Whew!

We've had quite the couple of weeks

Greg had a spinal cord stimulation trial that started on October 20th. It was to see if a permanent implant of this machine would help his pain levels. He was doing pretty well with it, and while he was uncomfortable because of the insertion procedure itself, he was finding some pain relief.

Then they took it out.

Then everything went to crap.

So they took it out on Tuesday the 25th in the morning. By Tuesday night he was complaining that he felt feverish and icky. Wednesday he was achy, feverish, and starting to have chills. His pain was bad enough that he was only getting up to use the toilet.

Thursday he took himself to the doctor that had done the implant. The doctor said he didn't have a temperature, but scheduled a CT scan for later in the afternoon at Southwest Washington Medical Center to check for any abscesses or anything else abnormal in the area.

By the time we left to go to the hospital for the scan, Greg was feverish and having trouble tracking in a conversation. I could tell he was really sick. And not just a cold or flu sick. Something was wrong.

He survived the CT scan, although he said it was very painful to move around the way they needed him to move to get the right pictures. He asked for a bed so he could lie down while we waited for the results. They came back negative with nothing showing in the spinal area. The pain doctor said he was free to go and to check in with his primary care doctor if he had fever or chills. Since I knew he had both right then, I was pretty worried. Luckily, the really nice radiology tech was kind enough to offer to arrange for a room in the ER for Greg. I took him up on it because I just knew something was really wrong. It just didn't make any sense to try and take him home and wait for an appointment with his PCP the next day when there was a whole hospital full of doctors right there.

We got a room in the ER pretty quickly and had a doctor there checking him out within a half hour or so. His temperature was 103 (and at 11 he had no temperature) The doctor did some blood draws and sent them off to be read and ordered a spinal tap to check for meningitis. Sure enough, it came back positive.

Yeah, that scared me too. Just a word to the wise, don't look up stuff on the internet when you are waiting for a diagnosis in the ER. It'll scare the crap out of you.

The ER doctor admitted him to the hospital and he was snug in his new room by about 12:30. Unfortunately he was also vomiting and very feverish and in an enormous amount of pain. They hooked him up to about a zillion machines and started fluids and antibiotics.

I don't know if you all know much about meningitis, but it is an inflammation of the membranes (the meninges) that cover the brain and spinal cord. It is very painful because of all the nerve endings that are effected by the inflammation. There are two main forms: bacterial and viral. In Greg's case, his was bacterial, which is a very serious form of the disease. If it isn't caught and treated early it can cause all kinds of problems and often death. This is different than the REALLY scary version that you hear about that kills teenagers, but it is still very serious.

The hospital stay is a post in itself. What an experience. For a while they weren't sure if he was contagious, so we all had to wear masks and stuff. Luckily, they figured out pretty quickly that he wasn't, because those masks are darned uncomfortable.

On Saturday they decided to do an MRI and another CT scan. The MRI showed an abscess in the spinal column. They decided to do surgery to drain it. Apparently with a little bag of pus back there, the bacteria was basically throwing a frat party and the antibiotics he was getting were doing little good.

He started feeling much better on Sunday once he recovered from the anesthetic and surgery and all. They released him on Halloween and sent him home with a line in his arm and a pump that delivers antibiotics automatically every 4 hours.

He's home now and is doing fairly well. His pain is down but he still has a bad headache and feels pretty weak and lousy. I've been home with him all week taking care of him. I'm a terrible nurse, but he's been very patient with me.

I'll fill in more later. I'm heading for bed.