Caringbridge – How it Started Day 2&3

Saturday was a weird day.   He was a bit slow, feeling like he was unsteady and wanting to be mindful not to make any missteps.   But fully communicative and interacting with all of us. He got behind the wheel of our car and drove Athena to Karate that morning but called and said he thinks that in getting used to vertigo, he probably shouldn’t drive for a while.  Turns were making him feel… off.   When they came back we went to the park with Athena (I drove), sat down and enjoyed some fresh air; got some lunch and headed back to the house.   

Because this was diagnosed as Vertigo (mind you – they didn’t even prescribe antiverts for it… or like…. a course of action…) we tried doing some of the things that the great doctor YouTube suggested we do to quell the dizziness, fogginess, and unsteadiness that he was feeling.  We worked on perfecting the Epley movement because there was a thought that a dislodged stone may be the culprit for his disequilibrium.  But sleep was the only thing that seemed to be offering him some respite throughout the day.  And he was taking some deep naps.  I mean – Earl is a napping man by all accounts – but this was different.   

Yet and still the day felt like a step towards learning to live with vertigo and went by unremarked. 

We went to sleep. 

My phone goes off at 6AM.  I knew I had set my alarm to 7 or so because I was going to take Athena to Karate but this wasn’t my alarm.   I picked up the phone groggily and saw it was Earl calling me.  I picked up the phone, “Babe?”  Faintly he murmurs back, “Please call an ambulance.” 

I race into the living room to find him face down on the living room floor struggling to get up.   I ask him what he’s feeling, what are the sensations, can I help him up… what’s happening.  I remind him that based on our last trip to the ER, they’ll likely just waste our time and send us back stating they can’t do anything for us.  His responses are giving me light into the fact that he’s really struggling to talk to me.  The words aren’t coming out as fluidly as they were over the weekend.   I call his mom and with her help we get him loaded into the car and per his request we take him to The Brooklyn Hospital downtown. 

I drop him off at what I thought was the emergency room entrance then go to find parking.  It’s Sunday and the parking Gods were merciful.   I go back to that same entrance and ask where the emergency room is and the security guard gives me an exasperated look like “OMG – it’s down the hill and up the block.”  Then proceeds to tell me that without the “OMG”. I look at the terrain that he pointed out and wondered how Earl could have made it.  I darted a look around the lobby I was in and ascertained that Earl was NOT in this area.  So I high tailed it out to the proper location.   I described Earl to the security guards and they pointed me to where he was completing his registration.   Once done, we sat in the waiting area which was pretty empty.  I asked him how he got there since I dropped him at the wrong place.  He said the security guard walked him there.    

Once they called him into triage I put my armor on.  The one that said – you’re NOT separating us this time.  I was ready for a fight.  I told the triage nurse that I needed to stay with him at least till he sees a doctor because he’s having trouble expressing himself and I want to be sure go give all the details to the doctor.   I braced for her response.  “Ok.  I’ll let the security guards know that you’re waiting to see the doctor with him.   You’ll likely have to leave after that, FYI.”  Oh.   Oh… ok.  THANK YOU I gushed.   After taking his vitals and asking all the questions she placed him in a wheelchair where she rolled him around the corner to the ER, also semi-empty.   We didn’t even get him docked in a gurnie and a doctor was already asking what was wrong.  In the midst of me explaining it to her, she was called away on a Code Blue for an infant.  She looked me in my eyes and said, “I have to go right now so I’ll be transferring you to another doctor, but I’ll put a stroke note on this chart so they can attend to him sooner than later.”  Again… more thank yous from us both.   Within 20 minutes another doctor came through and did a thorough investigation… asking all the questions, confirming that his fear and my fear were that he’d had some kind of stroke but there was no telling until we got imaging.  So they set him up for a CT scan and walked away.  I knew we’d be waiting for a while because that’s how these things go.   15 minutes later, they were wheeling him to radiology… !!!  We’d accomplished more in the first hour here than we had in the full five hours at Kings.   Then I started to feel horrible.  All my attempts to avoid the “what ifs”… here I was lamenting, “What if I’d taken him here first…. ?”

But we were here now.   The doctor came back a while later and said that the CT scan came back unremarkable so they’d have to see if they could schedule an MRI.  They intended on admitting him and they also wanted to get a spinal tap because they wanted to test the fluid for any infections or autoimmunity.   At the time they were ready to do the spinal tap (which was about an hour later and in that time he’d already spoken to the neurologist who asked him to run a few more physical and coordination tests on Earl) they asked me to step out to the waiting room.   Cool… as long as I can come back.  They were fine with that.  

I went out into the waiting room and nervously played some video games that I wasn’t really focusing on working on how to say to the security guards that I needed back into the ER. Just as I was about to take my leap, the doctor appeared and beckoned me back *whew*. He explained that the spinal tap was unsuccessful because the needle they had wasn’t quite long enough and “your husband is a big guy.”  “I mean… you saw he was big when we wheeled him in here right?  He’s built like a linebacker.  Do you have the right needle on-site?”   Nope.  So the spinal tap was negatory. 

By this time they had let me stay WAYYY past what a visitor can do in COVID-19 times so they gently suggested I go home and eat and relax a bit and take care of myself. 

Nothing much moved during this day; he was admitted into the Cardiac ward later that night and they finally fed him some food after him being on NBO (nothing by mouth) in attendance of the MRI that was to come the next day.