Yesterday at about 2:30, I got a call from  sandulf, aka  brim, at work telling me I needed to take him to the emergency room because he was having pains similar to what he was experiencing when he had pneumonia two years ago. So I got him to the ER, got him checked in, got him some morphine to eleviate the pain, and got him an X-ray to see what they could find. Well, they didn't find any trace of pneumonia, so they considered the possibility of a blood clot and tested for that. What they found was even worse, though. Turns out he has what's known as an aortic dissection in which the walls of the aorta were weakened which caused a tear that's "dissecting" through it. It caused major pain in his chest, back, up his neck, and down to his rib cage.

The cause of the tear is most likely his high blood pressure. He's been battling with high blood pressure for some time and it just got so bad that it caused this tear. Luckily, they caught it early enough that he doesn't need surgery. However, he does need to be kept in the hospital for a few days so they can get his blood pressure down to stable levels and get the tear taken care of. He's being kept in the CVICU where they, unfortunately, don't allow electronics, so he's not gonna be able to keep in touch with anyone, which is gonna be unfortunate for him.

As anyone who knows him well knows, and for those that don't know, he's also got a sister in the hospital who is literally on her death bed and could pass any day now. To have this happen to him at such a time is one of the unluckiest things that could have happened. He's been very emotional and stressed out over this, understandably.

I just hope that once he gets out of this that he'll take care of himself from now on.