I was at work and got a phone call from Robert that he was feeling really lightheaded and throwing up. That lovely norovirus is making its rounds again so I didn't think much of it. I just ordered some Gatorade from 7-11 to be delivered to the house and continued working.
A couple hours later, I get a phone call from what I assume is the hubby. Only it wasn't. It was the guy that we had coming out to give us an estimate on having the gutters replaced. He wanted to let me know that they had called 911 because Robert opened the door and promptly passed out. He came to but passed out again. All while I was at work. Oh! And he hit his head pretty hard when he passed out the first time.
I immediately came home and we went to the hospital where they started running all kinds of tests to see what was wrong. As we waited, I worried that this was something that was caused by his HD. After all, there was a lady in our support group who frequently passed out and had seizures as a result of her HD. Granted, these symptoms are rare, but they do happen.
Fortunately, it doesn't appear that that was the case. From the beginning, his vitals were normal. Tests showed no results of any heart issues or a stroke. His blood pressure was a little low but not alarmingly so.
Instead, it was a result of his Vagus Nerve being overstimulated.
What is that you ask? I had never heard of this nerve before today, either.
The Vagus Nerve is the main nerve that controls your parasympathetic nervous system. This system controls your digestion, immune system and heart rate.
The doctor thinks what happened is that the system was overstimulated - most likely from his vomiting as a result of a stomach bug or something he ate. Overstimulation of this nerve causes the body to shut the system down to reset it. In other words, it drops your blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar so that you pass out. Your body resets itself and you come to and everything is fine. However, since they moved him off the floor and woke him before his body fully reset, it caused him to pass out again so his system could try to finish resetting.
Once they got him in the ambulance and not moving around too much, his body was able to return to normal. By the time we reached the hospital, he was fine. Slightly dehydrated, still a little shaky from the whole ordeal but nothing major. They did a CT Scan of his head since he hit his head in the fall, a bunch of blood work and some urine samples and everything was normal.
After about three hours in the ER, we were sent home with some Zofran in case he is nauseous again and the instructions to come back if he has any more issues. So far, after about six hours, he has been able to eat some food with no issues and is feeling much better. A little tired and weak but that is to be expected given everything that happened today.
When something happens with Robert's brain, it always scares me. Since Huntington attacks the brain, anytime something out of the ordinary happens with it, the fear that it is the result of HD is real. In the back of your mind, you always wonder if this event triggers the advancement into the final stages of the disease. Is this the thing that changes everything?
Thankfully, it appears that this was just a fluke thing that happened and not related to Huntington's Disease. I learned something new today as well and always say it is a productive day if I learn something new.
However, in the words of a friend, Robert isn't allowed to scare us like that again.
