My Trip To The Hospital or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Pain
Family & Friends, Misc Add commentsI went to work on Wednesday with the tail end of a cold. Other than some linger sniffles, I felt fine. Around 9am I had a mild headache. At about 10:30 I started to feel queezy, similar to motion sickness. I figured I was hungry so I grabbed lunch early at 11. A small subway sandwich later, I’m back at the office. Feeling of motion sickness increased and around 1pm it was to the point that I needed to vomit. I went to the restroom and did so several times, hoping that I would feel better.
No such luck. My head was pounding and I continued to dry heave. At about 1:30pm, I called my wife and asked her to pick me up as there was no way I could drive in my condition. My boss came into my office to check on me and when I told here that Beck was on the way and there was nothing she could do, she shut the door (so others didn’t have to hear my heaving) and left. My head was hurting so bad that I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I began to sob. It was unbearable. I put my head down on my desk and prayed that Beck would get there soon.
Next thing I know I find myself on the floor of my office looking towards the interior window. The pain is extreme and completely debilitating. I can see the occasional person walking by and although I’m screaming in my head, I cannot make any sounds louder than a whisper. No one hears me.
The next thing I remembern is some voices, someone calling my name, and somehow I ended up in the hospital. My head is pounding, I can’t stand the light, and moving any of my limbs makes my head hurt more. This isn’t migraine pain, this is “I want to die” pain. Morphine comes and a wave of relief washes over me. My head still hurts, but it’s now only a 6 or a 7 on the pain scale.
They do 2 CAT scans, one without dye and another with it. Nothing.
They then do a spinal tap to check for meningitis. Although they find that I don’t have meningitis, they do discover that I have high spinal fluid pressure. I don’t remember the exact figures, but the doctor said something in the nearborhood of about double normal. This can cause extreme headaches, nausea, vomiting, seizures, sight loss, etc.
After ruling out life threatening issues, they give me a prescription for dilaudid (hydromorphone) and send me on my way and told me to follow up with a neurologist. We stop by the pharmacy on the way home as the doctor said that I would need to pickup the prescription myself with ID since the narcotic was so potent. As a note, Ride Aid did not ask for an ID, but it could be because I was still wearing my hospital arm band. My pain on the ride home was about a 7 and by the time we got home, it had reached 8 or so. I raced straight to bed, curled into the fetal position and hoped it would subside. Luckily, it did for the most part and I fell asleep.
Thursday, I woke with a level 5 headache and decided to take a pill before it could get worse. I’m a serious lightweight when it comes to drugs and man that pill sent me to the moon. I don’t like the disconnected feeling it gave me, but it did work… very little pain. By noon, the pill wore off and I had a mild headache (3 or so). I took 2 aleve and they worked. My head pain was gone by 3pm. I called every neurologist that’s covered by my insurance plan and none of them were available until next week. I have any appointment next Friday. Here’s hoping something good comes of it.
I returned to work today and although I had a level 3 headache that spiked to level 4 occasionally, it never went beyond that. I worked all day without much effort and without any medication (well, 2 ibuprofen).
I haven’t had to take any more of the morphine pills although I did take 2 aleve when I got home. My head hurts only a little now (about a 2-3) and it makes me wince every once in a while with a sensation similar to eye strain. My eye prescription is current and my vision isn’t blurred, so I don’t think it’s really eye strain. My lower back started hurting today after I did some low impact aerobic walking excersizes. It’s sore around the lumbar puncture location, but they said that’s normal and will subside withing a few days.
Anyhow, that’s all the news for now.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:38
I do believe we are all starting to fall apart. Between my kidneys and your spinal fluid, that is.
Isn’t this where we begin to wonder–Fight Club style–whether our infirmities are manly enough, or at least gained in manly enough fashion? Since our fathers have proved useless as models of how to grow old with any dignity, how did our grandfathers do it? Was it heart disease from a life of red meat? What about lung cancer or cirrhosis? What would be doing us in if we happened to gave been born in the speakeasy era?
