Amy had run a fever for a few days last week, but seemed to be better over the weekend. Tuesday she developed a wicked headache, sensitivity to light, and a return of the fever. As soon as I got home she went to bed. A few hours later Clara was asleep, Jenn and Dan were on baby-duty, and we were headed to the ER on the advice of the consulting nurse.
Amy got a CT scan, an IV, and a lumbar pucture. Ouch. Pretty quickly they declared she had meningitis... but which kind?
Huh?
Yeah, we didn't know there were different kinds either. Turns out there's the scary bacterial variety which tends to close down schools and kill people. On the lighter side of meningitis there's viral meningitis which is painful as heck, but isn't contagious though it lasts seven to 10 days.
Amy was admitted and moved upstairs. I got back to North Bend around 5:45am where Carl (Amy's father) had taken the Irvine's place around 1am. Clara slept until about 7am.
I got Clara and Tokul into the truck with all the stuff we'd need for a few days away from the house and headed to the hospital. Amy was getting another spinal tap which only served to reinforce the belief that she had the relatively benign viral meningitis. (To put it simply, she got the same cold virus both Clara and I had, but it settled in the fluid around her spine and brain. Bad luck.)
After an hour at the hospital we went back to the Boruck's house in Kirkland which was about 15 minutes from Overlake rather than the 45 minutes from North Bend. I headed back to the hospital to have dinner with Amy leaving Clara with Amy's parents. Amy continued feeling poorly, but the staff took great care of her.
Clara and I visited the next morning to give Amy a little quality time with the baby. The two napped for a few hours which brightened both their spirits. Unfortunately, that had to come to an end and soon we were leaving Amy to enjoy the company of her roommate. (The first was nice. The second was a veritable nightmare.) I returned that night for a twisted version of "date night" which went over really well. We watched Down with Love which was actually pretty good in spite of being a chick flick.
Friday, we had breakfast at the hospital again and then Clara and I left so she and Amy could nap. Since Clara fell asleep on the way back to Kirkland we parked at the Starbucks on 85th (open 24 hours, yee ha) and I did some work on their wireless network. Finally the word came she'd be freed later in the afternoon so we headed back to the hospital one last time and picked her up.
Back at the Boruck's Amy quickly passed out in the guest bedroom. We stayed until late, got home, and went straight to bed. The weekend has been lots of sleeping and drugs, but Amy's slowly getting better. She's even planning to head to work tomorrow, though there's no kids since it's a planning day.
We've heard lots of "hope you get better" and it's helped a bunch. Thanks for all your help, especially Jenn and Dan for covering while we headed to the ER and the Borucks for donating their home for a few days so Clara and I could stay closer to the hospital.
Last time we were at Overlake we got a baby out of the deal. This time just a vial of percocet. I think we got screwed.
