Richard Update

Well I finally got to talk to Richard today (for the first time since last Monday). He called me this morning and said he is out of the hospital, feeling fine, and should be heading on to Iraq tomorrow. This is what he said happened *to the best of my understanding and in summary*: Wednesday he was feeling bad throughout the day and felt like he had a fever coming on. He took some Tylenol early on and that seemed to keep the fever away for a while but later he was still feeling bad and Tylenol wasn't helping. So when he got off the plane in Kuwait he was feeling really bad, kind of a little faint and nauseous, so they checked him out and discovered his blood pressure was abnormally low. They sent him to the hospital where he was given some IV fluids and Phenergan (sp?). He was feeling much better but when they took the IV out he felt like he was going to pass out. This brought on further monitoring and they discovered he had a low heart rate. After 24 hours or monitoring his heart they determined that he has a "1st degree AV block," which basically means that the electrical impulses from the atrium to the ventricals are slower than normal. This condition doesn't have any symptoms, "is common in well trained athletes, does not usually require treatment, and is prevalant in the normal young adult population." So basically they discovered the stuff about his heart by accident while treating him for what seems to have been some kind of virus or something unrelated. It shouldn't be a problem in the future and there is no treatment necessary at this time. Richard will see a cardiologist in Baghdad once he moves on to Iraq just to keep an eye on things to make sure everything is still good. Praise the Lord! Thank you for all your prayers.