[1sicklx]

The Downhill Slide: er - Make That a Crash

Returning from SEMA I was whooped. Coughing like crazy, felling lousy I went to the ER only to be told: Congratulations, you have pneumonia and you're going to stay with us a few days. No weird fungal stuff this time just plain old pneumonia. OK, so there I was in the hospital getting lots of antibiotics, steroids* and other meds. Over the next five days I showed improvement and was released but continued on heavy dose of designer ( read expensive ) antibiotics. As soon as you can drag yourself to the bathroom, the insurance companies want you out, so out I went. Besides I had a lousy roommate and the floor was full so I couldn't move to a private room. I was ready to go as soon as they gave the word – well, at least mentally anyway.

*(A little note on steroids – these are not the athletic kind that build you up and turn your belly into a six-pack. These are the medicinal kind that make you eat everything in sight and turns your belly into a keg.)


Well, during this time, and un-be-knownst to me, hard decisions were being made. My first trip to the hospital and flirtation with the Grim Reaper should have been a clue. But Nooooooo, I had to keep pushing myself. My family and advisors had decided that enough was enough and the only way to get me better and keep me away from the business was to temporary close KBP so there was no physical way I could go back to work before I was well. They also made arrangements for me to go to back to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN in mid-December.


When I got out of the hospital I was told just how things were going to be

period end of story. By now I was pretty much down on power and the light-bulb was finally flickering on, begrudgingly, but flickering. I guess I really was sick and needed to pay attention to it. Now for the Company, it was only a matter of how quickly can we organize a plan for the temporary shut down, wrap things up and get me off to Mayo. No sooner did we start formulating a plan, and I started getting sicker . . . again.


Guess what, less than a week later bang, back to the ER - Same story different day. Congratulations, you have pneumonia only it's much worse than before, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So here we go again I.V. antibiotics, steroids, oxygen, breathing treatments every four hours and a bunch of brightly colored pills three times a day. Up until now, the hospital had been so full; the luxury of getting a private room was out of the question – no matter how hard Cari tried. But wait, alas - I have arrived; I must be on the preferred customer list because I now have a private room, a private room! Unfortunately I felt so bad I could really give a shit and because of the risk of infection (I don't know if it was me infecting people or people infecting me) anyone who came into the room, had to don very fashionable bright yellow gowns and gloves, just like on the TV show House . (I only wish I had Dr. House and his crack team figuring out just what the hell was going on with me.)


Meanwhile back at the ranch, er shop – an executive decision needed to be made and was – this is bad, very bad – change of plan – create a new plan to accelerate the temporary closing time-line from months to weeks – Yikes! -- More on that a little later.


Well there I was, private room or not this sucks. Even with oxygen I could hardly breathe and had an ugly deep hacking cough that nurses down the hall recognized instantly from my last stay. I had to face the reality that I was really sick and I wasn't going to get better until I took the time to focus just on that. What a bummer, I'm a car guy -- not a sick guy, or am I?


My Infectious Disease Doc was on top of it this time and had me up-fitted with a “Pick Line”. A pick line is like being hard-wired for I.V. infusions. It's a tube that goes into a vein in your bicep that ends up some where near your heart. It's pretty cool because the part that sticks out has a quick disconnect, kind of like a plug and play connection for medication. (Which is a hell of a lot better than getting stuck by needles all the time.)


OK, so here I am back in the hospital again, sicker than before getting pumped full of drugs, did I mention I feel like crap and this sucks? Now the objective is to get me well enough to go to the Mayo Clinic in a few weeks. Ten days of intense I.V. drug therapy and I improved enough to go home, with a small catch. I need to continue the I.V. antibiotics three times a day for at least another ten days or so. So I leave the hospital, a little wobbly and weak, and go straight to the I.D. doc's office for my “Drugs To Go” box of home infusion supplies which includes my very own I.V. pole to hang the antibiotic bags on. Wow, my own I.V. pole.


I named my I.V. pole “Flo”. I mean after all I spend a good part of my day with her (although I made her stand outside when I went to the bathroom) and what's not to like: she's tall, thin, brushed aluminum, mechanically inclined, has great legs and faithfully holds my antibiotics without muttering a word. You know, if I didn't have her to talk to I might have gone a little wacky with nothing to do but sleep, eat, suck-up antibiotics and watch TV. Speaking of TV, did you know that an expert channel surfer with intimate knowledge of the cable channels can watch over 40 episodes of Law & Order a week, 40 episodes! And if you're really good you can watch two shows at the same time. Good thing I had Flo to talk to…


You'd think by now things would be looking up, not with my luck. Even though I was out of the hospital I was only feeling marginally better and efforts to execute the hastily organized plan to shut down the business were getting twisted, pulled and turned upside down. Things only got worse from there. Reference “Murphy's Law” Rule #1 – Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!


I was scheduled into Mayo on a Monday two weeks after getting out of the hospital and planned on driving up to Minnesota on Sunday since flying with potentially infectious passengers was a bad idea (remember the cold from hell). On the preceding Thursday before the trip to Mayo the nurse at the Infectious doc's office pulled out the pick-line in preparation for my trip and I saw my I.D. doc. From that point on I kept feeling worse and worse.


Sunday morning, three days after I was off the I.V. antibiotics, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. When I came out of the shower I literally collapsed. Cari had to help dress me and once again off to the ER. Now here's where you're expecting me to say – Same Story, Different Day -Wrong. It was a different day alright, but this time the story was very, very different.