We were in our mid 30’s, living in a big city, and excelling in our careers. We had a normal life with friends, family, vacations, personal goals, hobbies, etc that made it easy to relate our peers and others. Dustin was a successful cyber security manager. He was ambitious, clever, and quite good at his job despite always complaining about it. Nicole was finishing up her first year as a nurse practitioner working with advanced heart failure patients needing transplants or mechanical circulatory support. By all measures, we had a normal and successful life. We were both career focused but strived to find that work-life balance everyone wants. We were happy, healthy, and just living our best lives.
July 2018 started out as you’d expect – hot as hell. The Fourth of July holiday fell on a Wednesday and we took advantage of making it a long weekend. We took a short camping trip with our friends Kelli and Matt. It was blistering hot, but we were able to snag a cabin with air conditioning for a couple of days and would tent camp the other days. Kelli and Matt are avid campers and have a posh camper. However, they just expanded their little family of three and added TWINS in April. I was obviously excited to meet the little Twinkies for the first time. Dustin was more excited about playing cars with their toddler Wyatt. We had a blast even though it was a thousand degrees. We went on walks, we went swimming in a pool, we made s’mores, we played lots of SkipBo, and just caught up on each others lives.
Everything was normal. I mean, we all had a bit of heat exhaustion and probably a headache. But nothing that couldn’t be solved with some shade, water, and maybe some Tylenol. We ended up leaving a day early because both Dustin and I ended up getting a cold. Dustin blamed the Twinkies because naturally kiddos are germ factories.
See, totally normal, totally healthy mid 30s people living their best lives. But that’s really the last sense of normalcy we had before everything came crashing down.
July 11th, 2018 started out pretty normal for the most part. It was a Wednesday. I was getting my ass kicked by this cold and took the day off work. I work with immunocompromised patients and I didn’t want to pass it along. Dustin was feeling well enough and went to work as usual.
Early afternoon, I closed my eyes to take a nap when I was startled awake by my phone ringing. I looked at my phone with the intention of ignoring whoever was rudely awakening me from my slumber. But the caller ID said it was Dustin’s work. Weird, Dustin never calls me from his work phone. I answered because it was just weird and I don’t purposefully ignore calls from Dustin.
The caller on the other end identified herself as Robin from Human Resources.
My mind is already racing. Robin immediately tries to reassure me, “You’re listed as Dustin’s emergency contact and wife. Dustin has had a seizure. Don’t worry, he’s okay. But we did call 911 and the paramedics are taking him to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Since Dustin was a little confused, we sent a colleague of his with him in the ambulance.”
My heart and brain started to full on panic. I abruptly tell her, “ma’am, I’m sorry but Dustin is NOT okay. I’m a nurse practitioner. Dustin has no history of seizures so this is not at all in the realm of okay. Please don’t make assurances that he’s okay when you cannot know that with certainty.”
I don’t remember how I ended the call. My memory of this time is more in snapshots. Brief but very clear snapshots. I remember calling my neighbor Bruce. He didn’t answer. So I called again. He asked if he could call me back and I said no and that I needed him to drive me to the hospital. Bruce dropped everything to get me to the hospital. I brushed my hair, put on clothes, and hopped into his car.
Having previously worked at Northwestern Memorial Hospital as a bedside nurse, I knew exactly where to go to get to the Emergency Department. I’m not sure if the car came to a complete stop before I hopped out of the car and ran.
I’m immediately brought back to Dustin. He was in a small room with sliding glass doors and a curtain. I throw the curtain back and barge in like a fucking boss. I look at Dustin and then the screen that displayed all his vital signs quickly trying to make sense of what the fuck was going on. His colleague Quinn was sitting next to him in a plastic chair. There was a nurse doing some nurse task that she had to do.
I blurt out, “Jesus Christ Dustin you look like fucking shit.” He was pale and diaphoretic. In lay people talk, he was white as a ghost and really sweaty. The nurse looks at me and says, “well she’s a straight shooter, who is she?” Dustin and I both reply that I’m his wife. Dustin sighs and says, “yeah I feel like shit.”
I tell his nurse that I’m a nurse practitioner and to just give me a quick update. Apparently, he hadn’t been there long but they were getting labs, running intravenous fluids, and planning on a head CT. Okay, cool that seems reasonable.
I start drilling Dustin and his colleague Quinn. I need to know the details. When was the seizure? What did the seizure look like? How long was the seizure? Did Dustin lose consciousness? What was he doing when the seizure happened? Did he eat lunch? Was he acting weird that day?
Looking back, I probably scared poor Quinn. I was fucking terrified and I had no control over anything. This wasn’t my Emergency Department. This wasn’t just one of my patients. This was my husband, none of this was in my control, and none of this made any sense. I usually pride myself in being able to think on my toes during a medical emergency at work. But I wasn’t at work. I quickly flipped between super anxious wife and off my game provider. I wasn’t at my best as a wife or provider let alone both at the same time. When I am busy and stressed out, I can be a little intense to say the least.
I was trying to make sense of everything leading up to and after the seizure. I was relying on information from Quinn and Dustin. For fucks sake, they are cyber security specialists not medical people. I’d trust them to fix my computer or guide me on keeping my private information secure. But they were terrified computer nerds facing a medical emergency. I was trying to get information so I could make a list of differential diagnoses.
I texted my friend David who is a board certified emergency medicine doctor. I knew he’d ground me and help me tease out a list of differentials. I wanted to know what he’d do if Dustin showed up in his emergency department. What would he want to know if this was his spouse.
I vaguely remember trying to call one of my local best friends, Shannon. I don’t remember if I talked to her or ended up texting her. But I knew she was likely nearby as she was attending Northwestern University – she was in their doctoral physical therapy program. I don’t remember what I said to her but I must have been a mess. Because I do remember her showing up with a bag full of treats from Starbucks and a bottle of San Pellegrino. Treats and my preferred hydrating beverage in like two minutes definitely equals my friend is in dire trouble.
I realize that while I’m technically out sick from work, it is still my week to be on call. FUCK. I can’t deal with the fucking pager right now. I try calling my work friend Justin and our lead and didn’t get any answer. So I sent a text. I don’t remember all the details but so many of my work colleagues tried calling or texting to see what they could do.
My nervous system and brain were firing rapidly. I was juggling phone calls, texts, the outpatient pager, and intensely interrogating Dustin and Quinn. Dustin was cognitively not himself. He was repetitive and slightly confused. Something was very wrong.
Beside you in time 