What does it mean when all the anecdotes you have to relate deal with health problems? It means YOU'RE OLD! That's what it means.
1
This time, it started when S----- and I were headed home after our regular day taking care of our grandson, at his house. It was just about our usual dinner time, and S----- was already hungry even through of course we hadn't even gotten home to start making dinner. We don't eat out much, but we did know where our Interstate crosses a big road where there is a mall and lots of restaurants.
We stopped at an O'Charley''s. S----- and I would often share an entree at such a place, but she was really hungry this time... Okay, so was I.
She ordered a simple hamburger, the safest thing on the menu for her delicate digestive track. (She later told the waitress it was the best hamburger she'd had in her life.) And - what the hell, I thought - I had the chicken-fried steak and sausage gravy. You have no idea how far a departure that is from our regular fare. S----- couldn't believe it. I knew if anything went wrong, I'd never hear the end of it.
Portions were huge. We could easily have shared S-----'s burger, but instead ended up taking three little white boxes home. Well, we did share a brownie with ice cream too.
2
Along about midnight, I had the first diarrhea blast. I figured it was just the jolt to my system from the fatty meal. When I couldn't get back to sleep, feeling a little hot, I surmised that there was a load of caffeine in the brownie concoction. About every hour, I spent a few minutes in the bathroom. (No nausea, by the way.) I drank a full glass of water after every time, wanting to avoid dehydration.
The next morning, I confessed to S-----. She didn't heap me all over, but the tone of our interactions that morning - still punctuated with hourly sit-downs on my part - said: "I KNEW this would happen."
I had an egg and toast for breakfast, and chicken soup with saltines, and bananas for dessert, was lunch. And we were still convinced my problem was dietary malfunction or bone-head use of an alien menu, something like that. I kept pushing the fluids, took Immodium, drank Gatorade too.
By mid-afternoon, the hourly blasts were over. I was feeling okay and sat down in our bedroom's upholstered wing chair to kill an hour watching a re-run of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. S----- was concerned by my kind of blank expression, and my continuing to look a little gaunt and grey-skinned. She'd discovered the Urgent Care about a half a block away from our house several weeks before, pleased by its efficiency.
So late in the day, she said we should go over there and have them check out my fluids.
3
Well, the funny thing was I couldn't stand up. My arms were strong enough to lift me from the chair arms, but my feet and legs couldn't do anything. When S----- and I tried to discuss our alternatives, I found I couldn't put together a coherent sentence. The dehydration, despite my best efforts, had gotten away from me. Time for 911.
We figured that the ER at our favorite hospital (where our grandson had been born almost exactly one year before) would pump me back up to normal with I-Vs, and we'd be home again in a few hours.
But after 3 litres, although I was thinking, talking, able to move normally, my blood pressure for some reason was stuck down around 51 over 38. My BP varies these days, but only between a high of about 135 over 95 and a low of around 90 over 60. The ER's readings were downright odd, and my temperature was 103. So I was sent up to ICU for an overnight, the I-V pumping away.
Food poisoning was a possibility the doctors were considering, so blood cultures had been started and two broad-based antibiotics were added to my saline drip. For the fever I'd had Tylenol.
4
By Saturday morning, I was feeling good and ready to go. The temp was normal. My blood pressure was something like 90/70, so it seemed to me that I was good to go. But wait just a minute, Buster, my General Care Physician's colleague said. It was too early for the blood cultures to develop, and besides, my troponin level seemed a little erratic. This can be caused by atrial fibrillation - a permanent condition for me - or congestive heart failure or a heart attack. By Sunday the level was still just a little elevated, and the blood cultures still needed more time.
My marvelous cardiologist works at a different hospital, so the hospital cardiologist right there on staff had to be consulted. Late Monday, he said my troponin level was no doubt caused by the somewhat sustained low blood pressure itself, so now that was okay, I was good to go.
It took until Tuesday morning for the discharge to be completed.
5
All this time, all of us were thinking I just couldn't tolerate the chicken-fried steak with sausage gravy, or maybe that dish was infected with bacteria. The third alternative - intestinal flu - had not been in the running... But at 6 a.m. Tuesday, S----- called me up in the hospital room. She was calling from the Emergency Room, where she had been receiving treatment for nausea, diarrhea, and dehydration since 2 a.m. In other words, my problem was most probably viral too.
S----- was released in time to meet with our GCP and me around 7:30 a.m. She went home to rest and returned to take me home about 11.
6
S----- was now worse off than me, for another two or three days. My only problem was that I'd been pumped up so much on I-Vs that my feet, legs, even arms and hands were swollen. I could function fine, though, and the swelling gradually disappeared. S------ got better daily too.
Despite ruling out bacteria and the shock of fatty food, let me make it clear: there shall be no sausage gravy ... OR chicken-fried steak... in my future.
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