Life as we know it.....

Enough time has passed now that I feel like I can tell about our most recent medical issue.  About 3 weeks ago on a Friday, I talked to Ray a few times throughout the day.  I thought he didn't sound like he felt very well, but he will usually tell me if he is under the weather.  Well, the last time I talked to him I decided to ask him what was wrong.  He told me that he didn't feel very good at all, his head hurt, and so did his neck and throat.  He was on his way home, so I told him to just try and get home and we would dope him up and put him to bed when he got home.  He called me when he got close to St. Anthony, which was where he was supposed to unload, and didn't sound any better at all.  He was trying to get one of the other guys to unload his truck for him, but none of them would because he has a BRAND NEW truck and they were too nervous to drive it.  The next call I got was from Kinlee saying that dad was home and he was mowing the lawn, but didn't look good and that he had just asked her what her name was. 

I am going to go off track here for just a minute.  A little over a year ago Ray starting asking questions about people he saw in pictures that he should have know, like who are they or what is their name.  It started getting a little freaky when he didn't know the neices and nephews names.  He blood pressure was on the rise and the doctor here hooked us up with a cardiologist in Idaho Falls thinking that maybe that was the cause of the memory loss.  So, Ray has been seeing a doctor in Idaho Falls for his high blood pressure so they can hopefully figure out what is going on.  But, he has always remembered our names and others he sees regularly.  So, when he asked Kinlee what her name was, she was a little alarmed, but we weren't frantic yet.

Back to the story......The next phone call I got was from Jerika.  Side note.....Jerika is in charge of mosing the lawns and her dad really doesn't let her get out of it very often.  That being said, when she called me she said that dad wouldn't let her mow the lawn that he was doing it and she just needed to go hang out with her friends or something (red flag).  I told her to go out there and give him the phone.  She handed him the phone and I told him that she needed to do her job and not him.  He started to argue with me and so I told him to chill out, he told me that his head hurt really bad and I told him to shower and I would meet them in town at the doctor's office.  After that I got another phone call from Kinlee and she was crying, he didn't remember Jerika's name either.  I told her that I had told dad to come into town and I would meet them, Jerika got on the phone at that point and told me that dad said she was supposed to drive him somewhere, but he couldn't remember where.  At this point, with two sobbing children I jumped in my car and headed home.  When I got home, they were all crying in the living room, Ray included.  He could remember anything, it was so scary.

I loaded them all up in the car and went to the emergency room and he asked SEVERAL times on the way there where we were going.  When we got there they checked him in and did the basics and he had a 102.5 fever and he said his head hurt so bad.  The amazing thing was that his blood pressure was lower than I had seen it in years.  I thought that maybe that was what was happening was something with his blood pressure, so that ruled that out. 

Luckily mom headed out from her house as soon as we left the house so she was there a few minutes after we were to sit with the girls, who were beside themselves, poor kids.  The doctor gave Ray some pain meds and then started asking several questions.  Most of which I had to answer, but when the doctor asked him if he had been around misquitos lately he remembered that, because he had been in a swarm (I guess you would call it that) in Canada the week before and they were the size of flies.  The doctor ordered some pain medication and then we headed down to the CAT scan, where Ray kept asking the techs every two seconds where we were going.  Oh and that was after he asked me what my name was and kept calling Kinlee that little girl.  When they got him in the CAT scan he asked me if he had a son and what his name was.  The CAT scan ladies kept yelling at him through the speaker not to talk, he must not be a good minder even when he is delirious.  After that they took what seemed like a gallon of blood out of him to run some other tests and then we just had to wait. 

After the pain medication started working he seemed to little more cohearant, which made us feel much better.  The one thing the doctor was really worried about was meningitis, but the only way to know if he had that was a spinal tap, which would just make the headache worse.  Anyway, all the other test result came back, no tumors or brain bleeds, and nothing else that looked out of the ordinary.  Then the doctor informed us that he was pretty sure it was West Nile Virus, but they would have the tests results back for several days.  He said that since Ray was feeling better and starting to remember things better (the kids and my parents both came into his room and he knew all their names) he didn't want to do a spinal tap.  They monitored him for a little while longer and then at 6 our neighbor, SUPER LORI (she's awesome) who works at the ER came in and he knew who she was, which was a good sign also.  The Dr. agreed to let Ray go home and rest, but if anything took a turn for the worse we were to go back to the ER.  I took him home and he slept pretty sound that night and then the next morning the doctor called to check on him (nice, right?).  He had made it through the night without incident, so that pretty much ruled out meningitis.  And he lived to tell about it all, well, what he remembers of it anyway.  He did call the hospital to get his results last week, and he kind of got the run around so we haven't tried back.  We are just going with the West Nile diagnosis, which by the way you should go online and read the symptoms, it is pretty freaky.  The bad thing is that there is no treatment for it because it is a virus so, he just has to get lots of sleep and stay up on his pain meds. 

He is feeling MUCH better and remembering things better than he seemed to before.  I guess this is just another learning experience in the life and times of the Young family.  We are just so thankful that it wasn't anything worse and we know that this too shall pass. 
(Note: I didn't proof this, so don't judge me if there are errors.)