ICU

Rocky said I couldn't share this story, but he gave in now that time has lapsed a little and he said everyone knows about it. 

Rocky got really sick one afternoon.  He called me after lunch and said that he thought he had food poisoning.  He checked around with the other guys he ate lunch with and they were all fine.  He said he was going to hang out at the office, lock his door and see if he could just weather it out.   I told him I would come and get him, but he said no.    When he got home from work he went in and laid down on the bed.  He said he knew he did not have the flu or food poisoning, and that he knew it was something else.  We searched WebMD and look up his symptoms and thought maybe it was his appendix.  I told him if he wanted me to take him in to the doctor I would.  About 30 minutes later he said take me in right now.  His hands, arms, face and tongue were going numb and he thought that he might be having a stroke.   By the time we got to the ER he could barely stand up.  I stopped right in front of the ER got him out and set him on a bench and then the ran and parked the van.   I had Maizee carry in Dustin and I hurried in and got a wheel chair and took Rocky in.   They got him right back in and hooked up to IV’s they could tell he was in a lot of pain.  After they got him back in and settled I went back out with the kids.  I went back to check on him after about 30 minutes and he was sitting up and looked a lot better.   The kids were very well behaved while we were there and we were there for a while.  I finally took the kids home around 10:00 pm thinking I would get the kids in bed and then go back and get Rocky when they released him.   He called around 11:00 and told me to got to bed that they were going to admit him into the ICU and monitor him for the night.  They said that his potassium levels were really low and it they were worried about his heart and they wanted to watch him closely.  We went in the next morning to visit him and they let us back into the ICU to see him.  He had monitors hooked up to his chest and IV’s in both arms.  We left him there and went to the kids soccer games.  He called a couple hours later and said they moved him from ICU and his was waiting for the doctor to come in and talk to him.   We went back in to the hospital to visit him after the soccer games were over to see how he was doing.  They had him eat and then watch him to make sure he was okay.  Then he was just waiting for the Doctor to come in and release him.  So we left him yet again in the hospital and came home and burned all of the dead plants and weeds in the garden we showered and cleaned up and just waited for him to call.  He finally did and got to come home.  After a lot of tests, blood work, cat scans, ultra sounds, etc, etc, etc they said he had a toxin get inside his small intestine and it made him sick (at first ER doctors thought it was his gall balder or maybe gall stones or kidney stones).  The doctor said that they do not know how the toxin got into his body, that it could have been something he ate or a virus in the air.  I think his body was trying to fight it off and caused everything to go hay wire.  When we went into the ER his blood pressure was so low that it was causing his limbs to go numb.  His whole body was out of whack, his blood levels were off, his white cells were off as well.  His potassium was really low as well.  The next day they did more blood work and everything was back to normal.   His stomach still hurt for a few weeks following.   We are very very grateful that he is okay and that he got to come back home with us.  

This was after he had been in the ER a little while.  The medication started to kick in and he was feeling a little better.  I wish I would have taken some pictures in the ICU, but he didn't want me to.