Emergency Room Series: Things Are Happening!

It really saddens my heart to tell this story.

 I just hope the man involved eventually finds peace wherever he's going to be. 

This story makes me wonder why bad things happen to seemingly good people. 

So this man in his mid fifties was rushed to the ER. He was said to have been referred from another hospital. On presentation, he was very weak and restless. 

He was not well oriented as he couldn't tell where he was or say his name. He came in company of his sister, a son and a young lady who claimed to be his wife. In the previous hospital, he had done series of test and scans and had spent a significantly large amount of money. It was said that the CT-Scan he did showed lesions on some parts of his brain.

 During examination at the ER, he was unable to turn his head as his neck was stiff, he was said to have had two seizures in the previous hospital, he was sweating profusely and had laboured breathing. He was said to be unable to walk and was experiencing severe muscle weakness on his right leg and headaches too. 

He had pitting pedal and facial oedema as well as a distended abdomen. He was said to have been making very little urine and hadn't gone to a toilet in 5 days. 

He had few leisons on his skin as well

It was a neurological, gastrointestinal, renal and possible dermatological case. Too much for one body, I must be sincere.

Despite his state of health his vitals signs were good. It was just his oxygen saturation level that was a bit low so we had to nurse him in cardiac position and support him with oxygen. 

His sister was by his side praying for him and his son who looked to be in his mid twenties was with him. I noticed his 'wife' was very restless. She was always asking the blood tests we wanted to do and why. The way she was behaving made It look fishy to us.

He had an ECG done. His blood was taken for kidney and liver function tests. The doctors decided to run an HIV test without the patient's consent because the symptoms were similar to those in severe immunosuppression. 

The man was placed on IV fluids, antibiotics and other medications while we waited for the test results. Gradually he became oriented and could talk. He was also able to make more urine. 

The blood test were not looking good. His creatinine and urea levels were high, his kidneys were failing. He had high levels of bilirubin too. His HIV test result came out to be surprisingly Positive. My guess was he had something called HIV encephalopathy, a condition where the virus affects the brain and its normal functions. 

Now, despite this man's condition, he held on to his Cross chain which he had on his neck. He could be heard whispering and praying in other tongues. He kept sighing and calling Jesus to help him. A doctor went to his bed side and asked his wife, sister and son to leave. The wife was adamant as usual, claiming she deserved to know everything. She was told that even if she was his mother, there was something called patient confidentiality and so she should leave immediately, so she left. 

The doctor then asked the man when last he had an HIV test done. He said he had never done it before but his former wife had done it during antenatal screening and it was negative and that was over twenty years ago and that his former wife died during childbirth which produced his only son who was with them at the hospital. He said he remarried and the lady with him refused to do the test once when he asked for it during courtship and she had never gotten pregnant despite being together for 8 years so he didn't know her status.

 He claimed to have always used his personal clipper, never had blood transfusion, never did surgery, never shared a sharp object or cheated on his new wife, so he was sure it would be negative. Mehn, it was deep! 

The doctor asked for his permission to do the test and he agreed. The doctor then called his 'wife' and asked for her permission to take her blood too but she declined, asking why and claiming she wasn't sick. She was just restless up and down. The doctors didn't like countenance, She had tattoos all over with tattoo brows, fake lashes, long nails and wig and her skin looked like she just had a bad sun tan. I don't know why and how the man got himself with her.

 The doctors had no choice than to work him up for referral to another hospital. 

They made sure to write in his referral letter that he was immunosuppressed but it didn't state he had HIV. I'm sure they would definitely run the test at the other hospital. I hope nemesis catches up with the woman!. 

The doctors didn't reveal his status to him because he was still unstable. 

Hopefully when he gets to the other hospital he would be alert enough to take the news. 

We knew among ourselves that he must have been infected by the wife and its possible she was on treatment, hence her refusal to take the test and her panicking. I pray that the man is rightly diagnosed and gets better and stable in time. I felt bad for the man and even worse for the son who might lose his father too(God forbid!).

*Are you not supposed to report her for knowingly infecting her partner?