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Whomever it was at the Osh house that uttered the words "deep vein thrombosis" was right. John has been admitted to the hospital with a blood clot in his left leg and pieces of it in both of his lungs. The doctors don't believe he's in any danger at this point, but he is having quite a bit of pain right now. He's expected to be in the hospital for anywhere from 2 - 5 or more days.

Details for those who want to know:

We drove to Osh. When we got there, John was experiencing pain in his left leg; it presented as a pulled muscle. He dealt with it through the week and it started to subside once we got home last weekend. He woke up this morning at 12am with extreme back pain. A heating pad eased the pain enough to get him back to sleep. At 7am, he coughed up a bit of blood so we headed to the emergency room. Apparently the clot had started to come apart and pieces of it traveled to his lungs.

He's ok ... er... as ok as he can be at this point, and in mostly good spirits. The thing that is the heaviest on his mind right now is whether or not his medical will be renewed at the end of this year. Since he's not allowed to use a cell phone while hooked up to the EKG and 10,000 other instruments that he's hooked up to, he won't answer. But my number is 443-980-0731.

Anyway, prayers, thoughts or whatever you do would be appreciated. Sorry to be short on details, but I came home long enough to post this and pack an overnight bag.

Patti,

My heart goes out to you both. I know you need to be strong right now and if there's a way to send strength to you through the internet, I hope you receive it! Give yourself and Spike a hug from the west coast for me.

Jon

Our thoughts and prayers are with you Both! Tell Spike we're all thinking about him!

- Peter

I'm glad to hear that he made it to the hospital where they can take care of the problem.

The best I can offer is my thoughts and prayers for a speedy and full recovery.

Keith

Same as the others Patti! We'll be thinking and praying for you! Keep in good spirits, and keep John's high! A big cyber hug from me (and all of us) to you guys!!!

OMG! He is too young for that stuff! He is just a PUP!!!

Here is wishing him the best! Tell him to get well soon, would you?

I can't see that he will have his wings clipped from this, but I dunno.

Get a picture of him wearing nylons for us, would you!?!

CJ

Patti, tell Spike that we are praying for him and wish him the best. If any of us can do anything let us know.

Like CJ I don't think he will have a problem with the medical due to this. I did a quick on-line search and it looks like it is only a problem if it is recurring on a regular basis. We will pray that doesn't happen.

Luke says to tell Spike and you both he is thinking of you and will be praying for you both also.

Tell Spike to do what the doc saya and get well soon!

Wow, so sorry to hear of this happening to such a great person.
I wish and pray for his speedy and full recovery.

Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Patty,
Tell John that he is on my prayer list. I will be praying for a speedy recovery and a clotless future! God is sovereign and in control.

Geez Patty so sorry to hear that. Tell John i'm thinking of him and give him my best.

Patti,

Let Spike know we're all pulling for him!

I know how worrisome the FAA medical process can be. Once he's up and about, and if his own AME can't help, have him check out Virtual Flight Surgeons (www.aviationmedicine.com). These guys are great, they've put my mind at ease on medical cert issues in the past.

Best wishes to you both for a speedy recovery

Dave Setser

Sorry to here about this. I hope he gets well soon.

My heart goes out to you John and Patti, that's a rough bit you're in now. Nothing to do but take care of yourself and get better now.

Try not 't worry too much about the Medical right now ... it's been said, if you can see the lightning and hear the thunder you're good enough to fly ... seriously, don't agonize over it, that will be a problem that you can address another day.

My prayes are with you.

Best of luck to you both. We appreciate all you both do to help us all share the love of flying. If I can be so bold to speak for the group... we will hope and pray for his recovery, and wish strength to both of you. We look forward to hearing good news very soon. Take care.

Sincerely CD

CD, you certainly CAN speak for the group!

Patti, can we get an update on his condition?

CJ

I came home this morning for a nice hot shower and to grab a few things that John asked for. So, here's where we are.

Tuesday night will probably forever be the worst night of Spikes entire life. The pain was horrendous, and he spent the night with his whole body constantly going into one huge muscle spasm. They kept giving him Morphine and Percoset (and even some Valium and Ambian) but at that point we had gotten behind the pain curve so there wasn't much that anyone could do. Neither one of us got any sleep until around 6am Wednesday morning. I was out at the nurses' station every hour lobbying for a Morphine drip.

At 11am yesterday when the on-call doc came to visit, he agreed not to a drip, but to a Morphine pump. John spent most of the day dealing with these whole-body muscle spasms and the pump was finally "installed" around 4pm. From that point, he hit the button (to get morphine) about twice each hour (half of his allowed dosage) until 9:30pm last night. His next button press was at 1am and then he didn't press again until 8:30 this morning. With the exception of nurses coming in to poke, prod, stick etc, we both slept from 9:30pm until almost 8am this morning.

I almost hesitiate to say this, but I *think* we may have at least caught up with the pain. *fingers crossed* He looks and sounds a bit better this morning. The on-call doc came in to see him and she says that he's definately not being discharged tomorrow, but possibly Sunday. Some of the key things they are looking for will be the ability to manage the pain with a pill instead of a morphine drip, therapudic levels of Cumadin (sp?) in his blood test results, absense of fluid from his lungs and his ability to actually stand up and walk around. So, don't know how long he's in for but at least we know what they are looking for.

John didn't eat at all yesterday (the morphine was making him nauseous), but he did force himself to eat a pancake and some fruit this morning.

So, so far he's doing better and his prognosis is very good. His lung function is still very good, and they are monitoring his blood levels of the thinning medication. I am taking a laptop to the hospital -- I've heard that there *might* be an internet connection there for us, so you may or may not hear from Spike himself. In any measure, I've printed out this thread to take to him.

Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone!!!

--patti

Very glad to hear he's doing better Patti! Tell him to keep up the good work, and we'll be seeing him posting his frustrations about wing ribs before we know it!!

Patti, I am sadened to read this news but I am glad to hear there have been recent improvements.

I wish Spike (and you) a speedy recovery.

I am posting this from John's room -- looks like we do have crappy dialup service here. He's sleeping now, but I'm sure he'll post something later this afternoon or tomorrow morning, knowing him.

He had two thin slices of pork roast for lunch -- ate almost all of his peach cobbler, most of his cinnamon apples, some of his green beans but didn't touch the mashed potatoes. (Leave it to the sick guy to go for dessert first, ). He's also being a bit of a packrat -- we've got some crackers and grape juice cups stored away (from previous meals) just in case the fancy strikes him. Anyway, we've got inTARweb here now so I imagine you guys will hear from him first hand sometime during the remainder of our stay.

Wow! He's brave - eating the hospital food!
Glad to hear things are looking up.
Let me know if I can help out at all...

Thomas