06 Jan Update on Gary Reiber

Chris Kuntz, worship leader at Union Chapel (Fort Wayne, Ind.), sent out this update on Gary Reiber. Gary was hospitalized New Year’s Eve with Toxic Shock Syndrone.

“Great news! Gary is home! The doctors sent Gary home today (Monday, January 5), and he is now resting within his own confines. He will be going to the doctor tomorrow morning to have his liver enzymes checked and again on the 12th for a complete checkup on all vitals and organs. He is still on antibotics and will be for awhile, but for the most part, he is getting better.

“It will be a while before he is back on the horse again. Imagine a tornado going through the neighborhood and ripping everything apart. The storm may be gone, but there is still a lot to clean up. Same with Gary. He has a lot of recovery to do, but thank God he can do it at home. He walked into the house tonight under his own steam and crashed on the couch. He is suppose to be using a walker to aid his leg since it was hit the hardest.”

Chris wrote up a timeline of what happened with Gary during the first few days. You can read it following the link below.

December 27
Gary played basketball at Grace Point church.

December 30
He had the stomach flu. Tuesday night had a lot of pain in his knee and was up all night sick.

December 31
Gary’s wife, Robin, made an appointment for his knee around 10 a.m. at Dupont North hospital. When he went in, they couldn’t find a pulse, so they sent him to the ER at Parkview North. When he got there he was rushed to a room and put on an IV all before Robin could even park the car. His pulse was 36, and vitals were 70 over 40ish.

Gary  spent the afternoon in the ER on a lot of antibiotics (the big boys) and several bags of IV solution to thin out the blood and get his pulse up. He had an MRI on the knee to rule out damage to the structure of the joint and ligaments. They were also looking for gaseous gangrene and or flesh eating viruses. His leg from the ankle to the upper thigh was swollen and itching and red.

I left the ER at 4:00 pm came home and at 4:30 received a phone call from Matt (his oldest son) that Gary was in Kidney failure and it wasn’t looking good. They rushed him to the ICU floor, and started all kinds of stuff. A kidney specialist came in, they did a PIC line into the chest to get meds straight to the heart, cath, and all kinds of fun stuff. The doctors told us that the next 24 hours were critical and that he could go either way that night. It was on the verge of fatal.

January 1
Gary made it through the night, this morning (Thursday) he was doing a bit better but not by much. He had developed a fever, which was good. It showed the doctors that he was fighting the infection. 

At 1 p.m. he was moved to Parkview on State Street to the ICU unit to be monitored more closely. When I went to see him in the evening, he was doing better yet (for being in ICU) and his vitals were looking much more stable and in the normal range.