We spent this weekend here...
Jacob was feeling sick all week, but we figured it was just a stomach bug. On Saturday, he developed a fever and the back of his head and neck started hurting. He decided to post his symptoms of Facebook to see if anyone recognized them. A girl he works with, who is currently in nursing school, pointed out that they sounded like meningitis symptoms. When he woke up feeling worse on Sunday, we decided to head for the ER.
Once we got there and he explained his symptoms, the doctor basically said, "Yeah, sounds like meningitis." They had to do a spinal tap to test his spinal fluid and find out for sure. Not the funnest experience for him.
After running a few tests, they found that he had 5 white blood cells in each sample(spinal fluid shouldn't have any), twice the amount of protein that should have been there, and other markers that indicate a virus.
He was admitted to the hospital at about 1:00 pm and they ordered tons of tests, just to make sure that it really was meningitis and not anything else.
Fortunately, if you're going to have meningitis, viral is the one to have. Bacterial will kill you, viral usually doesn't. Unfortunately, they can only treat the symptoms of a virus. So they put him on morphine and zofran and stuck him in isolation. No one cared about me, since I'd already been exposed and wasn't showing symptoms, but everyone else who came in the room had to wear a gown, gloves and a mask.
On Monday, he started feeling better around noon. We had already seen one doctor and were waiting for the Infectious Diseases Specialist to come in before they could decide whether to release him. Around 5, the nurses started calling the doctor for us to find out when he was coming. When the day nurses left at 7, they still hadn't reached him, but told us that he's notorious for coming in at 8 or 9 pm, so they were sure he would be there.
We didn't see even the night nurse until 11:30. At which point, we were really tired and a little annoyed. She took 10 minutes, reached the doctor on the first try and he said Jacob could go! So at 11:59 pm (hooray for not paying for another day), he was discharged and we got to come home!
We're feeling a little sleep deprived at the moment and are still waiting to find out the results of all the tests. Jacob still has a headache, but other than that, he's feeling much better!
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