Worst Week (tv show or my life?)

What a week…

First I need to specify that Bill is ok and Shadow is doing better. Last Friday night my brother called to tell me Shadow has been lethargic that afternoon. We agreed to give it the night and see first thing in the morning what our options were. The next day he was worse and so I drove to Bellevue and picked Mike and Shadow up and went to my vet. After speaking with the nurse they decided I should go to the Emergency Pet Hospital. After a few hours in the emergency vet we went home with an antibiotic and a cat with a fever. I had a feeling there was something more but the vet just couldn’t find anything. Sunday morning I call Mike and Shadow is now limping with his back leg and barely walking at all. I rush to Bellevue and back up to Kirkland to see the vet again. A blood clot in a cat is an extremely serious matter so they admit him and do an ultrasound and a ton of blood tests. Everything is off. There is a mass on his liver that may be cancerous and is abscessed. After a few more tests they are keeping him to give IV Antibiotics. Mike and I head home hoping but not high hopes. I now have not slept well for 2 nights and am not looking forward to a good night’s sleep again.

Monday morning I wake up. The world seems to be moving slowly. I don’t know why. I am just tired and it’s snowing again. There is a huge accident on 405 and so Bill and I decide that instead of driving different cars we will just drive the Jeep so we can both make it over Tiger Mountain (Highway 18) in the snow and avoid 405. Because I am tired Bill and I decide he should drive until we get to his work and then at that point I will drive to my office so I can go see Shadow if I get a call. We head out the door and start up the highway. Bill suddenly coughs and grabs his chest and tells me he is really hot. I feel his forehead and he is burning up and sweaty. He tells me he has to pull over. I talk him into continuing about a ¼ mile or so to an area where the road goes from 2 lanes down to 1 since we can’t pull off the road due to the snow drifts about 3-4 feet tall. We get to the spot and he pulls over. I throw the car into park while I call 911. He stops responding to me and his breathing becomes very shallow. The emergency people on the phone send people to us and the woman tells me I should start CPR because Bill is not breathing right. I can’t pull him out of the car because to our right is a 3 foot snow drift and the other is a highway during Monday rush hour traffic. I push his seat back as far as it can go and mine as well. I started CPR as best I could in the situation (thank you Kindercare fo r sending me to a CPR class). Time seems to go by at a pace I can’t even begin to describe. I was terrified. I just knew I had to keep him breathing. The Fire Dept. showed up finally after what seemed forever and yet no time at all. They pulled Bill out of the car and quickly got a pulse and blood pressure. This is a good sign and I have watched enough doctor shows to know that much. While the Fire Dept. worked on him one of them took our information. I don’t remember much about this except for all of them telling me what a great job I did and me sitting there feeling like an idiot. Finally they loaded Bill into the Ambulance and after I grabbed everything out of the Jeep I thought I might need they put me in the front. Off we went to the hospital.

If you ever have to have an incident like this or similar I highly suggest doing it in King County. We have a fantastic group of Fire Dept guys and great ER staff at Overlake Hospital.

They got us to the hospital and put us in a room. After an hour or so Bill started to come to. The FD had pumped him full of valium in the ambulance when they were trying to intubate him (his tongue if too big hehe) Bill’s blood pressure dropped to 75/50 but his respiration and heart rate were ok. I called Bill’s ex and so after a bit she and his son came by. Finally after a few hours they moved him upstairs to an ICU room and he was coherent again. They ran EKG, Cat Scans, X-rayed his heart and his lungs, ran blood test after blood test. Hooked him up to every machine they had and they can’t find anything other than a high white cell count. After spending the majority of my day waiting to hear something from the doctors I went and picked Mike up and we went to the vet to visit Shadow and see if he would eat. After 2 hours we gave up. I headed back to the hospital and found Lex back from Portland. Bill was upset that they wouldn’t let him leave because he was feeling “fine”. The night nurse convinced me that Bill would sleep better if I wasn’t there so Lex and I came back to the house to sleep for a couple hours. After waking up way too early we headed back to the hospital to sit with Bill. The doctor came in and told us all his tests were negative. No heart attack enzymes, nothing of note except a high white cell count. They know it is an infection but no guess as to where and why it would have caused him to black out and have trouble breathing. They discharged him about 5 (just in time to get stuck in rush hour traffic.)

Today he has been fine from all accounts. The Vet called and told me we could pick up Shadow. We drove up to Bellevue, picked up Mike and went and picked up Shadow. He is doing ok. The blood clot in his foot may make his foot useless or it might break up and it will be fine. We have to give him 2 weeks of antibiotics and then take him back in for more blood work and an ultra sound to look at the mass on his liver. There is a potential it is benign or to determine if he will need surgery to remove it.

So that is the last 5 days or so for me… Bill goes back to his general practitioner tomorrow morning and I am probably going to ask for a second opinion or to see someone that might have a better idea of what might have happened. I am not satisfied with the “Sometimes things just happen” diagnosis.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I will post an update soon if I have any more news.