My Ability To Speak Stopped

I hope you had a great holiday season. I had a significant scare just before Christmas that is now behind me.

My wife discovered as we were hustling the garbage cans out on December 19th that I wasn’t responding to her. She announced, “I’m taking you to the ER.” While I tried to protest, I wasn’t persuasive. That’s a good thing.

My incoherence continued and the first step was to confirm whether I’d suffered a stroke. As luck would have it, I had not. My body temperature on arrival was 99. No big clue there. A team of doctor’s was assigned to investigate what might be going on: neurologists, infectious disease doctors, internists: it was a quite a team. All I could speak was gibberish, not a great state to be in for a person who is quite verbal.

Soon, my body temperature rose to 104.5 degrees. The game plan changed: I was sedated and placed in an ice bath. I’m so grateful for being sedated! I believe I was in isolation for a few days. I don’t remember 3 days of my stay. It’s not even a blur–I remember nothing.

The extensive blood tests continued for days; no positives for any diseases came back. I was treated with IV antibiotics for about 5 days, a treatment regimen called for if one has bacterial meningitis. Better to be safe than sorry. When the doctor’s saw me on Saturday, they were amazed at my ability to communicate with them. Their smiles revealed great relief.

Who could imagine that a brain could be impaired without a stroke or some kind of brain trauma and cause me to be non-verbal? I certainly had not known of any cases like mine. My general practitioner believes I had viral meningitis even though the tests for that were negative. All the symptoms and the progression of my symptoms mimicked viral meningitis.

What did I learn? It’s a good thing my wife got me to the ER when she did. It was important that I got help as soon as I did.

If you have a problem like mine, don’t wait to get help. Get help now. Did I mention I moved to #1 on the list in the ER as soon as I was signed in. That should tell you something. You can’t move fast enough.

Thought for the week:

“You can’t be legendary if you have no energy. If you look at any iconic producer, one of the common traits they have, is massive levels of energy born of inspiration.” – Robin Sharma, How To Stay Ultra Inspired

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