Oh, well.
I am grouchy. My body has decided to play an elaborate joke on me, which culminated in a trip to the emergency room yesterday with a laundry list of symptoms dating back to last Tuesday.
I'll give you a brief timeline:
Tuesday: headache
Wednesday: headache, brief dizzy spells, coated tongue
Thursday: body aches, fever, chills, coated tongue
Friday: fever, chills, body aches, rash covering neck, shoulders, chest.
Saturday: ridiculously bad indigestion (7 on pain scale, enough to inducing sobbing) and severe, sudden onset full-body muscle pain, more rash covering most of my arms, trunk etc.
So the Well-Travelled One and I make the trip to Emerg, because why wouldn't I want to spend a Saturday afternoon at the local hospital? Most of the ER doctors are tolerable, however the one I got insisted on cutting me off and talking over me, as I listed off the symptoms above, and noted that I am a recovering cancer patient lacking a colon and that I had just (on Monday) gotten off a 21 day run of corticosteroid based anti-inflammatory enemas.
Yeah, you read that right. 21 days of enemas. That's a fun tale for another day. Or perhaps a medically-themed Christmas carol.
"Oh, yeah. We've been seeing a lot of this," the doctor tells me.
"What? You've been seeing a lot of people with fever, chills, headaches, rashes, stomache pains, full body aches and coated tongues?"
"Yeah."
"At the same time?"
Jesus. So, Dr. Interrupto tells me it is viral and to treat the symptoms until the virus runs its course. Amazing. I'm not sure I'm convinced. My love who, sometimes to his own detriment, lives to research the shit out of stuff, thinks some of it could be a withdrawal from the anti-inflammatories. The rash, which inexplicably comes and goes, feels like an allergic reaction. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I could be suffering an allergic reaction, a withdrawal, and some sort of virus at the same time because let's face it, this is ME we're talking about.
All of the symptoms come and go. Yesterday, the body aches showed up whenever the indigestion subsided. Then, when the indigestion came back, the body aches would go. Then, when both of them subsided, that's when the rash came back with a vengeance.
And I tell you, I am the worst at not scratching. This is what I managed to do to my tender inner-upper arm flesh yesterday:
Sounds like the kind of thing that happens if you're a Canadian that doesn't give a damn about hockey.
ReplyDeleteHeh, karma. That and having the first verse of the Tragically Hip's "fireworks" stuck in my head. "You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey"
DeleteSounds like a classic case of summer withdrawals. Hope you feel better. There are a ton of stories to be related with 21 days of enemas. I feel bad making light of it but you seem like the type to run with it so I look forward to the humor.
ReplyDeleteAnd what kind of virus has all those symptoms? The poison ivy hantavirus?