Jon's Hospital Visit...

It's become a regular thing in our marriage... random trips to the ER here and there for things that pop up out of the blue. If we go a whole year without any ER visits for Jon, then we're doing really well.

Last week half our little family had fevers. It started with Parker on Wednesday evening, who got taken to the doctor on Thursday and was given an antibiotic even though his strep test was negative. The Jon started getting fevers on Thursday, pretty high though- up in the 103's, regularly if the medicine wore off. And then Mia got a fever on Friday.
By Sunday, Parker and Mia were better but Jon was still fighting it. His fevers were pretty bad with shaky chills each time they'd break. He also sweat every ounce of water in his body every time, having the change his shirt 4-5 times each night.
By Monday everyone was telling Jon to go to the doctor but he didn't, and I quote, "have time". On Tuesday he said he felt better, and his fevers had gone away, but he had a MoNSTeR headache. He went to class that evening (the evening MBA program at ASU) felt okay still, came home about 11pm and went to sleep.
12am, September 1st arrived and our new Student Health Insurance kicked in and we were no longer on COBRA... well we paid for it, so why not use it now??? I'm sure they're loving us.
Fast forward 2 hours...
Tuesday, 1:30am Jon was out of bed, walking around, holding his lower back because it all of the sudden hurt so bad. By 2:15am we had pulled up WebMD and decided to go to the Emergency Room. Jon called our good friend Tim 3 doors down, who came over and gave Jon a Priesthood blessing. In it he mentioned being able to ask the right questions to the doctors in order to receive the right answers in getting relief.
Jon's brother Jay is visiting for a month, so the nice part was that he was already here to stay with the kids.
We got to the ER at 3am, were the only ones there and by 3:30 Jon had a nice big dose of morphine. The doctor was 100% certain it was a kidney stone and would run a test or two and then send us on our way with some medication. Well that sounded quick and easy... maybe we'd be back home by breakfast... Think again.
His back/abdominal CT came back showing not a kidney stone but a calcified deposit just outside the lining of his kidney. Also, their standard blood workup came back with several red flags which could be related or unrelated to the kidney thing. His white blood cell count was very low, his liver function was elevated to 480 (it's supposed to be below 80) and some other fancy things which I didn't get a medical degree to understand came back Low. The next thing they did was a Spinal Tap to test for Bacterial Meningitis. Then they did a head CT because of his MoNSTeR headache. That combined with his achy neck were signs of Viral Meningitis.
They started a broad spectrum antibiotic right away and then would adjust it once they had more information. Jon's pain was dulled by the morphine, his headache was starting to come back, but he was happy to finally be able to rest. The doctor decided to admit Jon based on the blood results to see if his numbers would improve over the next 2 days. And all this was done before 5:30am... now that was and efficient trip to the ER!
I was able to run home from 6am-8am to get the kids ready and off to school and find 3 different babysitters at a moments notice. Mia went to my neighbors for the day who also happens to be my visit teacher--Thanks Lindsey! Parker went to Jen's (supermom/neighbor) who was able to get him to preschool, and then he went to Nikki's (the Primary President in our ward with the cutest little boy you've ever met) after school. Abby went to school and then to Jen's (neighbor who saves my life daily) until dinner time.
 It was crazy and amazing all at the same time. I had so many people drop their day to help out with mine. Seriously I don't know what people do without Relief Society. These women are amazing and offer to help out without being asked... and when you let them help you, they don't make you feel guilty or like you owe them somehow. You just feel like they genuinely care and want to do something anything to ease the situation. I had several more offers from others as the day progressed to help out with the kids and sincerely appreciate you more than you know.
8:30am Dropped all the kids off and headed back to the hospital. Called family and friends to give them updates... which was actually No update. See they had worked so quickly and efficiently in the ER and had given us so many results so quickly that it got in our heads that that's how things worked there. However, we were sorely mistaken. The whole day we sat at the hospital in our room thinking the doctor would walk in any minute with some answers. Nope. We just sat and sat and sat. Jon's back and side were comfortable with the morphine. He had no appetite though and still had his MoNSTeR headache.
3pm they took him for an ultrasound which could tell us more definitively about what they saw on his right kidney.
5pm I went home to get the kids fed and in bed. I was exhausted and falling asleep having been up since 1:30am.
6pm Jay (Jon's brother) came to stay with Jon and got the nurse to track down the doctor at home to ask him what was up. See the only time Jon had seen the doctor was at 6am down in the ER. All the nurse could tell us is that they were running more tests and waiting. We were put in a room way at the end of the hall which kind of made us feel forgotten about. The doctor said there was a cyst on his kidney and they had ruled out meningitis. The Spinal Tap came back clear and the head CT was clean. Also, his spleen was enlarged. A Hematologist would be by to figure out the blood work at some point. Well Thank You sir for giving us some kind of an update! Hope we didn't interrupt your dinner.
7pm the hematologist came by and talked to Jon, read his file and ordered some blood work.
I stayed home to sleep and Jay stayed with Jon until about 10pm. Jon slept OK through the night and his headache was finally relieved by early morning.
4am the nurse came in a drew about 5 vials of blood, Jon slept right through it and doesn't remember a thing.
6am the nurse came back and drew about 17 more vials of blood. Now that was a lot! He was awake for that one.
10am the hematologist came back and said that Jon's numbers had all improved slightly. They tested for mono, Hepatitis, different Autoimmune diseases, and a slew of other things which all came back negative. He then recommended him for discharge.
11am the other regular physician came in and said his liver function had come down just a hair- it was now 475. He told him to follow up with more blood work in a weeks and that he could discharge him with instructions for a low-fat diet to bring those liver numbers down even more. His conclusion was that Jon probably had something viral in his body and that it just had to run it's course. And that it probably irritated the cyst on his kidney. I personally feel like Jon had a kidney stone and that all of these other things were evidenced because of it... but I don't have a medical degree.
11:45am FaSTeST DiSCHaRGe eVeR! And we've had our share of hospitals stays to prove it.
12pm we're home! Jon is resting and planning on going to class tonight...
and we are a happy somewhat-healthy family once again!