Today was our turn to take a trip to the hospital.
Stephen woke up today with a fever of about 100 degrees. I thought it might be the same bug I got last weekend, when I had a fever for just a day with coughing and cold symptoms. He started taking paracetamol, but it was getting worse as I watched him through the day. He slept solidly all morning, but had a 102 fever by about 3pm, and then it spiked again around 4pm. His body was really hot to the touch, so we headed to the hospital to see if he had dengue or malaria.
The doctors saw him quickly and sent him to the lab for blood. Without eating much through the day and having such a high fever, they had him in a wheelchair. As they put the tourniquet on his arm, he said he was starting to feel light-headed and might pass out. I tried to tell the nurse, as I stood up and put my hands by his head–the only part not supported by the wheelchair. Within just a few seconds he was out and his head fell into my hands.
Stephen passes out quiet often with needles, so I wasn’t too concerned at him saying he might pass out. But then I looked at his face–his eyelids were oddly blue and his face was sickly yellow. And then, just as the other nurses and doctors rushed to help, he started seizing a little. His eyes didn’t close when he passed out, but his eyeballs rolled back, so I could only see the whites of eyes. His arms, chest, and legs were convulsing.
Absolutely terrifying.
One of the nurses asked me something along the lines of, “What’s he doing?” as they wheeled him off the emergency room, with his feet dragging on the floor. He told me later he woke up to “music” in the hallway.
And then they hooked him up to oxygen, blood pressure, and a heart rate monitor; they took his blood sugar.
They went ahead and took blood while he was laying down, and then they left him to rest while the labs were processed. By this point he seemed okay, so I was less fearful.
However, his pulse was incredibly fast & irregular, or the machine didn’t work properly. He would read at about 94 beats per minute, and suddenly spike to 181! The whole screen would go red, the heart-beat mountains would go flat, the red light at the top would light up, and it would beep panic sounds like I used to hear on ER. Yet the nurses and doctors did nothing when this happened, leaving me to wake him and make sure he opened his eyes when the heart-beat mountains went flat.
Not something I want to relive.
However, in the end, he didn’t have dengue or malaria. He has an upper respiratory infection, which I think is actually what I was sick with last weekend and gave to him–it just hit him much, much worse. He’s now on antibiotics and we’re just watching his fever closely.
Prayers appreciated still, but mostly let’s just give thanks that he’s sleeping right here next to me!