814D

I landed in the hospital in less than 24 hours with some sort of raging infection that caused horrid headaches paired with a fever and pain so intense I felt nauseous anytime I tried to move my head. I spent 19 hours in the ER before getting upgraded to a regular hospital room, mostly because they were very concerned I had bacterial meningitis which requires an isolation room. Isolation rooms apparently aren’t widely on hand waiting to go, or if they are, the hospital had filled them during my tenure.

I entered the ER around 7:00 p.m. the night before. LINK I got my hospital room around 1 p.m. the following day, after the infectious disease specialist decided that it was unlikely I had bacterial meningitis. She took me off all the IV meds except one antibiotic and let me remove my mask, so she moved right on up in my esteem.

Then they moved me up. That didn’t go nearly as well. I’ve no idea what I had (and neither does the hospital or team of doctors), but because I’d already been upgraded to a cushy hospital bed form the ER cot, they wheeled me on out and up.

I don’t think it had anything to do with the bed. I still had a headache but compared to the excruciating nauseating pain, the headache was completely bearable and I was downright chatty before the move. Then came the elevator ride. Two of them. I went from a chatty happy patient looking forward to a real room to a sniveling ball of nauseous pain.

I get motion sick. Not as much anymore as I used to as a kid, but a curvy mountain road in the backseat of a vehicle can still do me in. This sickness was like that, in the way where a lion is like a kitten. I thought I might expire on the spot from the intensity of the nausea, which only caused my headache to come roaring back as well.

I held on until they wheeled me into the room, trying deep breathing and any other silly exercises I learned to manage labor pains. There, I figured, they could hook me up with some more anti-nausea meds, which I’d had earlier when they worked like a charm.

Only no, first I had to run the gauntlet of hospital admission, even though I’d been there 19 hours and waiting for a room since 5:30 a.m., seven and half hours earlier. The nurses had to ask me a slough of questions, such as did I have cancer (I don’t know. I’m in a hospital. Aren’t you supposed to be telling me that?), do I have an UD (what’s an UD? It took at least three times for me to understand they wanted to know about an ultimate directive), who has my UD, (why are we talking about UDs? Am I dying? I feel like I’m dying!!! Please give me medicine!), what belongings I have (clothing, what kind of clothing? The kind you wear.), what’s in my purse, what’s in my wallet, please count your cash for me (I can’t count, I can’t formulate sentences Medicine!!!).

On the plus side, once I jumped through all the question hoops, they gave me medicine. Right after I dry heaved all over the irritating nurse who wasn’t allowed to go through my belongings (I passed caring at some point in elevator one) they hooked me up with the good stuff and I rolled over and passed out.

When I woke up, I felt better, in that way where I still had a headache but wasn’t likely to vomit all over anything or anyone. My condition improved from there, so much so that by the next day, they’d decided to release me. Despite the doctor saying at 10 a.m.  it would likely be a few more days, by noon I was up for dismissal. That was quick, but who am I to complain, at least until tomorrow when I have a vicious headache again?

They don’t know what hit me. The tests and jury are still out. It seems plain I had viral meningitis (better than bacterial, which is a three week sentence) but it was a secondary infection. Since no one in our household was even vaguely sick, not even a sniffle, it remains unclear what caused the virus that then migrated into my brain, but at least they’ve ruled out the scariest suspects. I’ll take no answer and good drugs over some of the possibilities they had on the table.

Better luck next time.

Where the Week Went

Well, I’d say I don’t know where the week went, but it turns out, I do. Not working on blog posts, obviously. Nope, instead I got unexpectedly ill, not that I ever get sick on purpose or even any time it’s convenient. And because I’m the mom, things came to a crashing, screeching halt. If you’re like me and don’t take enough breaks (guilty!) and do everything yourself (guilty!) because otherwise no one gets fed and hangry people do not make for a happy healthy household, then learn from my hard lesson.

I was fine on Sunday afternoon, even after my kid’s birthday extravaganza fun with variable weather conditions at best and entertaining 40 folks, 20 of whom were under the age of 10.

