12 days ago, my hubby came down with what we assumed was the new strain of stomach flu going around: fatigue, digestive symptoms, fever, chills. Supposedly, the symptoms could last up to 7 days.
But here was the problem: my husband never gets sick, but he was. I catch every bug that impolitely makes my acquaintance, but I didn’t catch what he had. I had a sore throat and extreme fatigue. And even weirder, I got better before him.
We weren’t sure what was going on.
Now we know.
We discussed getting him in to see a doctor, but then he started to feel a little better. Only to spiral two days later. We landed in the ER.
Watching his health rapidly deteriorate was agony. There was nothing I could do except push doctors for answers. I demanded an abdominal CT—THANK GOD—because the problem was his kidney was obstructed and failing.
You might think, “At least it was just one kidney and not both.” Except he only has one working kidney, and it’s the one failing.
They scheduled surgery to drain the infection and toxins that had been building in his body (and brain) for eight days. Basically bypassing the failing kidney to take pressure off it.
He got worse and they had to rush him into surgery before he was scheduled. When he came out of surgery, his body freaked out, and that’s when we learned the problem wasn’t just his kidney. He was septic.
That word terrified me. People die of sepsis even with treatment.
Cue the hardest two days of my life. My husband couldn’t stay conscious, his blood pressure was dropping, he was turning yellowish, his breaths were rapid and extremely shallow, they didn’t know (still don’t) what bacteria was causing the sepsis. When he was conscious, he was disoriented. He didn’t even know I was there with him.
I prayed scripture over him, I pleaded with God, I turned on worship music and praised God in his hospital room. Friends came to pray over him.
They moved him to ICU that night, and we weren’t allowed to sleep in the room with him, so we went home to “rest.”
The next morning, I got a call from his phone. He was calling me. Still disoriented, but he told me good morning. Those were my first tears of joy.
He was a little better in the morning. He had moments of lucidity and more energy, and I got to actually speak with him instead of just to him.
They removed him from ICU, and he slowly began to decline again —exhaustion, disorientation. I came home scared last night.
Today, we saw more improvement. He was so much more lucid and energetic. My amazing hubby. His kidney is still not working well, but I have faith it will heal. He’s still battling sepsis, and he has another surgery in his future, but I am so grateful to Jesus that he is letting me keep him.
He could be in the hospital for three more days to several weeks. We have no idea right now.
I do know his spirits could use some lifting. If you want to send him encouragements or cards, you can send them to our restaurant: Orrville East of Chicago. Just address them to me so they don’t get confused for business mail.