And so, early that Friday, the lady drove her husband to Danbury Hospital, the emergency room closest to the couple’s small Connecticut city. He walked in on his personal. It was the final time he would stroll with out assist for weeks.
Many Pink Drugs
He was admitted to the hospital. Neurology was consulted and did an intensive work-up: blood exams, CT scans, an M.R.I., an EEG, a spinal faucet. Whereas there have been some abnormalities, nothing defined his fast psychological and bodily decline. There was no signal of an infection or tumor. No proof of seizures. His vitamin ranges have been regular. And the gastritis he had earlier that spring was responding properly to a every day acid-reducing medicine, pantoprazole.
Though he had the stiffness and tremor that will be typical of a affected person with Parkinson’s, his speedy decline was not. Creutzfeldt-Jakob illness may cause a quickly progressive psychological and bodily incapacity, however neither the EEG nor the M.R.I. confirmed any proof of the uncommon illness. One factor apprehensive his spouse: He was taking a really excessive dose of Pepto-Bismol — 4 drugs a day — which had been prescribed for the gastritis. When an excessive amount of Pepto-Bismol causes issues, it’s normally due to an overload of the aspirin-like compound within the drugs, however after they checked, that degree was regular.
Lastly, after 5 days of intense investigation, the neurologists had discovered nothing and determined to refer him to a neurologist at Yale College. Whereas he wasn’t sick sufficient to should be within the hospital, his docs and spouse agreed that he was too weak to go dwelling. As an alternative, he was despatched to a short-term rehabilitation middle, the place he might get the care he wanted and presumably a few of his energy again.
It was night by the point the person and his spouse arrived at CareOne’s River Glen Well being Care Heart in Southbury, Conn. Nicole DiCenso, the nurse on obligation, got here to see the affected person as soon as he acquired to his room. Proper from the beginning, DiCenso thought there was one thing odd about his story. He regarded wholesome and powerful — fitter than her mother and father, who have been about his age. And but when she tried to maneuver him to the chair scale to weigh him, she was shocked that he was too weak to maneuver himself to the sting of the mattress — even along with her assist. It was onerous to reconcile his profound incapacity together with his spouse’s report that he had been strolling 10 to fifteen miles a day simply weeks earlier. It regarded as if the vigor had in some way been sucked out of his physique, leaving his muscular tissues current however powerless.