Then, I wasn’t fine. I had such a bad headache I not only couldn’t stand, I couldn’t move. I managed to make it to the medicine cabinet for over the counter help, which….helped. It didn’t go away but people needed dinner and school stuff had to get reviewed and well, every parent knows the chaos of a Sunday evening during the school year.

I ate dinner, waited to take more meds until bedtime, and passed out…for maybe 3 hours. Then nothing would help the headache. I couldn’t turn my head without blinding spasms of head pain. Then I couldn’t swallow without blinding spasms of head pain. But because I’m me, I didn’t want to bother my husband or drag my kids out of bed and there was NO way I was driving myself anywhere and have you SEEN how much ambulance rides costs? I did not get out of bed, I did not pass go, I did not go. Not in the night, not in the morning, not even when I heard my youngest son’s cries, which always act like a siren call for help.

My husband made me the first available appointment with the doctor at noon because I couldn’t handle a telephone much less talking. I took more over the counter pain relief which kicked in after two hours and didn’t provide much in the relief category, but got me to the office courtesy of my shuttle driver also known as my husband. There, they couldn’t figure out the cause of the intense head pain (not a migraine, not a sinus infection, what else is there?) but gave me a shot of serious pain relief and sent me off with a prescription for pain meds and nausea relief. (The pain was so intense it made me feel like vomiting.)

If you’ve read my other recent prescription trials and errors, you know this probably isn’t going to end well. Sure enough, the first drugstore didn’t have that pain relief and said it wasn’t manufactured anymore. Huh? So we tried a second with the same result, though I had to come home first because even sitting in the car proved excruciatingly agonizing. 

We (ha ha, my husband - there is no we, there is no I, there is only a fetal ball of pain moaning ) spent the remainder of the day trying to reach the doctor to get a new prescription that could actually be filled. The doctor had warned me to take the first dose within four hours of receiving the shot of pain meds.

That did not happen. By the time the doctor called back around 6 p.m. (my appointment was at noon, remember), I had spiked a fever around 100.7. Not bad, but turns out it’s enough for serious concern. We went straight to the ER, in that way where the kids needed dinner first.

At the ER, we told them of the suspected meningitis which earned me an immediate mask (I wouldn’t get to take that off until the next morning around 11 a.m.) and a “fast” track through the cumbersome ER channels. We checked in at 6:50, got called back around 7:30, saw the nurse at 8:00, and the doctor came by around 9:30 to kick off the real fun after the kids went home.

It took two doses of morphine and another shot of even more pain relief to put a dent in my skull of agony. At some point, I could no longer move my eyes without setting off the throbbing fireworks of sparkling pain around my temples and down the sides of my face, much less the ever present band of murderous intent that was now my constant companion.

I took more tests, and they ran more labs, and finally by 5:30 a.m. they got very concerned with the lack of results in either pain relief or cause and started giving me everything they had. 

Guess what? I perked up around 11, after five physicians and many more nurses, all of whom went above and beyond to help me. I waited for a bed to open in the hospital starting at 5:30 when we both knew they weren’t about to send me home, but it had to be isolation which takes time to prepare. Until I got to the end of line (yay for daylight hours and the upper echelons of healthcare professionals) and ran into the infectious disease specialist and some test results. I got to take the mask off, which was nice because I was no longer so cold (my fever had risen to over 102 by the time we got to the ER) and my breath fogged up my glasses and they cleared over and over again when wearing the mask which is not the best condition for clear heads under normal circumstances. And we are so far from normal we were in Wonderland somewhere, but I had no trouble saying adieu to that mask.

So that perked me up, as did my first meal in well over 24 hours and actual pain relief and my temperature hovering closer to 100 and other vitals starting to feel reasonable as well. At this point I got upgraded to the only ER patient room with an actual attached bathroom (out of 22), and the morning nurse felt sorry for me being stuck in the emergency bed for almost 19 hours so she upgraded me to a real bed. That, the fluids, food, and proper meds had me pretty much beaming.

And then this happened.

So no blog posts for you, my friends, Only this cautionary tale of woe.