Four hours after I found out he was in the hospital, Mr. Troutbend finally called me, but I still don't have a way to get in touch with him.

When he blacked out, he was just finishing up putting on his shoes after bowling, ready to go home from league. Most of the other bowlers had left, so at least not a lot of people were around to take it all in, but of course they will hear about it. I emailed his bowling team buddy, and the guy said the league secretary called him right after the ambulance took Gary to the hospital, but he hadn't been able to find out any more. I hope he'll go over there today, and give Mr. Tbend a ride to his car at the casino, and possibly follow him home to make sure he gets there okay.

He didn't feel a thing when he blacked out and hit the floor, but now he's discovering various bruises and hurts and thinks he must have glanced off the table on the way down and then hit his head on the floor.

We're glad it happened at a casino because they are used to calling the EMTs, and his car is safe in their parking garage. We're fortunate he wasn't driving when he blacked out, but we haven't discussed that.

The CT scan discovered that he has a sinus infection, so they are going to treat that. He's had symptoms of it for 18 months, thought it was a cold or allergies and eventually it would go away. The previous similar episode was last fall with similar symptoms: dizzy, fainting, lots of vomiting. Back then, we decided it must have been food poisoning from the salad bar at the buffet. But this time he can't blame the buffet, so we don't know what it could be.

He's had all kinds of tests, and two nights in the hospital, hopes to go home today, but he's still nauseated and dizzy, so if they notice, they might keep him there. This is going to use up our $9000 annual health insurance deductible, and then some. Yes, that's $9000 out of pocket, but at least it was pre-tax money we put into a Health Savings Account, and that's what it's for.

You may wonder why I am not dropping everything to drive to Las Vegas and see to things. For one, there's not much I can do if he's going to recover from this with no apparent problems like he did after the last episode. If they don't figure out what's wrong with him, he'll need to go to a doctor, but his primary doctor is here in Colorado because we were unable to obtain private health insurance in Nevada, so I don't know how that's going to work out.

For two, the mountain Interstate west of Denver is a parking lot due to bad weather conditions and the Presidents Day holiday.

And, I went through that whole unprecedented flood and the aftereffects with no help from him. He didn't think it was necessary to alter his life to help me, so ditto.

Of course, if he's really sick, I'll rethink it.

I told him we need to come up with something else catastrophic that has happened to us lately that would count as the third bad thing, because if we don't, there might be a forest fire this summer. Or another flood. Or who knows what.

So now you know.