K4WTF – Needs your Prayers and your Support

I am asking that if you would like, I’m collecting some cash to buy a really nice boquet of flowers to send to Johns wife. I spoke with John this afternoon for a few, and he said she would really get a kick out of getting a bunch of flowers from a group of geeks on the internet like ourselves :). John will not know more until the doctor gives him more information on her condition. I’m taking up a collection at [email protected] (paypal). It would be great if those who know him, and those that don’t help to contribute and show your support for one of our own.

EDIT/UPDATE (as of 1715 CST): (John asked I cross post this):OK. Here’s what is going on right now:We took RadioWife into the hospital on Friday evening – I think it was Friday – the days are running together. Anyway, we went into the hospital because the pain was so bad and unmanagable at home.

On Sunday, for some reason, the Doctors decided to give her Marinol (synthetic THC/Medical Marijuana). I’m still not clear on WHY they decided to do this because the approved indications for Marinol (and all other synthetic and non-synthetic THC products) do *not* include pain management. It’s approved for increasing appetite (duh.. The munchies) and anti-nausia but, there are NO approvals for use as a pain management medication.

Anyway, Sunday morning about 11:30am, RadioWife called me on the phone. She could not speak in sentences that humans understand and it is doubtful that most aliens could understand her. I rushed to the hospital to find out what was going on. She appeared as if she was having a stroke and seizures at the same time. Her face was drawn like you see when someone has a stroke, her whole body was twitching to the point that her legs were coming out of the bed almost a foot and she could not speak. They called the neurology attending who did a head CT scan and several other tests. She had no feeling or control in her legs/feet, she could not control her right arm at all, no feeling in her face or forehead, etc. This was at about 1pm. At about 4pm, her pulse raced to 172bpm and her O2 saturation dove below 80%. They brought the crash cart in and there had to be 20 nurses and doctors there. Then, suddenly she let out a sigh and her whole body went limp – no more tremmors but no breathing either. The attending doctor did a sternum rub which after the second or third try resulted in her gasping for air and starting to breath again. Through about 9pm last night, she was on 2ltrs o2, non-rebreath to maintain her o2 saturation. The symtoms subsided to just little twitches about 10pm and that’s where we are today.

Now, if that wasn’t bad enough – you’ll remember that we went into the hospital because the pain was not manageable. Well, when she had the reaction to the drug that I have no idea why they gave her, they took her off of all narcotic pain killers so the pain is worse than when she went in to begin with which she says is worse then childbirth but not as bad as when she had the kidney stone.

Her primary doctor/surgen had not been in yet today when I left at about 4pm so, I’m not sure what the deal is yet. I did have the stat nurse make a note in the chart that they’re NOT TO DO ANYTHING without asking ME first as far as changing, adding or removing meds, etc – otherwise I would put my size 13 up someones butt and rotate it.

She didn’t have a gastric bypass though. She still has all of her stomach and intestines. They just don’t work. She has Gastric Paresis which in simple terms means that her stomach is paralyzed. To try to jump-start it, they implanted a gastric pacemaker. It works just like a cardiac pacemaker only for the stomach. She also has two tubes in her abdomen. One goes to her stomach to drain it so she isn’t so nausiated and the other goes to her intestines so we can feed a special formula called osmolite (sp) which is basicly semi-digested Ensure.

I know – it’s all very confusing and nobody seems to know why it happened or how to fix it.

We truly appreciate all of your prayers and well wishes.

Semper Fi,

John

For those not familiar, the batlounge was spun off (much like Hamsexy in some senses) from people on the Batboard who wanted a place to BS after we decided to close down the lounge (Hamsexy was born out of the origional lounge before it was shut down). John, K4WTF, runs the forums at www.batlounge.us.