PRELUDE to 2021 Awareness Drive

Two weeks before our planned itinerary, my hubby started feeling ill. If this would have been different timeframe, we would shrugged it off and I would have told him “don’t be a cry baby”. However, we are meeting people along our route, and I hate to admit that this pandemic is making paranoid out of me. He was easily tired, coughing, having chills and a fever. He went to an Urgent Care clinic to get tested for COVID, FLU and Strep but all came back negative, so we were very happy to know that. After four more days of being miserable, I forced him to go to his primary care dr.. They gave him a steroid shot and prescribed him a z-pack. Three days later his coughing was getting worse, and my paranoia is getting more restless so he asked the doctor if they could do blood work. The results came back that his white blood count was high and we went to ER … yes, you read it right! I forced him to go the Emergency Room because this time, he is worsening. They prescribed him a stronger antibiotic and after two days and a lot of sleep he perked up and was ready to go.

Many may think that we were too paranoid but I was feeling a little déjà vu is unfolding. If you recall, on our 1st AS Awareness in 2019, Mike had an infection that went sepsis because he kept saying he was fine and it was just a cold. After putting it off too long we met a family who had a child with AS and thankfully they were in the medical field and recommended he go straight to the ER. Once there, they admitted him for a week because he was septic and his kidneys were functioning at 30%. After that, I can’t help but worry every time he’s not feeling well.

With his feeling better and Matt doing good, we’ve checked our route, and checked our list twice and off the road we go.