The Yellow Brick Road Chronicles: A Lesson To All

So in my last blog post I briefly touched base about Nathan having a health scare recently. Many people have asked exactly what happened and if he is ok. He is doing well thank God but it was a very scary 36 hours or so.
So as you may or may not know, he has had a recent bout of gout that has lasted about 2 months. Sometimes it has caused so much pain that he has had to call in to work because he couldn't even put his boot on or put any weight on his foot. He has altered his diet, increased his water consumption and even got on holistic gout medications and cherry extract juice. Still no relief. I finally talked him into seeing his physician. So last Monday he went to see her. She gave him a Kenalog injection for the inflammation, ordered a battery of labs and gave him a prescription of Colchizine, a gout medication.

She advised him to go get it filled and take one every hour until the gout pain is gone and then to come back the following day for another Kenalog injection. So off he went to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled. He took his first dose at about 5:00. If anyone knows my husband, you know how anal he is, he set his iPhone alarm to go off every hour to alert him to take his pill. So until 1:00 AM that night he took a pill every hour. I told him not to take it throughout the night so he set his alarm to go off at 8:00 AM and start his next dose that day and then every hour that day. He went back to his doctors office and got the second Kenalog shot and the nurse asked him if he was still taking the medication every hour and he said yes. He got home rested some and that evening him and I went to dinner. He took his final dose at 8:00 PM that night and within a few minutes of that dose he started feeling bad. That's when the diarrhea started and it was literally nonstop. After about the 6th trip to the restroom, I told him to weigh himself. He weighed in at 201. He attempted to go to sleep but the nonstop diarrhea would not let him. After doses of Pepto and Immodium there was still no end in sight. Wednesday morning came and he still was going at it. Poor guy was exhausted. He went back to bed and I went to work. I looked up foods to help with diarrhea and at my lunch I went to Walmart to get some food and Pedialyte for him. As soon as I walked in to the house it was so clearly evident how sick he was. He looked horrible and sounded just as bad. His skin was this weird gray color, his eyes were sunken in, he was a bit lethargic and even his voice sounded weird. He said his throat hurt as well. That was odd. He asked me to look at something online. It was the dosing instructions for the Colchizine. They were not as what the doctor had written. So I took a photo of the bottle and told him that I would call the pharmacy. I had him weigh himself again as it was clearly evident that he lost more weight. He weighed in at 191! He had lost about 12 lbs in about 12 hours! I tried to convince him to let me take him to the ER but he just couldn't leave the house, his diarrhea was still that bad. I told him that if he didn't get better by 3 that I would be taking him to the ER. I got to my office and called Walgreens. The pharmacist told me that the maximum number of pills he should have taken was 3 in a 24 hour period! He had already taken over 20 in 27 hours!! I told him al the side effects and was concerned of an overdose. He told me to call the doctors office or Poison Control or go to the ER. So I called his doctors office and told the nurse. She said that there really wasn't anything that they could do for him there and that he might need his stomach pumped but she would ask the doctor and call me back. She called back and said that the doctor said to go ahead a go to the ER so he can get hydrated and that we should be reassured that he can't "die from this medication!" I went and picked him up at home and took him to the ER. The nurse took him right back to triage. She asked how many pills he had taken and when we told her she took him right back and sent in the doctor. We told him the whole story, showed him the pill bottle and he was very concerned. Nathan wasn't feeling to well by this time and I was scared!

They started his IV, got labs drawn and started him right away on hydration. The doctor came in again while he was on the phone with poison control and verified the amount of pills he took. He came back in a few moments later and advised us that the toxicologist at UNM wanted his airlifted to Albuquerque immediately. They were worried about toxicity and multiple organ failure. We were in shock! Nathan turned whiter that he already was! He ordered him 50mg of charcoal to drink. I felt so sorry for him.

Even with him feeling horrible, he still was kidding around and being his silly self. I went home to pack our stuff and hit the road. I called his Lieutenant and told him what was going on, he told me he was leaving right away and would meet me there at UNM. So I hit the road and about 2 1/2 hours later after a grounded helicopter and plane with mechanical problems, Nathan was put on another plane to get going. He finally arrived at UNMH at about 12:45 that night. He didn't look so good but at least the charcoal and meds had stopped the diarrhea. Eric, his boss stayed to make sure Nathan was stable and ok and finally hit the road at 2:00 in the morning. The doctor came in and evaluated him and informed us that they wanted to draw labs and check his organ functions and make sure he wasn't in failure. They also wanted to monitor him and make sure he could pee since they had given him 6 bags of fluid and he hadn't peed yet. I think Mathan got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep.

And well, I got none. This was my lovely sleeping accommodations.

I finally climbed in bed with him and shut my eyes for about 45 minutes before the shift change and all the commotion of new staff came in. After labs were reviewed and vitals were monitored, they decided that afternoon that he could be released. He was given instructions to follow up with a "new" physician and have labs rechecked for kidney and liver problems and to come back if he experiences more problems. The doctor told us that if had he taken the medication the rest of that night and morning, that he probably would have experienced liver failure and his dose would have been lethal! We are so lucky that he stopped once the diarrhea came on. I can't tell you how many times we all just do what the doctors tell us but they are human and makes mistakes just as us all, but this mistake almost cost me my husband.