Scarey Times

To give a bit of back ground: Edward came down with a nasty cold after the football game in the rain on Friday, November 4th. He ended up with flu-like symptoms on Sunday and stayed home from church. He did drag himself out of bed to attend seminary on Monday (he had perfect attendance for the 3 years so far), but didn't feel well enough to go to school. He was worried though about missing football practice so after sleeping most of the day, he went there also. Tuesday he still felt lousy, but managed to make it to seminary, his classes, and to football. Wednesday morning after seminary I receive a text message from him telling me that he doesn't feel good, that he wants to go to the doctor's. I replied and said I would be right down to the school to pick him up. (I did stop to get dressed and put gasoline in the car, figuring I was going to have to drive him up to Salmon Creek Urgent care.)

By the time I got to the school he was in a panic. I went to check him out of his home building only to find out he was in the 300 building with the school nurse. When I finally arrived she said Edward was having chest pains and that she almost called for an ambulance. I drove him quickly to SW Medical Hospital where they quickly took him into the back room and put him on a heart monitor and did some blood work. The doctor thought it might be inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, but after an EKG and an Echocardiogram it was determined that the inflammation wasn't the sac, but the heart muscle itself. They gave him some pain killers and an asprin, and then said they would redo the blood work in six hours. We were then moved upstairs to the Clinical Decision Unit (CDU) to wait.

The heart produces an enzeme when it is under stress. The normal range is 0.0>0.04. When Edward came into the hospital it was at 6.something. Later, when they did the blood work again, it had climbed to 15.something else. They told me that they wouldn't start to be real concerned until it reached 20. It was then that they decided to keep him over night and test his blood levels again in the morning. At 8:30 in the morning we finally got the news that the levels had dropped to 3.9! He could go home.

Edward will be taking Ibuprofen for the next 4 weeks until we see the cardiologist again. In the meantime, he is off all physical activity other than walking. This means no more football. He was crushed. The team went to Kent, Washington this Friday to play the Kentlake Falcons and Edward really wanted to go and at least be on the sidelines. Coach Piland agreed to let him go only because he wasn't contagious. He was there to cheer his teammates on as they beat the #6 team in the state 31-7. Next week they'll play up in Woodenville, Washington.

Keep Edward in your prayers.