Well, life is finally getting back, somewhat, to normal. For those of you who had been following my live facebook feed over the past couple of weeks, you know what was going on. Or at least knew pretty much as much as we did. It all started when Deo had returned from Colorado. He was there for work and since it was his last time going up there, he though he would make the drive to see what it was like. He brought a friend with him to help on the drive and keep him company. It was about a 13 hour drive, and after getting home he said he would "never do that again."
He returned on a Friday, slept basically through Saturday and woke up to go to the UA Homecoming game. He was still exhausted, but we trucked through the first half until we decided being up by 40 points was enough to call it quits for the day. Basically, Deo came home and crashed again until the night. He started to feel like he was coming down with a cold, or maybe just exhaustion from the quick drive to and from CO. Sunday morning he woke up in a pool of sweat. He was running a fever and looked hellish. I, for sure, thought it was the flu, since he was the only one of us who didn't get a flu shot. I was scared it was H1N1, so the baby and I stayed away. Deo was basically quarantined to our room and I even slept out in the family room on a air mattress. On Monday, Deo went to our PCP since he was still running a fever. By that time, the whites of his started turning yellow. The doctor thought it sounded like the flu, but was worried about his eyes, so prescribed tamaflu and ordered some blood work. "See me on Thursday," he said, "and we'll go over your blood work." Well, we didn't make it until Thursday. On Wednesday, Deo was still running a fever and the tamaflu wasn't helping at all. He said he felt like his body was shutting down. At that point, we decided to just go into the ER and get this thing figured out.
This is pretty much when our HOUSE episode started. They admitted him from the ER and basically started playing the rule out game. Flu test - negative. H1N1 - negative. Chest x-ray - negative. MRI - negative. They finally admitted him into Critical Care late that night, hooked him up to some general antibiotics, and we waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. Basically, this is how a hospital works. You wait a day to see the doctor. The doctor orders a test, which you have to wait until the next day to do because the doctor came so late in the day. You get the test, and then have to wait another day for the doctor to come in again and go over the results. And so on and so on until they find something. We did for a whole 7 days in the hospital. Poor Deo saw a GI doctor, a Infectious Disease doctor, and the floor doctor on rotation.
Basically, it was found that Deo contracted Cytomegalovirus, or CMV for short. I still don't really know what this is, but I guess it is a viral form of herpes (I know, sounds like an STD gone wrong but not quite). You can contract it various ways, but basically it can come from (wait for it...)someone who uses the restroom and not washing their hands. Ya...sickening! Basically, it is something that most people, at some point in their life will contract but our own immune systems take care of it. For some reason (maybe the traveling, driving, tiredness, etc.) Deo's immune system was suppressed enough where it couldn't fight off the CMV and so it caused an infection in his liver, which caused an inflamed bile duct, which was causing bile back up into his body, which was causing the fever, jaundice, and sharp pains in his back and abdomen. PHEW.
Deo was finally released from the hospital last Tuesday. He is getting better every day and is starting to get his energy back. He's tired, but for the most part, getting right back on track. We had such an outpouring of kindness from family and friends and we really appreciate that. I know Deo said that it helped him immensely, especially when he was in Critical Care without knowing why. And it helped me get through knowing I had support. To say the least, I am very happy that he is OK and can have my husband and Trey's dad around again. You go through an array of emotions going through something like this, so I'm just now processing through all those. It is, however, a great transition into Thanksgiving, truly being thankful for our health and the health of all those around us. I'm thankful for my husband and am looking forward to our life together; and hopefully no more scares like this for a while!
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