Disney World Vacation:
Planning, Prepping, Packing and Postponing a trip of a lifetime and things I learned along the way.
Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, U is combined with V today; the unforeseen technicalities being a gremlin who took my completed and published U article off into the ether yesterday never to be seen again.
Unbelievable- Continuing our story... bright and early Tuesday morning , I drive Alison back to the medical complex that is close to her home. We have managed to get an appointment with a neurologist who will see us right away. She listens to Alison's longer and longer story- when she thinks she got the cold, the meds she's taken, the headache which is now the worst she has ever had, the ER doctor (no help there) the confusion (I am really stressing the confusion). The doctor walks across the room, feels Alison's neck, asks her to move her neck and says "I am sending you to the hospital, I want you to have a lumbar puncture; it will give us a definitive answer. I think you have Meningitis."
We mention that we are supposed to leave for Disney with the vague hope we can still go and the doctor immediately squashes that hope.
"You are a very sick woman, with a very compromised immune system right now- you can't be thinking you are going to get on a plane and possibly be infected by other passengers or have them infect you. And Disney- that has be be the most germ filled place in the world. You'll get there and be so sick you'll be in bed, and what- your sister will have to show herself around? You are in no shape to go anywhere.
Viral or Bacterial- To make the story move along for you, my faithful reader, I will skip the fact that Alison has been lucky in her life and has had little contact with the ugly side of medical care and hospitals. I will overlook that she is very scared to have anyone mess with her spine. I won't talk about her resources that are very low and she needs to rest and she is so easily brought to tears now.
We drive 30 minutes out of our way (there are other hospitals closer to home but this is the one the doctor is associated with), have the test done (which is very painful for her) and meet in the lobby with Tony, her husband. Realizing how sick she is, he has called the travel agent to find out what we can do about the trip. We can postpone into 2016.
Alison is sobbing, she is so afraid and Disney gave her something to hold on to. Ultimately, we decide to postpone the trip of a lifetime and concentrate on getting her better (one of us could see this coming when she stepped off the train Sunday night, to another of us it is a big surprise. She just doesn't realize how sick she is).
Around 4 o'clock, I drive her home on a major highway and two things happen simultaneously 5 minutes from home, we run out of gas ( a story for another day) and we get a call from the neurologist.
She says she is surprised the hospital released Alison. She says since we are so close to home we should go there, get Alison some dinner and then Alison should pack a bag and go back up to the hospital because she is being admitted.
"You have Meningitis... now we have to determine whether it is Viral- serious but treatable or Bacterial- contagious and possible deadly and harder to treat."
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