Brian York's Life

An Update

Written on June 19, 2008

Ok, so here’s what’s going on at the moment. Or, rather, in the recent past. It may also explain why it is that I’ve been rather slow in answering e-mails, or saying ‘hi’ to people who are online (or, for that matter, getting my work done). This has been an interesting past couple of days, and I’m hoping that they won’t be repeated anytime soon.

Saturday started as a really nice day. I was able to get down to UVic for a little bit of work, and Morgan and I played tennis for awhile afterwards. I haven’t played in awhile, and it was nice. Note, of course, that when I say we were “playing tennis”, I mean that we were batting around the ball and trying to make sure that it ended up a) over the net, and b) off of the courts of the other people playing. We weren’t really going by any sort of rules, which is much more entertaining, and a lot more exercise as well. Then we went back to get our computers from my office and head home. For those of you keeping track, this was about 6:00 PM.

So I unplugged my laptop adapter from the power bar in my office and packed my laptop, and then Morgan bent down to unplug her adapter. I was sort of vaguely looking in her direction but not really paying attention, but she looked a bit funny and then said that she’d gotten a shock from the power bar. It didn’t appear to be very serious (although she had felt it through a fair bit of her body), so we finished packing up and started walking to the bus loop, talking about what we were going to get done Sunday. Part way to the bus loop, she mentioned that her hand hadn’t stopped hurting yet, which seemed a bit odd for a minor shock. But we decided that getting home for supper was the most important thing to do, and that she’d go in to the hospital if things were getting worse (or still the same) after we’d eaten.

And, indeed, that turned out to be the case. By 6:45, when we got home, she’d decided to call Kris (a very very nice friend of ours (but mostly Morgan’s friend) who has access to a car and is willing to use it to take us places — like the hospital) and ask if she could pick us up (I decided to go along) after supper. We each had a small bowl of cabbage soup (it was good soup, but really spicy, so we had to eat it with yoghurt), and then we went off, getting to the hospital (the Royal Jubilee hospital, for those who know Victoria) at about 8:00 PM.

After waiting to check in with the triage nurse, and then waiting to see what was going to happen, we eventually decided to head home (around 11:00 PM). This was after it was pretty apparent that we weren’t very high on their priority list, and they’d told us that there were still people in emergency who’d been waiting since 9:30 AM to be seen. During this wait, the pain had spread from Morgan’s arm to her shoulder, and the hand and arm were becoming swollen (she got an ice pack from the hospital staff, but it didn’t help), but it still didn’t seem that bad. So Kris drove us home.

Once home, things just kept on getting worse. The pain spread to Morgan’s chest, and she started to go into shock. I called a 1-866 nursing line, and after talking with both of us the nurse recommended we call 911. After both of us talked a bit with the 911 operator, she sent out an ambulance and paramedics (and, apparently, a fire truck, although they weren’t needed). This was at around midnight.

The paramedics were really nice people. They helped immensely with keeping us (well, me at least, Morgan was in enough pain and shock that she wasn’t registering much) calm and focussed, and they stayed around with us to let us know what was going on for awhile after we got to the hospital. Then they moved Morgan from the cot to a wheelchair, and we ended up right back where we’d started — the emergency waiting room of the Royal Jubilee hospital. Except that this time Morgan was in a wheelchair covered in blankets, and really out of things, and I was starting to get rather scared.

I’m not actually sure how long we were waiting, but it was shortly after 3:00 AM that someone came to get us and Morgan finally got back into a bed in the emergency ward (she’d been doing much worse in the chair, something to do with the angle or something). By this point she wasn’t really registering much — I found I had to repeat things several times before she could her what I said, and then I had to explain things a few times — this is really not normal for Morgan at all, and it scared me a little because I wasn’t sure how bad things were. Once she was in the bed, we got to wait again for a bit. They were of course monitoring her pulse, respiration, etc. and they took a look at her heartbeat to make sure it hadn’t been affected by the shock, but that was it for awhile.

At around 3:45 AM, a doctor came in and took a quick look. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed by him at all. Morgan was having trouble moving because of the pain and shock, and he didn’t seem to understand that at all. While I can understand that he needed to know whether or not her ability to move her limbs had been affected, he just kept doing things that hurt her to try to convince her that she could move if she wanted to, and didn’t seem to care that it was hurting her to move, and that she didn’t really understand what was going on because of the pain and the shock. He also really didn’t think there was anything wrong, and didn’t do much in the way of looking for possible problems.

After he left, a nurse gave Morgan something for the shock symptoms, which helped a lot. They also took some blood to test, but we weren’t told about any results from the test, or at least no one seemed to think that whatever results existed were worth telling us about. Finally, at about 5:00 AM, they gave Morgan some Tylenol, and we took a taxi back to the house. And fell asleep.

Sunday was a lazy day for both of us (I was tired, and Morgan’s hand and arm were still hurting her, and she was also still dizzy and a bit unsteady on her feet). We figured that by Monday things should be better, but they really weren’t. Or, rather, the pain was still as bad, and the swelling hadn’t died down at all. If anything, it was getting worse. She couldn’t write, and was in a fair bit of pain (and DR had a cold and Morgan seemed to be catching it), so Morgan stayed home from classes on Monday. The only useful thing that happened was that the power bar was replaced in my office (everyone there was very helpful and willing to listen, and I have to say that UVic’s response so far has been very good).

So, today, things still aren’t any better. Morgan saw a doctor at UVic’s medical centre, and he sent her back to the hospital for some further tests, but we won’t know anything more until tomorrow. Meanwhile, we now have both Tylenol and T3, so the pain is (slightly) controllable, but otherwise things really aren’t much better, and the swelling is getting worse. It really doesn’t look as if standard wall current could have had this effect, so probably a charge was built up somehow (although we have no idea of how).

So, all in all, it’s been a busy weekend, and neither of us really got any work done at all. Mostly, I’m just glad that it wasn’t any worse. A bit more of a jolt, and Morgan might not be able to use the arm at all, possibly permanently. And much more than that and it could have been life threatening. So I guess we were lucky, although it really doesn’t seem that way right at the moment. My point of view on it is really that I’m just so glad that it wasn’t worse, and hoping for a quick recovery.

That was long and serious. Maybe next time I’ll have something light and fluffy (and short) for all of you reading (all what, four or five?) Until then, for those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll include a picture of our new snake below.

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Entry last updated October 5, 2004