On August 18th, Kevin sent the following information out to a large group.
For those of you who haven’t heard, I have been in the
hospital at UCI Medical Center since Aug 1.
I arrived at the UCI Emergency Room late in the evening,
complaining of pain in my upper back and overall just not feeling right. After a battery of tests and theories, I was
diagnosed with a bacterial blood infection.
I responded very well to the antibiotics they prescribed and was feeling
much better Sat-Mon Aug 3-5. I was
walking around the halls of the hospital, going to PT, etc. but the back pain
continued, albeit mitigated by the pain medications. I could not be released however, until I had
two consecutive days of negative blood cultures which would be the indicator
that the infection was cleared.
On Tuesday 8/6, the back pain continued, the blood cultures
were not clear, and I started to experience new symptoms including difficulty
walking and some numbness my legs. These
symptoms continued to worsen until Thursday evening at which time I could not
move my legs at all. The doctors were
running all sorts of tests to determine the cause of the new symptoms. Finally, at 10pm on Thursday 8/8, I was told
that I had an epidural abscess and needed emergency surgery to remove it. The abscess was compressing my spinal cord causing
the loss of mobility in my legs.
The surgery was at midnight on Friday 8/9. They performed a laminectomy in the T3-T7 area
and removed and drained the abscess. The
surgery was in exactly the area where I had been complaining about pain and
pointing to since arriving at the hospital on 8/1.
I am now nine days post-surgery, but still in the hospital. I am feeling much better; blood cultures are
negative for infection, but unfortunately only the sensation has returned to my
legs, no mobility yet.
The next steps are to be cleared to leave the hospital and
transfer to an acute rehab center specializing in spinal cord injuries. I am trying to go Craig Hospital in Englewood,
CO, and will learn if that will work out this week. Craig offers an intense,
in-patient spinal cord injury rehab program. I am focusing on staying strong both
physically and mentally to be able to navigate the challenging road ahead.
For a little more background, a reason why the bacterial
infection was more complicated for me than it might be for others, is that I
have Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS). PPMS is an incurable, progressive, auto-immune
disease of the central nervous system.
For those of you I have seen in the last few years, you’ve probably
noticed that I walk a little slower than most people and I have an odd gait. Although I might have moved a bit slower, I continued
to enjoy a normal, active life including maintaining a busy travel schedule for
work as well as snowboarding, biking, sailing, working in the garden, etc. No one was aware of my MS diagnosis other
than Jean Anne and my doctors. To
mitigate the progression of my MS, I take an immunosuppressant drug which
reduces my ability to fight infections. I chose to go to the UCI Emergency room when I
wasn’t feeling well because my neurologist and my other doctors practice here,
all my medical records are here, and I thought they would better understand my medical
history and underlying issues.
My sincere thanks to all of you who have called, sent cards,
texted, walked the dog, run our errands, cooked us dinner, brought us gifts,
weeded our yard, and visited. We can’t
thank you enough for the support.
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