My Rude Awakening

I am a young mother of an amazing two year girl, and am married with about one year on my belt now. My passion for Everything Real started after my now husband became acutely ill in the spring of 2011. On the morning of April 3rd my husband stood up to get our daughter who had just woke up in the next room, she was only one at the time. When he stood up, he immediately dropped to the floor. I got up shook it off and looked at me like what happened, he literally didn't know what just happened. He was really out of it for a while so I brought my to the ER that same morning. The doctors ran some tests and concluded it must be the flu or something like that, whatever they thought it was they told us they couldnt do anything, just to go home, rest, take over the counter flu meds and drink plenty of fluids. So we went home, because doctors know what they are talking about right? He rested and drank plenty of water, however, the water would not come out the other end. I said dont panic you're stressed it will come. But it didnt, he was in agony all night, and I stayed put with him. We laid down and fell asleep for only about an hour or two when I woke up to him screaming in the upstairs bathroom. He said "I've tried everything, I cant go and I really have to go, it hurts so bad!" At this point it was 4 am April 4th. I take Jeff back to the ER, where they cath him (to relieve the urine that he was not able to), they collected 3 liters from his bladder!!!(any more and his bladder would have been distorted and surgery would have had to put it back together they told us). The doctor proceeded to run every test they could think of- urine samples, blood samples, cat-scan, xrays, nasal and saliva samples, prostate exam etc. In the meantime Jeff's appearance really gets bad, his eyes are sunken in, his fingernails look blue and he starts a cold sweat. The nurses try to hydrate him with an IV but it was very hard to find any sign of his veins. Finally the doctor comes back, at this point we had been at the hospital for hours with a very tired one year old. The doctor looks at us, we could see confusion and just a sense of lost on his face, he began to say that there was nothing he could do for us, everything looked normal. Before the doctor tries to send us on our way again, he asks to see Jeff walk. To do this simple task we had to help him just to sit up from the hospital bed, we swung his legs over for him and lift him up. He continued to try walking, it did not go well, the doctor had to help pretty much carry him. I could tell he was growing weaker while we waited for tests to be ran, but I had no idea he was slowly losing all function in his body. I said there is no way we are leaving with him in this condition, so the docs next idea was to call another doctor, a neurologist. He thought if my husbands bladder was not functioning and it was not because of his prostate it must be neurological. Dr. Price (funny),who was the neurologist, said to transport him to the neuroscience center in Neenah WI for further testing right away. At this time I believe it was 7 or 8 am. We travel to ThedaCare where my mother-in-law meets us (it was her birthday, poor thing). More and more blood is taken, so much my husband almost could not bare anymore. (He said everything felt super sensitive, although he could feel he couldn't move from the waist down, his body was so heavy.) They also proceeded with several MRI's of his brain and spinal cord and a spinal tap (where they used a foot long needle to extract fluid from in between his spinal disks.), he was in horrible discomfort. For a while it was just the family waiting with him in his room, he still had a cold sweat constantly, he could not move from the neck down at this point, and for a brief period his eyes would not focus they jumped all around and then he went blind (thankfully on for a few moments). It seemed as tho something was working through his system and breaking everything down one by one, paralyzing him. He couldn't move anything! It was a very horrible experience, watch someone you love deteriorate into mush and nothing can be done about it. He lye there unable to move, just blink. The doctors gave us nothing to go on, they showed us the lesions they found on his brain and spinal cord which they said are consistent with those of someone with Multiple Sclerosis, yet the doctor, who was just as confused as we were, said that this was not the definite diagnosis. The confusing part was that the lesions matched up with what you would find in someone with MS however the spinal fluid that was drawn was not consistent with MS, in other words the doctor had no idea what to label his condition. Whatever the condition, my husband was still in a body that did not move.

So we began... the long road to recovery.