Nah, bad bug of some kind, and the infectious disease folks at the hospital were given to fits of speculation due to my presumed exposure to global people from various hotbeds of contagion on the Metro. (Mind the gap!) Bird flu was high on the list of things they feared, and I was in a high level of isolation that required my family visitors (all I could have at that point) to suit up fully since I was a barely living biohazard. They tested for a number of things (including histo), and were never able to identify the initial infectious agent. The bacteria for the pneumonia and sepsis were run of the mill for that sort of thing, but they were sure that I caught something viral that caused me to crater so quickly.
I was aware of none of this for some time, because I was kept on a respirator and in the induced coma for nine days. This ended abruptly when I woke up prematurely and "excavated" myself. That is the term for the removal of the breathing tubes, and I did it by simply pulling them out and asking "WTF?" to the panicked nurse who found me. To pull the tubes out like that is a dangerous thing in itself, and I actually did it twice; the first time I remember rather vividly though I had not idea where I was geographically. I cracked up the doctors as they were preparing to put the tubes back in by remarking on the radio that was playing in the background. It was pledge time for KUHF, the local NPR station, and I heard the familiar begging in the background and said out loud "I'm a public radio supporter." The doctors laughed. I must be very well trained to spout such in my condition at that time. Roger G. Moore -----Original Message----- From: Stefan Creaser <[email protected]> To: caverarch <[email protected]>; ltiu <[email protected]> Cc: texascavers <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, Feb 22, 2012 10:53 am Subject: RE: [Texascavers] Cost of Rabies Shots Bad curry? -Stefan From: caverarch [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:12 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Cost of Rabies Shots That is where I caught a mysterious ailment that didn't manifest itself until the day after I was back in Houston. Three days later I was in hospital in an induced coma and on a respirator with pneumonia and sepsis. I came close enough to checking out that my kids were summoned home from college for a few days, and I didn't get out of the hospital for 5 1/2 weeks. I have honestly not been the same since. Roger G. Moore -----Original Message----- From: Lyndon Tiu <[email protected]> To: caverarch <[email protected]> Cc: egelsone <[email protected]>; ac <[email protected]>; texascavers <[email protected]>; stephen.gutting <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, Feb 21, 2012 8:14 pm Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Cost of Rabies Shots What happened to you in London? On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:54 PM, caverarch <[email protected]> wrote: > I got a similar pre-exposure immunization to that which Allan refers from a > Houston travel medicine service prior to a trip to Belize in 2001. It was > added to a standard tropical infectious diseases package after I mentioned > that I would be caving. The price for the co-pay on the whole lot wasn't > prohibitive or I would have gone without. > > As it turned out, Belize didn't kill me, but London nearly did. :-( > > Roger G. Moore > > -- IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Thank you.
