whacking my nose at least 3. No fever, or anything. I was well hydrated, eating fine, etc. The only thing going on was a massive headache that had come on late late Sunday night. John stayed home from work on Tuesday to baby sit me. He took the girls to daycare so that he could focus on me. I got on the phone with the doctor's office and they didn't even want me to come in. They said to go straight to the ER because the office couldn't do all the tests they'd want done.

We went in and I was severely orthostatic hypotensive. Lying down my heart rate was a little high-around 100. Blood pressure was 120/70-totally fine. When I stood up my HR went up to 175ish and my BP down to 68/52...way too low. And my O2 sats were down to 84%. My nurse told me that I was the most severely orthostatic patient she'd ever seen that wasn't in an obvious system failure of some kind. I had an EKG-normal. Chest x-ray-normal. They assumed I was dehydrated but my blood tests showed normal potassium and sodium levels. Not pregnant, CBC was fine, thyroid and glucose fine, no heart attack evidence. Even though I showed no signs of dehydration they went ahead and started me on fluids. 2 bags later my resting HR was down closer to 80 which is a better rate than 100! I still had no need/urge to pee, so the doctor told me I had to keep getting fluid until I needed to pee. That was more than 3 bags. I also got a shot of dilaudid for my head ache. The final verdict was that I was chronically dehydrated, as opposed to acutely. I guess when you're pregnant your kidneys turn into super kidneys. Even though I've been drinking enough my body's not using the water correctly and hasn't been absorbing it correctly. My kidney function tests were all fine, and the doc thinks it's because I've been pregnant so much in the last 3 years. My body has adapted to operating on less fluid and is in desert mode. So basically I've got to drown myself in water to get my body to "reset" how it's using the water. Great. Too much water makes me sick to my stomach! I'm feeling pretty wiped, and the headache's still hanging around. My nose is killing me and I have whiplash from falling so much Monday...I'm a mess! But so far, I'm not dying, so that's good. If I have another syncope episode I need to get to the ER right away for them to do more tests. I can tell when I stand up that my BP is still dropping, but not to the blackout zone. My HR is still going up, but not near as high as it was, and I don't get quite as out of breath. Exercising is out until I get this all under control though...which sucks because I'm finally motivated with the nicer weather to get out and about moving!