Back to Bennington...

7/6/08 - Pain & puking continued all night.

• Woke up with a full bladder, scrambled over to the side of the firetower & accidentally peed on Spock... who took it quite well, all things considered!
• Pain was too much to handle so they decided to hike back to Bennington & the ER. Hearts was so weak that Tupperware, Buns & Roses split up his gear & carried it back to town for him as he crawled back the same 10.5 mi they had hiked the day before. (Spock & Twiggy, and Cuda continued north.)
• Once at VT 9, Amos laid on the side of the road as the others stuck out their thumbs in hope of a hitch to the hospital... finally got a ride from a car full of drunks jamming to AC/DC. (I'm glad I don't hear about these things until WELL after the fact or I would have lost my already fragile mind a long time ago!)
• Took about 5 hours for the doctors in the ER to realize that something was terribly wrong. Just as they were about to discharge him - yes I said discharge him - they drew a blood sample to test for Lyme's and took his temperature one more time to find it at 102. (When he went in to the ER he was on a significant amount of ibuprofen & his fever was down but the OTC meds wore off by the time he was about to be discharged and it had just come back up.)
• It turns out that the new-found fever + his severe neck pain (and an assortment of other symptoms) = a spinal tap! ouch. (Going from almost being discharged to having a spinal tap is still a little inconceivable to me.)
• It took about 1 hr for the results from the spinal tap to come back and for the doctors to confirm that he had spinal meningitis. They assured him that it was not the deadly form of spinal meningitis (bacterial) but that it was likely caused by Lyme disease. Unfortunately, the test results for Lyme disease would not be back for at least 4 days... [not knowing whether it was viral or caused by the tick caused it's own set of problems - but that's another story].
• Tupperware stayed in the waiting room the whole time (!!!) and brought food from the vending machine room upstairs! It wasn't until 11:30 pm -when they said they were going to admit Amos- that he retired his post and met back up with Buns & Roses.
• They actually admitted him around 7 am... the next morning. It was a looooong night. He was given IV antibiotics and fluids but no pain meds or food & the ER nurse was less than pleasant. Too much pain, no sleep.

Don't we make a lovely pair. (I broke my nose kayaking the same day.)

7/7/08 - This is what Amos describes as being THE worst day (including the events of last night). Luckily, he doesn't remember much of it...

• Apparently, Tupperware, Buns & Roses stopped in to visit 2x - but he doesn't recall either visit - though he does remember Tupperware spilling something from Taco Bell all over the floor.
• Admitted to the ICU which made everyone freak-out... ok, maybe just me. (I still didn't know it wasn't considered "life-threatening" - I mean c'mon, he was in the ICU for cryin' out loud!)
• Spent much of the day rolling around, trying to get comfortable - that didn't happen. Nurse Jackie (really nice but really obtuse) took plenty of blood samples (4x).
• Finally given pain meds in the early afternoon which proved "very helpful" - made sleeping possible (and random, incoherrent phone calls for that matter).
• This is the day I really lost it & declared that I was driving back to Bennington and skipping the physics modeling workshop I was supposed to be enrolled in all week. MJ agreed to road trip, too!

7/8/08 - Started treatment for Lyme disease (still not officially diagnosed).

• Spock & Twiggy, Tupperware, Buns & Roses all took a bus from Manchester Center to come back & visit around noon! About an hour later, MJ and I showed up.
• Amos took a shower soon after we arrived & it was then that he discovered the bulls-eye rash on the lower-right corner of his back. It faded pretty quickly - already much less obvious an hour later.
• Transferred out of solitary confinement & into a room with another dude. Amos was less than thrilled to have to pull the curtain to pee in his jug every 20 minutes.
• We played cards & noshed on hospital food together (they gave MJ & I a free $5 voucher - yum!).
• MJ & I left to sleep at the Bennington Motor Inn while the rest of the gang attempted to enroll in a hospital sleep study (denied) but wound-up stealth camping in the waiting room instead.

7/9/08 - Slept-in. Hiking companions went back to the trail.

• Lyme results came back positive. Prescribed doxycycline.
• Also diagnosed with another tick borne disease, Ehrlichiosis. In fact, he will go down in the medical literature as being the first confirmed case of Ehrlichiosis in all of Vermont! (What a lousy 15 minutes of fame.)
• Ate a big breakfast & lunch - great to see the appetite back!!
• Released from the hospital: took a shower, put on normal clothes & wheeled out to the car. (That means I got to be his own personal pack mule - I know he secretly loved it!)
• Back to CVS to pick up his NEW prescription and then a long 10 hr trip back to Ohio.
• Got home late & still in a lot of neck pain - but good to be home!

7/10/08 thru 7/20/08 - Just enough time for recovery...

• Watched a bunch of movies.
• Got my nose re-broken.
• Played tennis.
• Birthday celebration(s) with AMAZING homemade pizza and a live guitarist at Mama Hearts'.
• Rafted the Lower Yough (R-2'd lunches in a bucket boat).
• Dinner at Patrons with my Mom, Brandi & Jerrod.
• Lots of crab rangoons!
• Kayaked Upper Yough (NO, no not me! Just Amos.)
• 9 holes of golf with (his) Dad.
• Did I mention... we got engaged on the Upper Yough?!! Amos yanked me out of the Shredder in the same eddy that I shoved him into 9 months before... where we had our 1st kiss! Now, that's amore...

  

• Oh yeah, and back to the trail...