The Emergency Room

Towards the end of March, 2011, Mike and Griffey had become accustomed to staying home together since Mike had started his online class for physician assistant school. But into the first week of April, they were spending more and more time on the couch sleeping, watching movies, or just staying in bed because Mike felt so ill. He was falling behind in his class and had asked his teacher for extra time to take the test because he just didn’t feel well enough to study. This wasn’t typical of Mike; although he was normally a bit of a procrastinator with studying for a test, he’d always crammed right before a test and dominated it. I’d learned over the years to not worry about him; he knew what he was doing and didn’t need me to tell him how to prepare for a test. Time and time again he’d gotten the highest grades in his classes on tests that he’d barely prepared for, so I eventually learned to trust his study habits. But this was different. He just genuinely couldn’t study. Scattered all over the house were remedies he’d had me bring home for him to try: ginger ale, anti-nausea liquid, ginger capsules, antacids, and hard candies to suck on. He hadn’t thrown up at all, but he had constant nausea every day. He also felt like he was over-salivating, and swallowing his spit made him feel more nauseated, so he carried around a cup to spit in. I would shudder every time he asked me to pass him his warm cup full of spit, terrified that I would spill it all over myself. Mike had also been taking Tylenol around the clock to keep his pain in his hips, groin, and back down. I also noted how pale, almost yellow tinged his skin was. Each night Mike would drench the sheets in sweat but he’d be shivering. His hometown doctor thought maybe Mike had an infection and started him on a round of antibiotics and told him if he didn’t show signs of improvement in a couple days to call him.

On April 1st, Mike left me an April Fool’s day message on the pharmacy doctor line. It was typical of him. He’d worked as a pharmacy technician for a year and knew the prescription lingo and just what to say to crack me up. Then on April 2nd, Mike loaded up on Tylenol and, not wanting to disappoint me, went with me to the Spokane Home and Garden Show at the Convention Center. The house we were buying was not landscaped so we had a lot of fun ideas. Mike limped around in a bit of pain, but we really had a good time going to different booths and talking to the landscapers. Then on April 3rd, we went out to Mike’s sister and brother-in-law’s new house. It was a nice day with family, and with Mike again loaded up on Tylenol, we even went for a hike on their property with everyone. Ironically, we all sat around throwing out ideas as to what Mike’s diagnosis could be. The words “flu,” “Mono,” and “Lyme disease” all got tossed around. But never “cancer.” Privately, at home, however, Mike had jokingly (or not so jokingly) thrown out the idea of “bone cancer.”

On April 4th, 2011, I came home during my lunch break as usual to visit Mike and Griffey. That day, Mike had made the decision he was going to check himself into the emergency room at Sacred Heart Hospital. While I was home, he called an acquaintance of his who was an ER doctor at Sacred Heart. The doctor often taught classes at the ambulance Mike worked for over the past year and they’d bonding over hunting banter. Mike described his symptoms over the phone and the doctor told him occasionally rheumatoid arthritis could present in a similar manner. I felt a flood of relief. There could be alternatives to cancer! An autoimmune disease would be wonderful, I thought. Manageable. Not trivial, but not terminal.

The doctor told Mike he would be working at the ER that night and to come in late during his shift and he’d get him taken care of. I called back to work and told the other pharmacist I wasn’t coming back, that I had to take Mike to the ER. Little did I know, it would be more than a year before I’d be back.

Mike and I lied in bed waiting. He’d stopped taking Tylenol for the rest of the day so he wouldn’t be masking any of his symptoms and the doctor could get an accurate depiction of how bad this was. The next few hours were supposed to be an attempt to nap until it was time to go to the ER, but my heart was pounding, and a knot formed in my stomach. With no Tylenol, Mike started shivering and sweating and moaning in pain. I wrapped myself around him trying to keep him warm and listened to his breathing. He drew each breath in sharply and held it, then moaned while letting it out. He couldn’t even breathe normally through the pain. A couple hours before we were even supposed to go to the ER, I jumped out of bed declaring I couldn’t take the wait anymore, we were going now. Mike gingerly got himself out of bed and carefully made his way down the few steps to the front door. He had to steady himself at the doorway because he nearly blacked out from the pain. I ran out and opened the passenger side door and reclined the seat then helped him into the car. The way he looked then, in baggy sweat pants, a t-shirt, and his ugly blue Crocs shoes would be his “look” for the next 5 months.

I drove Mike to the ER and with all the urgency in the world, I rushed to the reception desk, forgetting that he was trailing way behind me in pain. I checked him in then we sat in the waiting area observing all the other people waiting. There were children with their parents, people with bleeding hands, and those who looked like they were there to get a prescription for narcotics. We got called back before most of them. I immediately saw how Mike had become amicable with the young, scruffy, funny ER doctor. They talked like they were old friends. Mike was given a Percocet for the pain, which helped dramatically, and his typical humor reemerged. Then the questions began. I’ve never seen such a thorough medical history taken. A lot of the questioning focused on our trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands in February. “Did you get bit by anything?” “Do you remember coming into contact with anything?” Mike had narrowly missed stepping on a scorpion, was chased by a tarantula, and we camped with cockroaches and a rat that chewed it’s way into our tent each night, but nothing we’d come in contact with. Mike mentioned his history with melanoma almost 5 years ago. I wanted to sweep that under the rug, change the subject, make it disappear, and avoid that topic altogether, as if acknowledging that piece of history would somehow make it more relevant to the current situation.

The doctor decided it was best to admit Mike to the hospital and have extensive lab work and a spinal tap. He asked if a resident could perform the spinal tap, with the supervision of an attending doctor. Being the nice guy he is, Mike said, “Sure.” We were moved to a private hospital room and sometime into the early morning, 3 residents came in to do the spinal tap with no attending doctor. With Mike curled into the fetal position on his side, hospital gown open in the back, for about half an hour the residents took turns pushing the horrendously long needle between Mike’s vertebrae trying to get the coveted spinal fluid. With one attempt, they thought they’d been successful, only to realize they were drawing up blood. They tried to enter between different vertebrae and the panic inside me rose, as I wondered, do they even know what they’re doing?! I kept stroking Mike’s hair trying to distract him, asking him if he was OK. The bed was drenched in sweat but he kept calmly reassuring me he was fine. I wanted to demand a supervising physician come do it, but I didn’t want to offend the residents and I didn’t have the guts. Finally one last attempt sent a searing, electric pain down Mike’s back and leg as he jerked in pain. “OK, no more spinal tap!” I finally declared, fearing they had just paralyzed my husband. One of the residents nervously kept asking Mike if he was OK and if the feeling had gone away. Over the next few minutes, Mike slowly regained normal feeling in his leg and the feeling of it being on fire did eventually go away.