We had a lovely time in the ER most of Friday evening and into Saturday morning. Anyway, these are Zach's words, since he put up a post for his friends. I have commented a couple of times noted with"***" I also find it humorous that he says he'll spare details, yet it is SO long! Enjoy!
I won’t bore you with all the details, feel free to ask me if you want. I started hurting all over Thursday night/ Friday morning. I woke up Thursday at noon after about 4hrs of sleep. I had worked the night before and gotten maybe 2hrs the day before that. I also had a bad sinus infection coming on. I met Nate and Nora at the car auction and they said I looked like I needed a walker. I was hurting very bad at this point so I made a 3:40 appointment with my doctor. I stopped to get some X- rays that he had ordered 2 weeks before (just a precaution due to some chronic pain, they turned out fine). He had ordered these to make sure the chronic pain I had been having was due to my crazy schedule and all the manual labor. Hopefully, a decent schedule and a workout routine will get me back to normal.
So I got to the doctor early, about 2:15 and as usual was taken back in about 10min or so. He checked me out for about 3min and told me to call Cristi to take me to the ER. He called ahead and we got there about 3:30. 7 HOURS LATER WE WERE STILL THERE!!! If you would like to hear my opinion on the staff there, as well as the state of the insurance and medicaid system feel free to ask. The fact remains, if any big disaster happened they would have been 100% screwed. There were maybe 25 people in the lobby, 8-10 of which were actual patients! Don't even get me started on the fact that 75% of the people there were either uninsured and using as a doctors office for the sniffles or whatever.
***It was very scary, since I had NEVER seen him in so much pain. He was literally writhing and moaning. A couple of times I tried to rub his back or arms, ans he told me to stop because it hurt so bad!***
At 10:30 we decided to try our luck at Beech Grove since they still could not give us any idea when we would get in. Got to Beech Grove just before 11pm. They said they had been busy but would get us in ASAP. Fifteen minutes later I was in a room being looked after by two great nurses and a really good doctor. After discussing the situation with us, he said I needed a spinal tap to check for meningitis. 15min later I finally had some pain meds and was starting to feel better. The spinal tap was not bad. The numbing needle hurts as bad as the rest of the whole procedure. The whole thing lasts about 5min. Cristi said it was pretty cool! They asked if some med students could watch, no problem there. So they got to see my undies and my girl tattoo. A few minutes later he asked if I wanted some morphine to kill the rest of the pain and help me sleep. That sounded great.
***I told the doc I was an EMT, so could I watch, and he offered to let me do it – joking of course. Anyway, it was really fun to watch and absolutely fascinating!***
When the nurse came in to give me the morphine I was already dozing. She asked Cristi if I had ever had any, of course I had not, she said this might be interesting. When she injected it into the IV, I woke up and sat up instantly. I said, “Whoa! Whoa! What was that, Whoa!” A few minutes later I was feeling much better.
No meningitis, just a bad viral infection. Some pain meds & antibiotics and I should be back to normal. Now for the prayer request. After talking with friends, my wife and my doctor I think I need to leave FedEx. I really do not think I have a choice. Any more benefit I could gain will more than likely be outweighed by the negative effects it is having on my body and my family. I am going to continue to pray this weekend and make my decision next week. Please pray that I make the right decision and can continue to provide for my family.
Thanks to everyone who prayed and continues to as well as those that have encouraged me and helped me though these rough times.
Z
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