Different Day, Different Brain Issue

Two weeks ago we had some excitement in the Fitzgerald household. SuperHubby had been sick for a few days, nothing unusual, just a little stomach thing (okay, a big stomach thing...but it always seems little when you're not the one barfing). It started on Friday and lasted through the weekend. He didn't have migraine symptoms, or shunt symptoms, so I figured I'd let him just take the weekend and sleep it off.

Well, sleep he did. He slept from Friday night straight through to Sunday. Only got up when he had to barf, which frankly was way more than I could tolerate. I can handle a lot of things; that's not one of them. So when he wasn't puking, I let him rest, and I brought him pain and nausea meds as often as he could take them. I thought that was mighty nice of me.

Well Sunday he just seemed off. It occurred to me that most of his symptoms possibly could be shunt symptoms after all, including the sleeping for 3 days straight, and I started to grow concerned. When he got up at one point, he fell over, taking me with him, and bounced off the wall and the bed before landing in a heap on the floor, unable to move. Spanky had to help me get him back in bed. It was time to call in the big guns.

One of our pastors came over and helped me load him in the car. This was a good thing, as he was dead weight by this time. I couldn't handle him. I took him to MUSC and we hung around our home away from home for the next 9 1/2 hours. While the security guard at the door seemed to recognize the severity of the situation, the doctors, sadly, did not.

Immediately upon arriving in the ER I asked that they check his shunt for malfunction as well as infection. Since they were doing tap of the shunt for CSF, I also asked that they check for meningitis. A friend of mine recently had meningitis and the symptoms were eerily similar. I figured it was either shunt or meningitis. I was assured they would test for both.

After 7 hours, they decided to send SH home. I wasn't in the room at the time. It was the one time I had left. Coincidence? I think not. Once I got the word, I was none too pleased. I explained to the nurse that I'd been down this road before, many times, and I felt like I knew what I was talking about. Not to say he didn't, but he didn't. Anyway, I had to deal with the nurse, because I never saw the doctor. So I was ticked.

I pointed out that when a woman comes into the ER with a typed medical history, and it takes a whole page in 8-point font, you might want to consider listening to her opinions. Maybe. The nurse agreed. Poor guy, he actually was on my side. He just wasn't getting any slack from the doctor, who really just didn't want to be wrong.

So I showed my butt. For 2 1/2 hours. I fussed, loudly, about every single reason SH shouldn't go home, how I couldn't manage getting him there, how if he died it would be on them, just not nice things at all. Finally they agreed to let him walk down the hall first to test his steadiness. He failed miserably. I then pointed out that he'd run 55 miles exactly 1 month earlier, and now he couldn't walk 3 rooms down the hallway. He got to stay.

So he was admitted at midnight. He ended up staying from Sunday until Friday. Diagnosis? Meningitis. Yes, I said that. Yes, they ignored me. Yes, they pumped him full of heavy-duty antibiotics anyway, just in case, which quite possibly saved his life. (go me)

So, that's the saga of the newest brain "hiccup." Just to keep things fun.