Lucky and Thankful

Hi from Neenah. Laurie and I arrived here on Thanksgiving Day but not without some major setbacks since the last post. I was doing fine until last Sunday. We were out at the mall and doing little things around town. Sunday afternoon I began to feel poorly and started to run a slight fever. Sunday evening it continued to rise and I did not sleep at all on Sunday night feeling worse by the hour. Early Monday morning my fever was 102. Laurie called the doc's number given to us and the number of the visiting nurses that had been seeing me on several occasions at the hotel. We called each number multiple times over the course of Monday morning and did not get a call back. We were within minutes of going to the ER or calling 911 for help and finally received calls from both the doc's office and the visiting nurses after nearly five hours. Fortunately, about the same time the fever began to subside slightly. It was about as sick as I have ever been in my life.

We continued to try to get the fever down with lots of fluids and cold compresses and it worked. The nurse visited us on Monday afternoon and said my lungs sounded pretty good and the doc's office set an appointment for first thing on Tuesday to go through some tests to see what was wrong. My lungs checked out and all the tests did not indicate anything. However, it put our departure date on Wednesday AM in jeopardy.

We saw the doc on Wednesday AM and said we were discharged. Laurie and I ran out of the hospital before anyone could change their mind. We split the trip home into two four hour parts, stopping in Flossmoor on Wednesday evening. We got to Neenah on Thursday afternoon in time for a great meal at the Rickman's. We then went home and continued to realize how lucky and blessed we are. "Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home."

Thanks to everyone for all the support and prayers. We will periodically provide an update to the blog over the next few weeks. We are due back in Ann Arbor at the end of January for some tests and a doctor's visit. Everything is functioning well and I am feeling better each day. Since we arrived back home, Laurie has developed a bad sounding cold. Time for the patient to give some TLC. We are both exhausted from the ordeal. It' been over a month since we left for Ann Arbor. We are so thankful.