The news has not been good on the home front the past few days. The First Mate came home from the hospital last Tuesday evening to try to recover from her CMV infection. She ran fevers most of the week, sometimes as high as 103, and felt weak and unable to do much outside of restroom visits. Last Friday night, her fever finally broke and I hoped we would be heading for some improvement this weekend, but unfortunately, that didn't happen.

On Saturday, she got disoriented and slipped down the stairs. She didn't get injured, but she obviously had some problems in moving around that required constant assistance when she wanted to walk. On Sunday morning, she wanted to eat breakfast in the dining room (which is on the same level as the bedroom), and I thought that might perk her spirits up. Unfortunately, she collapsed a couple of steps away from the chair. While we struggled to get her into the chair, she became unresponsive and then started convulsing. I called an ambulance, but by the time they arrived she had shaken it off. We took her to the hospital, where they determined her oxygenation level was too low (hypoxia) and her labs were off, especially her postassium (too low).

After six hours in the ER, however, the FM insisted that she was OK and wanted to go home. Neither I nor the doctors could talk her into getting admitted, so home we went, with oxygen and a wheelchair, and an oxygenator when we arrived home. Once we got home, she once again collapsed when getting out of the car in the garage. I hosted her into a folding chair and called our son. The two of us carried her up the stairs to the bedroom and got oxygen on her fast, and she came around almost immediately. Later, when she tried to use the restroom, the same thing happened, and our son and I and our roommate heaved her back into bed and increased the oxygen.

We then proceeded to have what diplomats call "intense negotiations" about returning to the hospital in the morning, with the Captain finally asserting his maritime authority and issuing a diktat to that effect. The entire family sacked out at the house, and the two young men returned her to the hospital this morning. Until she can stabilize her blood chemistry and resolve the hypoxia, she will likely remain in an intermediate care facility for the next couple of weeks.

So now I'm home alone (and blogging, natch) with a wrenched back and have to take Prednisone and Vicodin for the next few days. I barely made it to work today, and hopefully that will improve enough so that I can tackle going to the hospital for visits. I'm hardly the big issue, though. The mini-blackouts associated with these episodes have the FM pretty frightened, and we're waiting to see what the MRIs taken today will reveal. She certainly can use your prayers and thoughts in the next few days, and I will update you as I know more.

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» Prayer request from American Geek
Please pray for "Captain" Ed Morrissey and his wife, the "First Mate". She is having some serious and scary health problems right now, and they both need our prayers and support.... [Read More]

Tracked on June 6, 2006 8:29 AM