2005-10-25T18:26:04Ztag:blog.limedaley.com,2018:/isso/thread/post/jon-goes-to-the-ertag:blog.limedaley.com,2018:/isso/163/5442005-10-25T18:26:04ZSursumCorda<p>About knowing to go to the hospital with meningitis symptoms: The problem as I understand it is that you can't tell the viral kind from the bacterial kind by symptoms alone, and as you said, the bacterial kind is very serious and it's important to catch it as soon as possible.</p> <p>Even though they can't do anything to help you get over the viral kind, they can at least help with the pain, and too much pain inhibits healing -- for one thing, you can't sleep.</p> <p>Of course you know I was also praying that you would not get anything worse from the hospital....</p>tag:blog.limedaley.com,2018:/isso/163/5432005-10-25T14:11:31Zjondaley<p>A couple additions:</p> <p>When we got to the ER, there wasn't anyone around, other than some other patients also waiting to be seen. After a couple minutes, a nurse came by, looked at me, presumably decided I wasn't going to die, and left again. Later, she came back for the regular questions and measurements.</p> <p>The senior doctor in the ER was great - his job was to look after the junior doctor, and be a support for me, holding my back and hand, etc. I did later hear from Heather that the junior doctor was shaking with nervousness as he prepared the spinal tap, which I am glad I didn't hear that until it was over. I understand that a spinal tap is the same procedure as an epidural, except that they are drawing out fluid instead of putting it in. Not a whole lot of fun, but I suppose also similar to menegitis, if you are in a lot of pain with labor, the extra pain of the spinal tap might not make that much difference.</p> <p>The spinal tap does generally result in a headache, which I could tell was a different sort of headache than the menegitis; I don't think it had occurred to me before to think about headaches, and the different locations a headache might be in, but that night I could distinguish between the two headaches.</p> <p>The guy who wheeled me up to my room was quite joyful, and remarked that he wasn't wearing a mask or afraid to touch me because he didn't think that &quot;evil&quot; was something to be afraid of. On the other side of the spectrum, the junior nurse who was in charge of taking my blood pressure upon admittance to the hospital, triple checked that the guy wasn't going to allow me to take off my mask before she was out of there. He irritably said that, yes, they had already talked about it. As he went into my room, muttered something about young nurses...</p> <p>The doctors were all quite nice, and ignoring the plague sign on my door, were much more willing to be close to me and shake my hand, etc. which was nice, as most of the nurses made me feel like I really was going to keel over at any moment, and if they saw me keel over, it might happen to them too.</p> <p>A coworker said that she didn't think that (the doctors being so personal) was a good thing - that she would rather not catch anything transmitted via the doctor from some other patient. I suppose that is a concern, though they were quite good at always washing their hands. It was nice to have the personal contact - and I was only in the hospital for two days, it must be hard on people who are there for longer periods of time.</p> <p>When I woke up the morning I was admitted, I didn't have any pain, and the light didn't bother my eyes at all. I assumed that the pain killers were still working, and expected the pain to come back, but it never did. It surprised the doctors that I recovered so quickly, although Ben said that they probably don't realize I could be dying and still look perfectly fine - (growing up I rarely got sick or missed school, and my usual remedy is to sleep it off and then be fine).</p> <p>The chaplain came by on Friday, and staying as far as possible away from me but still staying in the room, gruffly said that he wanted to inform me that West Penn had a chaplaincy service, and if there was ever anything I needed to just call them, as he backed out the door. I figured there wouldn't be much use in talking to him. Reverend John Paul Chaney stopped by (his wife was the one who stayed with Jonathan the first night) and we had a nice chat - hadn't seen each other in a while anyway.</p> <p>Lots of people have asked how I knew to go to the hospital with just a headache. Menegitis is not nearly so serious if it is caught early, though there isn't any treatment for the viral kind anyway, so it probably didn't matter quite so much, other than relief from the pain, in this case. It was the biggest headache and probably the worst pain I have ever felt, so it wasn't just a little thing. I also didn't know previously that pain can make you nauseous, I don't remember ever having enough pain to have that happen before.</p> <p>As Heather said, I have made a lot of improvement, praise God, and each day is better than the previous one.</p>