I’m back. Here’s where I’ve been. Most of you should not care, but for those wanting a medical update, here’s the tale. 

Two weeks ago, on Sunday, Jan. 11, I lost a test of strength with bedding on laundry day. As I’ve already recounted, My feet flew out from under me; I flew up and fell hard on my back. That Thursday, I went to urgent care (yes, should have gone sooner), where a CT scan revealed a compression fracture to my L3 vertebrae.

I was in pain but felt it was in control, so I (stupidly) refused pain meds. After all, I”d driven myself to my teeth cleaning and to a board meeting; I got around. 

But the next day, the pain got worse, drastically, unbearably worse. I started feeling crappy overall and lost my appetite. That Saturday, I simply could not get out of bed. I couldn’t even move myself away from its edge. In the dark, I fell out of bed with another thud.

Sunday morning, as snow fell, EMTs lugged me downstairs to the ambulance and Morristown Hospital. Because the drastic increase in back pain and the fever were coincident, the first hypothesis was that I had a spinal infection. The spinal specialist said he’d never seen such a thing. An MRI, a CT scan, and an X-ray backed him up.

Meanwhile, the infectious disease doctor ordered a huge battery of tests and a blood culture. He put me on aggressive, IV antibiotics, dripping from my personal Festivus pole. Two mornings later, the doctor came into my room, excitedly announcing, “It’s growing! It’s growing!” Strep bacteria were growing in the cultures. He knew what to treat.

Then, out of nowhere, my recurrent atrial fibrillation emerged with tachycardia — a very rapid heart beat at 133 — and low blood pressure (90/50 vs my usual 120/70). My oxygen was consequently low. After pumping me full of more fluids, that resolved.

An echo-cardiogram thankfully revealed no growth of the bacteria in my heart, but to be sure I’ll undergo another — a TEE or transesophageal echocardiogram, its wand stuck down my throat — for a closer examination later this week.

It’s likely, the doctors believe, that I got the blood infection from my dental cleaning. Happens. Years ago, folks like me with tricky heart valves had to take antibiotics before the procedure, but that standard was changed long ago. I’ll take them now.

It appears that the fall and the infection have nothing to do with each other, though we’re still baffled at how the latter coincided with much worse pain in the former. In any case, as serendipity, fate, or grace would have it, my fall — painful as it is — likely brought me to the hospital much sooner than my fever and appetite would have. I was a short walk away from sepsis: the infection spreading to organs, shutting them down in turn. The infection was treated sooner and more decisively because my back pain brought me in.

I’m trying to get back to work. The proofreading of my book is due now. I’m headquartered on a pile of pillows on the bed, forcing myself up with a cane, in a back brace. Every day, I now infuse IV antibiotics through a PICC-line, a 19-inch hose now installed from my right arm up to under my collar bone. I’ll do that for five weeks, with a kind nurse visiting to change the dressing and take blood draws once a week.

Before I left the hospital, a phlebotomist came to start another blood culture, pouring my precious humours into two little bottles that, to me, looked like hot sauce. He said most folks think they look like tiny booze bottles. Right. On second thought, this was a personal bloody Mary: Bloody Jeff.

Moments ago, my wife looked up the latest lab results and the great news is that now germs are *not* growing in my blood cocktail. Science and medicine are working.

I’m so grateful to the doctors, nurses, and staff at Morristown. To hell with you and the ignorance you stand for, RFK Jr.

And I could not be more grateful to my wife, who already does everything and now is caring for my every pathetic need, with our daughter’s help. (Our son is way up in New Hampshire.)

All this has meant canceling my scheduled cataract surgeries. Next I’ll have cardiac ablation to try to rid me of AFib. Age. 

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