Asthma Sucks... aka near death experience for my dh

What a week (actually, last week… I started writing this a week ago). It started off with an early morning trip to Target to take Jay to work by 4:30a.m.  Not three hours later and Jay almost left this bodily domain.

About 7:15, the phone rings, waking me from my nap between dropping Jay off at work and picking him up from work.  It was Jay’s job coach, L. He said that Jay was having an asthma attack. I quickly found out that it was a major attack, and the ambulance was on its way to get him. So I told him to tell the ambulance to take him to the university hospital (WAS the one hospital that he’d never stayed in, also the closest one to his work), and that I was on my way. In the ER, I met L. for the first time, and he explained everything that he knew about the asthma attack while we waited to be let back to the back.  Jay had been working for about 2 hours when his chest started to feel tight.  He decided to take his break and headed to the break room and used his puffer.  The puffer wasn’t really working for him.  That’s where L. found him and offered to take him home.  They started out of the building, and Jay’s breathing got worse and worse.  By the time L. pulled his car around to the front door, Jay was bent over and couldn’t speak.  He held up 9-1-1 with his fingers.  L. went in and told the manager, who called the ambulance while L. went back out to Jay. 

Once in the ER, they tried the bi-pap machine on him.  It wasn’t working, so after awhile, the ER doc told me they wanted to intubate him.  I agreed to it.  So L. and I had to leave the room while they did that.  I called his parents at that time to let them know what was happening, since it was so bad at that point.  I also called the A/C guy that was supposed to come out to the house that day (great timing, eh?).  He was fine with working in the house without me there; said they did it often.  I’d had the forethought to leave a key under the downspout catch.  So I told him where the key was and that I would check in on them periodically.

From then on, Jay was sedated until the next morning before they took the tube out (extubated him).  After he was intubated, they moved him up to the ICU.  L. left once they had him up there, and I promised to keep him updated on Jay’s status.  Once Jay was in the ICU, they wanted to put a central line in him.  I agreed to it, knowing that he’d had one before.  Meanwhile, I’m waiting and waiting to be let back into the room to see him.  They’d kicked me out right after they brought him up.  Then they had  a problem getting the central line in because his veins were partially occluded (probably from past scar tissue from past central lines), so they wanted to put a pic line in.  I agreed to that (again, he’s had one before).  So finally after all of that, hours later, I was able to go into his room and start answering the usual questions from the nurse (meds, medical history, etc.).  She felt bad that I had had to wait for so long (and hadn’t gotten to go eat any lunch), and gave me a complimentary card for $ 7 credit in the hospital cafeteria.  I didn’t use it until the next day. 

By around 3:00 or so, I decided to head back to the house and check on the A/C guys and eat something.  Jay was sedated and breathing better, so I knew nothing was going to change any time soon.  I’d already spoken to Jay’s parents and his sister several times during the day.  I knew Jay’s dad was trying to find someone to drive down with him, but hadn’t found anyone yet.  At home, everything was going fine with the A/C replacement, so I hung out until they finished.  On the way back, I picked up a friend to sit with me and sent a text to his sister that I was heading back to the hospital.  She texted back that they were on their way there, had just gotten off the interstate. So I quickly texted back to park by the Patient Discharge area and take the elevators up from there.  They stayed for a few hours.  I know it really bothered his sister to see Jay intubated, and then she saw that they had his arms strapped down to the bed.  I explained it was so that if he woke up, he wouldn’t try pulling the tubes out of his mouth.  Jay’s dad just took it all in stride.  He worked as a medic in the military back in the day, so he’s seen worse. 

Tuesday morning, I got back to the hospital in time for visiting hours to start at 8am.  They had taken Jay off the sedative, and he was starting to come around.  His breathing was much better, and they talked about extubating him that morning.  By mid-morning they did.  He doesn’t remember anything from that morning though.  I would later have to repeat almost everything I had told him that morning:  how he’d gotten to the hospital, my calling his work, the A/C guys, his sister & dad coming the day before… Later that day, they took out the catheter from his penis.  My friend and her husband came by to visit before going to their childbirth class.  By then, the hospital had gotten back the MRSA results on Jay, and he had tested positive again, so visitors had to suit up in “protective gear”.  Such a weird practice at the hospital.  We were told that he would probably move out of ICU that day.  Of course, it didn’t happen.  There had been some concern about his kidney because his creatinine level had gone up from the day before.  It had been 1.7 when he was in the ER Monday morning, but was 2.1 in the ICU Tuesday morning.  The nephrologist was pretty sure it was because of all the drugs and stuff they’d put through him in the past 24 hours, but they wanted to be sure. So they pushed a lot of fluids.

Wednesday morning, his creatinine was back down to 1.7, and they moved him to a regular room.  He spent 24 hours in there, and got to go home on Thursday.  We already had an appointment with the nephrologist for Friday, so we just set up an appointment with his primary for follow up on his breathing.  On Friday, the nephrologist was quite surprised that Jay had gotten out of the hospital so quickly.  He was able to look at his x-rays and whatnot from the hospital.  He said that usually an asthma attack that bad has people staying in the hospital for a couple of weeks.  Even better, his creatinine on the last day in the hospital was at 1.3. 

This asthma attack was the worst one that Jay has ever had.  And I have said many times over the past few years, that it’s not the diabetes that’s going to kill him, it’s the asthma.  It almost did.  Jay has said several times since that day, that he thought for sure he was not going to make it; that he was going to die.  He said he prayed and prayed to God, while standing, bent over, outside Target, to not let him go this way, to keep him alive.  And He did.