She was very excited to be going on a mini-vacation on Monday. She spent most of her time resting, talking, laughing. Tuesday, she was still tired, so we took it easy and encouraged her to sleep. My brother Jerry flew in that afternoon for a job interview, so we had good family times that evening. Then, she and I were both up at 3 am because she was suddenly very sick again.
Despite spending most of the early morning in the bathtub, she was vomiting constantly and getting steadily more dehydrated. I put a call into her Seattle doctor's office, and the consensus among the triage nurses was to take her to the local ER for IV fluids.
She didn't want to go, but I still packed her up and took her down to the hospital where she was born 26 years ago. We managed to squeak in just before the lunchtime rush! Outside our curtained cubicle, we could hear the pace pick up from the nurses' conversations:
"I don't have a bed right now, could we just do a quick exam on him in the hall?"
"Call upstairs and see if they can send down 4 more nurses!"
"Yes sir, someone will take care of you just as soon as we can!"
They pumped Juli full of anti-emetics to no avail. A P.A. ordered IVs, but it took almost two hours before the liquid was actually flowing into her. They drew blood. They tried morphine, but as they were pushing it into the tube, I pointed out a large red rash spreading on Juli's chest and neck. The nurse stopped, the rash disappeared. They tried another milligram with the same results, so they had to stop. They put two full doses of Pepsid into her saline. She just kept retching.
My childhood friend Kris Brust is a pulmonary nurse in this hospital and I had her assistant give her a note that Juli and I were in the ER. Kris came down and told all the nurses that we were her "peeps," and they should give us the 5-star treatment. Shortly after Kris' visit, an exam room opened up and we were told that Juli had been triaged as Number 2 out of the next 10 patients. They moved her down the hall, past dozens of people in chairs, wheelchairs and gurneys, all waiting to be seen.
The nurses were astoundingly calm in the face of what I perceived as utter chaos. A young woman, Dr. Gendy, examined and questioned Juli thoroughly and ordered more liquids and meds, including a weird gastric cocktail of Maalox, xylocaine and Donnatol., which Juli actually kept down for about 60 seconds. She managed to hang on to the second dose though, and things started getting better. I had called Juli's Seattle doctor's nurse to let her know what was going on. Even though it was after five, the doctor called me back and wanted to speak to Dr. Gendy. The two doctors consulted on Juli's case, and Dr. Gendy came back with a mutual decision that it was probably gall bladder or ulcer related.
They finally got Juli stabilized and she fell asleep around 7 pm. I was so tired at this point, I scooted my chair up to the head of her bed, rested my head on her mattress and fell asleep for an hour too.
They released her around 9 pm, with meds and instructions to get her home to Seattle as soon as possible. Juli was in no shape to fly by herself, so I quickly booked myself on her flight for this morning. My brother Jerry was also flying back to Seattle, so everybody went to the airport! We got her a wheelchair, got her through security (the full-frisk for her, oh joy!), and got her on the plane.
Another time, I will share my month of TSA "security" stories. For the moment, I'll just say that Juli would have been perfectly justified in barfing on the security personnel. I would have applauded.
The flight was tremendously hard on her, but she made it though the 2 1/2 hours, quietly using all the air-discomfort bags I could round up from nearby seat-backs. I insisted that she have a wheelchair from plane to baggage claim. We met up with Jerry (he was on a different flight) and he drove us to Juli's home so we wouldn't have to battle the train and bus routine.
So, I'm back in Seattle again. This time I plan to see her through the tests her doctor wants her to have, and I think Kerne and I have convinced her that she needs to take a medical leave from her job and concentrate on getting well again. I will reschedule my March doctor appointments for April, and stay as long as I have to.
For the moment, the meds are working, and she's sleeping at last.
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