Shortly after I wrote about his malady, mrguy and I were directed by an after hours nurse to head to the nearest emergency room. I have just finished a bowl of soup, at 2:20am, and mrguy is being officially admitted to the hospital.
In addition to his scores of migraines, he's had a cough for about 6 weeks. It's hard to notice a thing like that when you're sidelined with other kinds of crippling pain. And he insisted that he was getting better, but he also had a low grade fever that would come and go...
Anyhoo, this morning mrguy thought about going to Urgent Care. He said that he couldn't sleep last night because he felt like he was being choked. His throat felt like it was closing. I could hear from his speaking voice that his soft palate on the right seemed swollen. And toward the evening he started talking about how his carotid artery was swollen. And it was.
After we fed the cats, we called the advice nurse and went to the local Kaiser ER. They were super nice. His white blood count was only slightly elevated out of normal. They gave him fluids and antibiotics and a steriod injection and a neck CT and lung xrays. At the moment they think he has Lemierre syndrome, which is serious. He has a clot in his carotid caused by some sort of infection. They'll take more views tomorrow to see if there is a second infection in his lung.
He's going to be in the ER for another few hours before they can find him a bed. Our own system doesn't have one, so he'll stay within Kaiser. When he's lucky enough to go home, he's going to get a pic line and give himself antibiotics for 3 to 6 weeks.
Holy smokes, people. Hug your loved ones.
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