Sometimes sleep doesn't happen...

[figmo]

...and it's not your fault. Or mine.

Around 2:00 this morning, Warren's heart rate suddenly, out of nowhere, went to 157bpm. He had me call 911. As Lady growled to "defend" him (a ludicrous sight if there ever was one), a team of three firefighters and two paramedics put lots of monitors on Warren and hauled him off to the Emergency Room.

I had to grab a change of clothes for him, secure the house, and follow -- yes, with inner ear infection, vertigo, fever, and all that, not to mention a nasty rainstorm with 50mph gusts that had my car sliding on the road. When I got to the hospital he was already improving on his own. My job there was to make sure they didn't give him something that would make him worse. Once they didn't give him aforementioned drug that would make him worse and it was clear they weren't going to give him anything bad, it was made clear that because they wanted to monitor him a bunch of hours, it'd be a good idea if I got some sleep. Somehow. Somewhere.

Given the weather and my health, I was in no shape to brave driving back, so I tried sleeping in the back of my car (I have a blanket stashed for such purposes). It was too cold to sleep, I was in no shape to climb into the front and run the heater, so I meditated for a couple of hours, then checked up on him. After about half an hour, I got breakfast at the (finally open) hospital cafeteria, dousing a breakfast burrito with about 1/4 cup of Sriracha hot sauce and having the sauce taste "sweet." (Yes, my sinuses are that bad right now.)

When it was clear he was going to be stuck for at least another two hours I went back to the car, this time putting a front seat back and using the heater. I did get maybe 1.5 hours of sleep. Just as I was waking up my cell phone rang to tell me Warren was finally being discharged.

We got home around 11:45am.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Poor kitten.

Get some rest and some soup in you.

*hugs*
LMG

[allisona.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to hear that Warren is OK!

I hope you get a good rest tonight.

[sdavido.livejournal.com]

Dang! Next time this sort of thing happens, ask for the bed next to his! Seriously, do as the other Lady says, and get some soup in you and some rest. My hopes are with you both for quick recovery!

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

Indeed, speedy and full recoveries for both of you. Any feedback on what happened to Warren?

BTW - I've finally caught up on reading friend's list, I enjoyed your trip reports.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I'd almost call it a "no-brainer," but in his case it literally is his brain.

Warren has an arachnoid cyst (htp://www.arachnoidcyst.org/) about the size of a peach pushing into the left side of his brain, smooshing some parts, such as his left temporal lobe and hippocampus, and displacing the center of his head. We think some how the vagus nerve (http://uscneurosurgery.com/glossary/v/vagus%20nerve.htm) is being affected, which is why his heart rate and blood pressure go up whenever a major storm front comes in.

Unfortunately, he's got Kaiser Permanente HMO for his health plan, and they've been trying to blame all his symptoms on everything from "diabetes" (even though his blood sugar tests are normal, save for the one "fasting" test he took before he remembered he'd had orange juice that morning) to seizures (even though a 24-hour EEG showed no seizure activity) to heart trouble (even though he breezed through a treadmill test -- they had to tell him to slow down for fear he'd break the thing!). He just had new MRIs taken earlier this month. His neurologist sent a one-sentence letter saying the cyst "appears to be stable." If only his condition was....

[cellio]

Yikes! I'm glad he's ok, but how frustrating!

Am I correct in assuming that even if money weren't a factor, he couldn't switch to some other HMO or insurance company because they'd exclude a pre-existing condition?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

His elderly parents are covering him. If he'd let me put him on my plan he could see any doctor he wanted. I pay for such a plan after having had horrid experiences on Kaiser Permanente years ago.

[cellio]

Does putting him on your plan actually require his consent? Can a person be covered by two different plans, and choose which to use in a given case? (That is, could you do this without disrupting his current plan?) If so, it might be worth presenting him with the fait accompli and getting him to an effective doctor pronto.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Does putting him on your plan actually require his consent? Can a person be covered by two different plans, and choose which to use in a given case?

Yes to both of those questions.

However, it does funny things to his IRS status, so he won't do it. Suddenly he'd become my dependent instead of his parents' dependent, and they'd lose that tax credit that makes it somewhat affordable to pay for him.

Note that I wish he were listed as my dependent. I pay a significant amount of his survival expenses as it is (food, food, food, sometimes gasoline), and it'd be nice to get the tax break. Unfortunately, the cyst is smooshing the part of his brain that controls things like reasoning and common sense. :-(

[patoadam]

Wow, you sounded like your usual self on the concom mailing list, how did you do it?

Glad Warren's crisis resolved successfully.

This has been going on for *years*. It sounds horribly frustrating.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Wow, you sounded like your usual self on the concom mailing list, how did you do it?

1. Years of practice.
2. That was pretty much all I was able to get done yesterday, outside of getting my new prescription and making dinner (which actually was a major achievement, given what I made and my condition).

Note also that I can send e-mail from anywhere in my home. I set this up in reaction to an inner ear infection in 1991 that cost me a job.