MaxPayne63
Senior member
Very high fever when I was about 18 months old. I don't think that really counts, though, since I don't remember a single thing about it.
Very high fever when I was about 18 months old. I don't think that really counts, though, since I don't remember a single thing about it.
You don't remember 18 months old? Man, that was the greatest. Sucking on titties and pooping myself all day. The good ole days.
I'd rather almost die than almost live.
- Another Hallmark moment brought to you by ironwing
This one isn't me, but it happened to my wife on December 13, 2011. If we hadn't gotten her to the hospital when we did, she very well could have died...
2am: She woke me up tossing and turning in the bed and was complaining that she couldn't get warm (she had two blankets already) and that she had a headache. I went to grab her some ibuprofen and another blanket but when I got back to the bedroom she was shivering uncontrollably and could barely respond to me. I grabbed a thermometer to check her temperature and she was running a 104 degree fever. I told her I was going to take her to the ER but she wouldn't have anything to do with it. I waited a couple minutes to see if the shivering would stop, which it did. I checked her temp again and it was down to 100... quite a rapid change. I finally convinced her to go to the ER with me so we got her mom to watch the kids.
3am: We get to the ER and she's getting awful headaches and feeling generally dizzy and confused. Doctor takes vitals etc and gets an xray and CT scan done. Turns out she has pneumonia... CT results are going to take a while.
4:30am: After waiting for a while, she stops during a conversation and stares off in space. I try to get her attention, but she's practically unresponsive. Her right hand starts to shake a little and she starts mumbling jibberish. She starts crying and I have no idea what's going on. Doctor comes in as I'm trying to communicate with her and says she's having a focal seizure and they're going to admit her. A few minutes go by and she can talk and has motor skills again.
8:00am: (really crappy hospital in a small town) We're finally told we have a room and when they put her on the mobile bed, she goes into an all out full body seizure. I mean the kind of seizure that when you see it you think only two things... 1) she's posessed or 2) Oh god she's going to die... It takes three doctors and several nurses to finally get her body under control... we still have no idea what's going on.
The rest of the day was spent having seizure after seizure and not being able to speak intelligibly. She was an absolute mess and the doctors were guessing meningitis. They gave her a spinal tap and results came back negative. They were still lost. Her doctor then ordered her under quarantine which we spent the next three days enjoying. She would go in and out of intelligible states. They couldn't pinpoint anything but kept saying it was some form of meningitis. After 4 days, they weaned her off her medications and started preparing us to go home when suddenly on day 5 she relapsed and things started getting worse. We requested she be transferred to Springfield, which had a bigger and more advanced hospital but they insisted they could give her the care she needed here.
At this point, I told them that they clearly were doing something wrong if she was relapsing and we transferred her anyways. When we got to Springfield, the doctors examined her and wanted to know why they weaned her off her medications because she clearly needed them still. She spent the next MONTH undergoing 24 hour EEGs, having seizures, dealing with unbearable headaches, not being able to speak, missing her birthday, missing christmas, missing new years... all while our three kids spent time with my parents in St. Louis. I spent the entire time with her at the hospital and did my best to give her the holidays she watned. Test after test got us no conclusive information, so we chalked it up to the most logical diagnosis which was Herpes Simplex Viral Encephalitis.
When she finally did get out of the hospital, it took months before she could walk normally again, think clearly, stop having more focal seizures etc. And here is the real kicker... turns out a year later as we request medical documentation for the Army, her attending physician at the first hospital documented that she was faking the seizures to get barbiturates, constantly berated the staff (which I had to do a few times when they would treat her like she was some kind of drug-addict) and diagnosed her with HYSTERIA!!! He even ordered a psych consult which was in fact done the day before we transferred. The doctor and the psychiatrist were apparently convinced that this was post-partum depression (she had our third child 6 months prior) affecting her body and this was why they took away the intravenous medication they started her on when they thought it was initially meningitis. I tell you what, when I read this bunch of BS, I flipped out. I was ready to go and confront the doctor at the hospital until I found out he no longer works there. We're currently in the process of building a case against him and suing the living piss out of him.
Here are a couple videos of my wife in the hospital... the first is day three at the first hospital, just before they were convinced she was faking things. The second is during a 24 hour EEG at the second hospital.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tLpz6bDlaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzQ36vIgik