Part 2...the hospital stay

Steve finally got admitted very late that night. After he was taken care of and in his room I went home to sleep. I went back the next morning and Steve told me he was arrested. I guess what happened is they put an IV in him, the kind that goes to your heart, and he kept ripping it out so they had to put a straight jacket on him to protect himself. He thought he was arrested. For days lots of doctors came in and out with no answers and Steve was getting worse.


Steve;
"The next day, my wife brought me two hand-drawn pictures my five year old daughter Emily had made to cheer me up. She hung the pictures on a bulletin board facing my bed. In the middle of the night, it slowly began to dawn on me that the two beings depicted by my daughter were the heads of the SWO (satan Walmart organization), not drawings of the leaders of the SWO,mind you, but the actual rulers of the SWO themselves. I started talking to them and they answered back. In so doing, I began a conversation with my daughter’s drawings that was to last the rest of the week. As dawn broke on the second day, I imagined I saw my wife approaching through a window that lined a hallway, but I knew that this approaching woman was not really Lori. I rushed out to the nurse’s station and told her to call my wife because a copy of my wife was coming and it was not really her. “Please get on the phone and talk to her so that when this imposter arrives you will believe me.” The copy of my wife arrived and pretended to play along; but thinking better of it, I told her that I knew she was a copy. (I could tell Lori from this fake because the copy of my wife used the F-word repeatedly, something Lori, a good LDS woman, would never do.) My imposter wife seemed very angry and gave me an evil look, mixed with hurt. It occurred to me that this copy of my wife actually loved me; she could not help her evil nature; it was just part of her cloning. Just then, Lori came around the corner. The imposter ran away; I could see her scampering all the way down the hall."

There were also evil copies of the kids too. I would tell Steve over and over that it's not real but he wouldn't believe me. I would just listen to him. When I wouldn't believe him sometimes he would get so mad at me. There were times I would have to leave the hospital for a while, cry, compose myself and come back. Steve's parents and I worked out a system where they would go in the morning to see him till noon, while I took care of shopping, cleaning, kids, etc., then I would stay from noon till 10pm. and they would take care of the kids. We did this every day for a month.

After seeing many doctors one particular doctor came in. He wanted to know the whole story from the beginning. He immediately ordered another MRI. He got him on a new round of meds. Later he showed me the results of the MRI and asked me if I knew what this was coating Steve's brain? I had no idea and he said it was puss. His brain was cover in infection and if he didn't get on these meds now he would die in a couple of days.

Steve;
"My delusions and continued wrestling with this demonic world continued for two days after I started antibiotic treatments. On the morning of the third day, every time I ran into one of my alternate children, I asked them to meet me at 8:00 that night. I told Lori that I had set up the meeting and that our cloned children would come to the hospital room at 8:00 that night. She insisted that the kids were home; but I knew that, even though my copied children had been made evil, they still loved us and would be there at my request. My wife bet me that the children would not show up at 8:00. I was sure they would. It occurred to me that, if they did not come, then Lori might be right and these children were not real. I believe that this possibility was the first intimation that I was returning to reality. At 8:00, I fully expected my kids to knock on the door. In fact, I was sure I heard them talking outside the door a couple of times. However,they did not come. At 8:15, I was a little concerned. At 8:30, I still thought, “They might just be held up,” but a new hope was bubbling up.What if Lori is right? Maybe I did not have to worry about my evil kids bunking with my real kids and trying to raise them all together. Maybe there were not two Emilys, and I did not have to give one up! Maybe I had not killed someone! At 8:45, I felt happier than I had in days—like a dream in which you lose all that is most precious to you, but you awake and find it all restored. I remember looking at the clock and thinking over and over,Lori is right! Lori is right! There are not two sets of kids. All the ethical problems that surrounded me were gone. I felt like rejoicing."
When he did come back to reality the infection had killed part of his brain where he couldn't read any more. So he had to relearn how to read. He finally came home where I gave him IV's 3 times a day for 6+ weeks. The name of the disease is called Burkholderia pseudomallei. And yes, he picked up this bacteria in Viet Nam. It came in contact with his eyes and then moved to his brain. It's a bacteria that can live in the tissues of his body for up to 26 years and can resurface anytime it feels like it. It has resurfaced once already a few years ago and we were able to get him on meds. before it got too bad. There is so much more to tell but here is a link to Steve's paper on it.

http://www.sciencebysteve.net/wp-content/papers/MyMadness.pdf