Home again
For those who haven't heard yet. I'm home now.
Since Wednesday I've been at Ellis Hospital fighting what turned out to be Viral Meningitis with some extra twists. At first I thought it was a bad case of the flu and the Nurse Practitioner I saw on Wed afternoon agreed, for the most part. She ran some of her concerns by the on call doctor and then I was sent home with the understanding that if any of my symptoms changed, neck got stiff, fever came back, anything, I was to call the on-call doctor at once.
A couple hours later I called because my fever was up to 102 again and rising. I waited what I thought was the 30 minutes for him to call back... it turned out to be two hours I had blacked out. I got to the ER just before midnight only partially able to function on my own. I had little good functionality with my eyes, neck, balance, ears, etc... basically everything from the shoulders up was a near dead zone from pain. The nurses looked me over sent me to a room and I waited. About 1 AM a nurse came in and gave me a shot of Toridal (sp?) which helped some symptoms after a few hours. Then chest x-rays, CAT scans, and a couple blood cultures later it was decided I had to have a spinal tap done.
So, now I know that spinal fluid looks like vodka.
That confirmed what I had and off to admitting I went after 4 hours of immobilization. Since then, I've been kept coherent through the wonderful world of drugs. Mostly, Overdose levels of Motrin. The pills I'm on now are only 4 times the dosage of what you get over the counter.
I've been treated for Bacterial Meningitis, sinus infections, the flu, and whatever else they could think of along the way. My doctor finally got a full dose of my pain tolerance when he asked me to squeeze his hand as hard as my head hurt when the pain killers wore off. His knuckles will take a few days to recover. :)
When the pain gets bad enough that I can not see, hear, or keep my balance and I'm already on the IV pain killer. I'm not joking when I say, IT HURTS!
We also found out that my health, even though I'm still really sick, is getting better and better. With all of the stresses going on over the past few weeks my blood pressure, while high for me, has stayed in the lower range of normal. Pulse rate was back down as well. Only things to worry about are getting my weight back down and getting into shape, both involve time and exercise.
So, now I'm home. I have a note from my doctor saying I'm not to return to work until Wednesday, but I think I'm going to fight him on that. At least see if I can work what I can from home.
Since Wednesday I've been at Ellis Hospital fighting what turned out to be Viral Meningitis with some extra twists. At first I thought it was a bad case of the flu and the Nurse Practitioner I saw on Wed afternoon agreed, for the most part. She ran some of her concerns by the on call doctor and then I was sent home with the understanding that if any of my symptoms changed, neck got stiff, fever came back, anything, I was to call the on-call doctor at once.
A couple hours later I called because my fever was up to 102 again and rising. I waited what I thought was the 30 minutes for him to call back... it turned out to be two hours I had blacked out. I got to the ER just before midnight only partially able to function on my own. I had little good functionality with my eyes, neck, balance, ears, etc... basically everything from the shoulders up was a near dead zone from pain. The nurses looked me over sent me to a room and I waited. About 1 AM a nurse came in and gave me a shot of Toridal (sp?) which helped some symptoms after a few hours. Then chest x-rays, CAT scans, and a couple blood cultures later it was decided I had to have a spinal tap done.
So, now I know that spinal fluid looks like vodka.
That confirmed what I had and off to admitting I went after 4 hours of immobilization. Since then, I've been kept coherent through the wonderful world of drugs. Mostly, Overdose levels of Motrin. The pills I'm on now are only 4 times the dosage of what you get over the counter.
I've been treated for Bacterial Meningitis, sinus infections, the flu, and whatever else they could think of along the way. My doctor finally got a full dose of my pain tolerance when he asked me to squeeze his hand as hard as my head hurt when the pain killers wore off. His knuckles will take a few days to recover. :)
When the pain gets bad enough that I can not see, hear, or keep my balance and I'm already on the IV pain killer. I'm not joking when I say, IT HURTS!
We also found out that my health, even though I'm still really sick, is getting better and better. With all of the stresses going on over the past few weeks my blood pressure, while high for me, has stayed in the lower range of normal. Pulse rate was back down as well. Only things to worry about are getting my weight back down and getting into shape, both involve time and exercise.
So, now I'm home. I have a note from my doctor saying I'm not to return to work until Wednesday, but I think I'm going to fight him on that. At least see if I can work what I can from home.