What happened?

Most of you know the events surrounding Kathy's sudden brain abscess and sickness. This post is for the people who want more details. Kathy started to get a strong headache on Wednesday, August the 2nd. She has had a long history of migraines and she thought it was just another. Her pain got worse each day and her prescription for migraines, Imitrix was not working.

It was Saturday and I asked Kellen, my son to take her to the emergency room in Fallbrook. I was busy at work trying to finish up loose ends before our family vacation/work trip to Mexico began that Monday. We were all concerned her headache and was it going to be too strong to make the trip? Kellen took her to emergency room and she spent 6 hours in the Fallbrook hospital. The doctors focused on her migraine and treated her with a IV and a prescription for vicodine to break the cycle. We could not get her prescription for some reason that night and she had a rough night. I went to the pharmacy early the next day and she took the vicodine and felt better on Sunday.

We departed for Mexico on Monday as planned and Kathy seemed much improved and only complained of a light headache. We traveled all day and arrived into Ixtapa around 6:00 PM that evening. She was tired but feeling better. We all went to dinner that night and did not retire until around 11:00 PM. The next morning (Tuesday the 8th) I was awakened to her loud complaints of a bad headache and extreme stomach pain. I though maybe she had gotten food poisoning from dinner or the stomach flu. I called the hotel doctor and she came over immediately to look at Kathy. I told her about her migraines and the pain she was suffering. The doctor, Dr. Olivia Montifar seemed capable and very caring. She gave her pain medication and ordered prescriptions for her headache (Imitix) and for her stomach issues. Kathy seemed to calm down for a while and I was hoping the worse was over. Around 1:00PM she started acting unusual, delirious and non-responsive. I was befuddled. Finally my daughter came up to the room and helped me control her so I could contact the doctor. We both decided to take her to the hospital immediately. Kathy fought us for over a hour trying to get her to the car.

Finally we got her into the car and took her to the nearby Naval Hospital (actual Mexican Navy Hospital) and meet her original doctor, Dr. Montifar. They admitted her to large, clean private room and the nurses prepared Kathy for her stay. The doctors first administered medications for her high temperature and performed lab tests to check for e-coli virus or flu virus. About four hours later the results came in and Kathy checked out negative and her temperature had dropped to normal.

Unfortunately, other bad things were going on inside her head. Her eyes became dilated, rolling back into her head and she could no longer respond to her name or identify me or the kids. It was 8:00 PM and the doctor suggested I should consider immediately taking her to a better equipped hospital in Mexico City or transport her back to the United States. The doctors were mainly worried about her worsening mental condition over the last 4 hours. I decided at that moment to get Kathy back to the United States ASAP and I called our emergency medical evacuation number. Medex Assist kicked in and arranged a medical-evacuation for the next morning. She remained delirious all night and I was really scarred about her survival.

The emergency evacuation team arrived at the hospital at 7:30 AM sharp(Wednesday the 9th). She was taken by ambulance to the Ixtapa airport and a special Lear jet was standing by with two EMT doctors to accompany her on the flight. My daughter got on board and they both headed back to Brown Field in San Diego. Another ambulance was waiting there to take Kathy to Scripps Mercy Hospital-Trauma Unit and they arrived at 12:30 PM. She was taken into emergency ICU immediately. My son Trevor meet the ambulance at Scripps and gave the ICU doctors the history of the events and her current meds. What a relief she was back in the USA-thank god!