and I'm very tired. Rhett got 4 (yes, 4) ticks on him while conducting therapy under a tick-loaded tree last Thursday. He came home, thoroughly inspected himself, extracted the 4 stowaways, and we assumed all was well. (Our pediatrician mentioned recently that most of the time people don't get sick from tick bites unless the tick is on for more than 24 hours. Apparently, that's not the case when there are four of them.)
Rhett came home and seemed in awful shape. He collapsed on the couch fully dressed, wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a heavy sweater over the t-shirt, pronounced that he was freezing and covered himself with a blanket. He didn't even take his shoes off. That is NOT my husband. I took his temperature. 101.5. He never gets sick. So I went to CVS to ask the pharmacist what I could do to prevent our 12 week old son from contracting whatever his dad had, and what I could give his dad to keep him comfortable while we waited for it to pass. She immediately asked me about tick bites. She told me that this is not cold and flu season anymore, and even if it were, his symptoms didn't sound like cold or flu. She thought he sounded like a textbook case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Amazing that she thought of that because RMSF only occurs in 7.1 cases per million people in the U.S. Anyway, she said we needed to get him medical attention asap because it can cause irreparable organ damage and even be fatal. So she suggested we call UNC HealthLink to ascertain whether it was already serious enough to warrant an ER visit. We did, and they said it was, so we went. It was a long night.
The 900 doctors and nurses who talked to/looked at/consulted over Rhett all though RMSF was a likely cause but that meningitis was almost as likely. To test for that, they had to do a spinal tap on Rhett. It was so awful. It's not usually a painful procedure, but they explained that some people's bodies are really resistant to having needles inserted between their vertebrae and for them, it's awful. Yep. He was in so much pain from the procedure that I actually threw up. (Way to be supportive, right? But I couldn't help it.) Rhett is a strong man with a helluva tolerance for pain and sickness, and I've never seen him suffer like that. In fact, the only person I've ever seen in more pain than that was my grandmother a few months before she died. I felt so helpless to help him. I wonder if that was how he felt during my labor experience. At least he kept his lunch down. Like I said, he's really strong.
They seemed to be really worried about him. It was starting to look like they were going to admit him. But instead, they pumped Rhett full of so many different IV antibiotics he should be invincible for the rest of his life. Seriously, he should be able to walk on water. Then they had him take a different mega-antibiotic orally. But they never could get his fever all the way down, and they say he has to take this ultra-huge dose of another (different) antibiotic for the next 10 days. They couldn't predict for us when he'd be back to normal, but they say that he will be. We pulled into the driveway a few minutes before 3am and he's in bed already, comatose.
I can't express how grateful Rhett and I are to our wonderful neighbors, C and J. I walked over to their apartment (unannounced) with a nearly naked baby and a diaper bag, then brought over a big plastic box of diapers, formula, bottles, blankets, swaddlers, and a car seat, and said "can you keep him for a while? I have to take Rhett to the hospital." The on-call doctor from UNC Healthlink had already said Rhett might have to be admitted, so I was preparing to leave my sweet baby for overnight if needed be. They were so wonderful. It is so comforting to know that we
could so completely trust them with our child. I didn't worry about Daniel even once during the whole event.
POSTED BY EMILIE BROWN AT 3:20 AM
1 COMMENTS:
Mya said...
Poor Rhett! I'm so sorry guys. Sounds like like a long night and frightening experience. Glad to hear that they released you and I hope you're feeling much better now.
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