Here’s hoping we both feel better, or barring that, that we can both take it stoically.
January 24th, 2009 at 13:27
Wow Jim, what a trip! I will keep you in my prayers and hope they get you fixed back up. The meds will help, but what is the cause?
I would avoid energy drinks and get more sleep.
Are you eating right? I know I’m not.
January 24th, 2009 at 13:59
Dang, dude, I had no idea. I hope the neurologist doesn’t find anything serious, but hopefully they can shed some light on what happened. You are in my prayers as well.
January 24th, 2009 at 18:23
Just the thought of you in so much pain . . . scared me to death when I heard you were taken to the hospital via ambulance. You are in my heart, my thoughts, and my prayers . . .
January 24th, 2009 at 20:32
Hope everything turns out alright Jimbo. Glad to see the pain hasn’t eaten away at your sense of humor though, Dr. Strangelove reference FTW
. Here’s to you feeling better.
January 30th, 2009 at 21:33
[...] off, to being in pregnant pain, to having baby, to taking care of baby, to being freaked out due to my DH’s little trip to the hospital – GAH! It’s been a roller coaster. So I have no idea when I’ll get to writing again, [...]
January 30th, 2009 at 21:55
When I got to Jim’s work, I called his cell to tell him I was waiting for him in the parking lot, and one of his co-workers answered his phone, telling me they’d found him on the floor of his office and had called 911. I freaked out, but kept my composure because I had all five kids with me and I didn’t want them to freak out knowing Daddy was incapacitated.
I ushered them into the office with haste because I could hear the siren wailing in the distance and I didn’t want them to know that was for Daddy. Jim’s co-workers set them up in an empty conference room with pencils, markers and paper while I went to go check on Jim.
I found him still face down on his office floor with paramedics now hovering over him trying to get him to talk to them. One of them took me aside and took his history from me and told me they’d be taking him to St. Vincent’s.
I was holding on to composure, mainly because I didn’t want to be the wailing wife, I knew that wouldn’t help anyone, despite the fact my hubby was crying on the gurney and they rolled him away. Thankfully, the paramedics wheeled him away down a different hallway than my kids were down, so they still didn’t see him.
I called Joleine and Mike to meet me at the hospital, because I didn’t want the kids there in case something crazy happened, not to mention there’s so many of my kids, I knew they wouldn’t let us all back in the ER.
Mike and Joleine flew to the hospital and got there right when I did and Joleine took the kids while Mike stayed with me and kept me calm. Seriously, without him, I might have hyperventilated when no one was looking. But I managed to stay stoic as they let us through to the ER room Jim was in.
He was still moaning and crying every now and then until they finally gave him Morphine *after* he’d gotten his first CT scan done. I was a little miffed they didn’t give him his meds before the test, but at least they’d given him the anti-nausea meds.
When they’d finished their tests and ruled out life-threatening conditions, I finally “relaxed” internally, even though I was thinking of worse-case scenarios in my head.
Jim doesn’t have a clear memory of things, but it was very chaotic for a time, and very emotional when I finally had to tell my kids the paramedics had taken Daddy to the hospital. I knew they’d freak out a bit, but I wanted to be able to control how they were told, and I’m so glad and very thankful they didn’t see their father wheeled out by the paramedics. My kids are very sensitive about things, going so far as to cry for the gazelle when the lion takes it down on the Discovery Channel.
Thankfully, we came home that same night and Jim saw the Neurologist today, who is sending him out to get another CT scan with a different dye to look for an aneurysm. Thank goodness for health insurance! Whew, what a saga.
Let’s hope they don’t find anything this time around.
~~Becka
January 31st, 2009 at 18:50
Jim & Bec, wow sounds like you have had a busy start to 2009. Do hope the doctors visit went well and you are feeling better (Jim). Thinking of you…..
And of course congrats on the safe arrival of beautiful Sophie.