Back Pain and Downhill Spiral?

Even though you try and prepare yourself for the downhill spiral of an illness, sometimes you are ill-equipped. Take, for instance, my husband. Yesterday, he was working happily on his rec-room bathroom. This morning was when the downhill spiral seemed to dip even further down and at a very high speed.

Greg awoke this morning to very bad lower back pains. Now, for those that don't know, Greg woke up one morning back in 2002 with the same pain and within days, he was on a ventilator and fighting for his life. Needless to say, my heart always drops down to my toes whenever he starts to complain about back pain; even with his new lungs.

Immediately, he took his temperature and we allowed ourselves to breathe once more when it read 97.7 degrees F. He then took 2 Tylenol and laid down on the couch. Now the fun began as he couldn't get comfortable and started to have a major coughing fit. My heart skipped a beat as I watched him hobble over to the kitchen sink and empty his stomach into the sink basin. Even our dogs knew something was wrong and tried to fight against me to get to him as he continued to get sick. After 5 minutes of this, he turned and headed back to the couch, where he has been ever since.

Lucky for us, Greg had not yet taken his transplant medications so those were not lost to the sink episode. He is waiting a bit now to do his lung function test (spirometry) at home until his stomach has calmed down enough and the pain starts to lessen. Since he did not lose his transplant medications and he has no fever, we are not running to the hospital at this time. However, if his lung function tests turn out to have dropped and he continues to be in this much pain, we will have no choice but to make the dreaded trip to see the folks in the white coats. Let's pray it doesn't come to that.