Round Four

Heres to the longest day I can ever remember. Emily had been feeling a lot better, so we headed down to Wyoming to visit more of our family. On New Years Day, Emily and I took it easy in the morning, and we went to my parents house to watch football and to visit. Emily took about a 3 hour nap, and didn't seem to feel well, so we just took things easy. Later on that night (back at her mom's house) Emily started to experience some different symptoms. She started to have right arm/leg weakness, tingling and numbness. She started having difficulty finding the right word for things, and was confusing names and things. She had ataxic gait (meaning she walked like she was drunk), and she was really upset about everything that is happening to her. Within 15 minutes or so, the numbness resolved, and she was pretty-much back to normal again. We went to bed, but I decided to just keep an eye on her for a while. Just before mpdnight she woke up with intense back pain and headache, and shortly thereafter she had another seizure. We took her to the hospital in Rock Springs (where her mom works) by ambulance. Some time in the ambulance after she left Green River, she started speaking nonsensically. For about 30-45 minutes she would look right at and talk to us, but she was stringing together random words making no sense whatsoever. The look on her face made me think that what she was saying made perfect sense to her, though it was gobbledygook to everyone else. She then had a long seizure, and was thought to have gone back into status epilepticus (constant state of seizure) which is dangerous. She had a CT scan, and was given lots of meds to try to stop the seizures, but she really needed to see a neurologist. There is no neurologist in Rock Springs, so protocol was to get her back to Salt Lake City. She went in an ambulance to the little Rock Springs airport, where she flew by airplane to SLC. She then took another ambulance from the SLC airport to the University of Utah Hospital. Emily's mother and I left Rock Springs as they were about to load her into the ambulance, and we got to the Neuro Critical Care ward as she came in (great timing) She has had more tests (i.e. another spinal tap, a chest X-ray, blood tests, and she is back on another EEG). The doctor just came in to tell me that the preliminary results for the spinal tap show high white blood cell count, and they are still seeing viral meningitis. She either has relapsed, or (more likely) it never was fully delt with. We should have some more results in the morning, and hopefully some answers. For those who don't know, Emily and Himaya will not be coming back with me to Texas next week. They are going to stay here between Utah and Wyoming... we have a lot of family to keep an eye on her and Maya while she continues to recover until she gets her strength back.