Maybe it is time to panic. Wednesday morning I took Michael to the ER with a severe headache - one that had awakened him at 4:00am. He said his vision was blurry in one eye and he was having trouble walking, so after running Heather to school and consulting with his allergist to make sure this wasn't some weird side effect of something he was taking, I took him to the ER at 10:00am. They did a CT - saw nothing. Started giving injections of dilaudid. Several hours passed, several doctors and nurses checked in on him and asked questions. I called Jimmy to have him pick up Heather after school and take her home, then around 3:00pm they did a spinal tap. Fluid looked clear. The neurologist showed up, began asking more questions, checking reflexes, etc. Michael's left leg felt numb and didn't pass the reflex test. The doctor decided an MRI was in order. That was at 6:00pm. After a nurse assured me they wouldn't take him anywhere without my knowledge, I ran upstairs to McDonald's for my first food or drink all day - needless to say it was the best damned fish sandwich and coffee I have ever had. I called Miranda and had her come in to stay with Heather, since it was obvious I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. By 6:20 I was back. At 7:00 they told us they were admitting him as soon as he had the MRI. At 8:00 they said they had a room - I reminded them that the neurologist didn't want him to have to keep swapping from bed to gurney and back again, so the MRI needed to come first, then the bed. At 9:00 they gave the bed to someone else. At 10:00 they said they'd get him to MRI very soon, and at 10:45 they finally picked him up. At 11:00 they told me they weren't sure they could find a room - the hospital was essentially full. At 11:30 they got a room; at 11:45 they had me pack up his things and follow the tech down to MRI, where we collected Michael then headed upstairs. By midnight they had him in his bed, and I got sent home around 12:30 to make sure Heather made it school on time on Thursday. For the record, she was five minutes late, and I was back at the hospital by 8:15. More visits from miscellaneous folks - a speech therapist making sure Michael didn't need her services, two folks from physical therapy who watched him try to walk, a guy in a wheelchair who asked questions and checked his reflexes again. Around 11:00am we heard a doctor explaining the case in the hall outside the door. We heard them detail all his symptoms; we heard them say the MRI looked normal except for two areas of narrowing. Eventually the entire brigade of residents and the actual doctors came in, told us everything looked good, told us he could go home in a few hours. They put in an order for a regular lunch, and a bag of saline with caffeine. I left for about thirty minutes to eat lunch myself, but got back in time to help him with his. Lunch helped his attitude, as did thinking about going home. I asked Jimmy to get Heather again, though, because it didn't look like we'd get out before 3:00, and I was right. They signed him out at 3:00, and by 3:15 we were on our way back to Bellevue. It wasn't until Friday morning when he got a call from his allergy specialist that we learned that the doctors were calling it a stroke.

Comments

Anonymous said…
We're definitely thinking about you guys up here. My prayers are with you.

My new cell phone should be in today and after I activate it, Stephen will be calling.
11:14 AM
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