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Chris is feeling some better tonight. No fever since last night and his headache and neck pain are a little more tolerable. Hopefully he will get to come home on Sunday.
Now...how did we get here? It started Monday afternoon when he had some cramps in his calf muscles and just felt really tired. I decided was probably mild dehydration from working in the sweltering heat and not drinking enough liquids while do so. He drank lots of Gatorade and rested for the night and felt better. Tuesday he still had calf pain but had more energy, we thought his calves were just sore from the major cramp the night before.
Moving on to Wednesday afternoon. He worked all day Wednesday, still with the calf pain. He called me on his way home from work and told me he had a really bad headache and his arms and legs were cramping. I decided it was time to drag him to the doctor for some IV fluids. We went to the Urgent Care here in Jasper, we waited about and hour before he was triaged, his headache was getting worse during our wait. Once he was in a room, I needed to go get the kids settled and dropped off at my parents. I was gone for about 45 minutes and when I returned he was much worse, he spiked a fever to 102, and he had some major neck stiffness, which he didn't have when we checked in. I knew he probably had meningitis.
I found his nurse and told her about the neck stiffness, the doctor came in and told us to go straight to the ER; he was very concerned about Chris having bacterial meningitis because of how fast the symptoms were progressing. They threw a mask on him and off we went. When we got to the ER they put him in a room immediately (thank goodness because the place was PACKED!) and did his spinal tap and started his antibiotics within about 20 minutes of us being there. Luckily his spinal fluid was clear, indicating viral meningitis. The ER doctor decided to admit him until his cultures came back negative and until he was fever-free and his pain was tolerable.
It was at this point things came to a sudden halt. As I said the ER was packed and they were very busy. They also had to shuffle some other admitted patients around because Chris had to have an isolation room. We deal with this issue at work every winter, and I know the process can take several hours. I told Chris to get comfy, we would be there a while. I went to the nearest Red Box and rented us...well ME some movies to watch on my laptop while we waited....we ended up watching all 3, yes, T-H-R-E-E of the movies I rented. We were there for 11 hours and were finally moved to his room at around 6:00 Thursday morning. Apparently there was a lot of shuffling to do.
As of now, we are still waiting on the cultures to come back, it still looks like viral meningitis. Hopefully he can remain fever-free and his pain will continue to improve so he can come home.
P.S. I still have lots of pictures to post from our Gatlinburg trip. I'll get them posted as soon as things get settled down around here.
Now...how did we get here? It started Monday afternoon when he had some cramps in his calf muscles and just felt really tired. I decided was probably mild dehydration from working in the sweltering heat and not drinking enough liquids while do so. He drank lots of Gatorade and rested for the night and felt better. Tuesday he still had calf pain but had more energy, we thought his calves were just sore from the major cramp the night before.
Moving on to Wednesday afternoon. He worked all day Wednesday, still with the calf pain. He called me on his way home from work and told me he had a really bad headache and his arms and legs were cramping. I decided it was time to drag him to the doctor for some IV fluids. We went to the Urgent Care here in Jasper, we waited about and hour before he was triaged, his headache was getting worse during our wait. Once he was in a room, I needed to go get the kids settled and dropped off at my parents. I was gone for about 45 minutes and when I returned he was much worse, he spiked a fever to 102, and he had some major neck stiffness, which he didn't have when we checked in. I knew he probably had meningitis.
I found his nurse and told her about the neck stiffness, the doctor came in and told us to go straight to the ER; he was very concerned about Chris having bacterial meningitis because of how fast the symptoms were progressing. They threw a mask on him and off we went. When we got to the ER they put him in a room immediately (thank goodness because the place was PACKED!) and did his spinal tap and started his antibiotics within about 20 minutes of us being there. Luckily his spinal fluid was clear, indicating viral meningitis. The ER doctor decided to admit him until his cultures came back negative and until he was fever-free and his pain was tolerable.
It was at this point things came to a sudden halt. As I said the ER was packed and they were very busy. They also had to shuffle some other admitted patients around because Chris had to have an isolation room. We deal with this issue at work every winter, and I know the process can take several hours. I told Chris to get comfy, we would be there a while. I went to the nearest Red Box and rented us...well ME some movies to watch on my laptop while we waited....we ended up watching all 3, yes, T-H-R-E-E of the movies I rented. We were there for 11 hours and were finally moved to his room at around 6:00 Thursday morning. Apparently there was a lot of shuffling to do.
As of now, we are still waiting on the cultures to come back, it still looks like viral meningitis. Hopefully he can remain fever-free and his pain will continue to improve so he can come home.
P.S. I still have lots of pictures to post from our Gatlinburg trip. I'll get them posted as soon as things get settled down around here.
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