What a Surprise

Well, I got up early on my day off, drove hubby and myself to the bus stop, and arrived at the ambulatory care center a bit early, 8:00 for an 8:30 appointment. That's good! They took us almost right away and it seemed this just might be a short day. NOT!! His doctor, a very nice young lady, and very thorough, spent 45 minutes taking his history, recent symptoms, and examining him. That's good! Usually docs are in and out and it isn't until you get home that you think, oooo, I forgot to tell him this, and....whatever. So, being a nurse, I was very aware of where her questions were going. She was constructing her differential diagnosis and zeroing in on a couple of things. When she was done, she sent us out to get bodily fluid samples (blood and urine), xray and ekg. And, we were to come back at 11:00 for results. Nice. Still not that long of a day. We went and had a cup of coffee, got back at 11:00, and nobody seemed to know what we were talking about. After another 45 minutes, they called us in and put us in a room, just to find out we were in the wrong room and had to vacate and wait some more. Fortunately, that was only another 10 minutes or so. Sooooooo.....

The ekg was normal. The xray was normal. The bloodwork was normal. Ack! You know how you always sorta hope something is abnormal so you can fix it? She had narrowed it down to diverticulitis, which she ruled out, and, guess what? Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever!!! Yep. The fever, shakey chills, lethargy, sleeping all the time, headache, achey neck, and some other syptoms, especially the big one....he had a tick bite a couple weeks ago. Yikes! That's good and bad news. Good, cuz my daughter was way wrong about any cardiac problems, and bad, cuz he now has to take 10 days of an antibiotic that will make him feel almost as bad as the RMSF. But, it is treatable and will be gone. Yay!

So, thanks to all of you who supported me on this. I appreciate all of you. Oh, and we finally got home at 2:00. A long day, but well worth it.