I'm a loser

Okay, here's a picture of me and Sophie a few weeks ago. I just thought many of you are craving a Sophia pic! :)


I'm a loser. Many of you would agree. But I'm talking about I've lost 10 pounds since I have been sick! :-)
I got a fever and stomach pain on Saturday October 4th and today, the 14th of October, is the first day I've been without a fever since! I spent an evening in the ER and 2.5 days in the hospital. Sunday and Monday all day, my fever was 103 F. Eating Jell-O or drinking water made me cry out in pain. It was agony, I tell ya! Agony!

On Monday evening I called my doctor's office and told them what was going on, and they told me to go to the ER. By the way, did I mention that I was supposed to get my pacemaker replaced Monday morning??? Well, needless to say with a fever, they wouldn't do it. I had to cancel. I was told from one doctor in the ER that I had ulcers. I said "but that wouldn't cause a fever". And his response? "well it could" in a really dumb kind of voice. lol At least that is how I remember it. Anyhow, putting that medical degree to good use! "Well it could". Geesh! They told me to go to my family physician the next day; they said they didn't like sending me home with a fever after having it for 72 hours.

So, I made an appointment with my family doc. He's awesome, his name is Dr. Duncan. He knows a lot and has a really good bedside manner too. That is sometimes more important to me than their skill-but he's got both! Yay, Dr. D!

He said he thought it was either a fever blister or thrush in my esophagus. Either would have been a pretty rare thing. He said it was a guess at this point because it be a very long time to get an appointment to get a scope down my throat. So he scheduled me for a barium swallow on Thursday, gave me 3 different kinds of medicines and sent me home. I was relatively satisfied because I trust him. The medicines were to be taken 4 and 5 times a day. I literally cried when I had to take it. I couldn't drink water without crying! When it would get close to time to take my medicine, I would watch the clock and begin to fret; I knew how much it would hurt. I didn't want to take the pills. I would hold the pills in my mouth with a swig of water, trying to coax myself to swallow them. I would psych myself up for it. "Okay, one, two, three, GO. Okay. One, two three, GOOO! Oh! I can't! Okay, yes I can. One, two threeeeeee...." You get it. It was awful.

So I went to bed on Wednesday night with fever still at 101 F and aching badly. I still couldn't swallow water or food. It had now been 4.5 days since I'd had food! The good news? I was dropping a pound or two, I could tell. I went into my dressing room to brush my teeth. I could tell that I had some soreness in my gums, but who knew something else was wrong? Everything on my body was aching, I thought it was part of the sick-deluxe package. :-) I looked in the mirror as I was preparing to go back to my bed. I couldn't get over how nasty my hair looked, how can a woman approaching 40 have greasy hair?? I began to brush my teeth and I looked in my mouth! White spots! Thrush!!! I thought I now had the answer to my stomach/esophagus pain. I couldn't eat or drink the next morning anyhow because I was due to get my barium swallow test. I looked it up online and found that adults usually don't get thrush unless their immune system is compromised. Hmm. What is going on with me??

The next morning I called for Dr. D at 6:15am, knowing that I needed to cancel my in-laws' trip over if I didn't need to get my procedure. I spoke to another doc because mine wasn't on-call until 7:00am. He suggested that I not go in until I got ahold of my doc. I waited until he came in and called him. He listened to my story about the thrush in my mouth and asked about my fever. He said he would call off my procedure and that he would call in some new medicine at 9:00. I agreed and hung up. He called me back about 10 minutes later and told me that he and other docs had a "conference" about me. He said that I needed to come in to the hospital and check in. He said that having a fever that long was not right and I need to get there that morning.

When I checked in, I learned that I had lost about 10 pounds! Whoohoo! Too bad I was too sick to care at the time. :-)
The nurses had a tough time getting in the IVs because I was so dehydrated. All in all, I have 10 holes/bruises on my arms. On Friday morning, they did a scope down my throat. The doctor found that I had viral ulcers on my esophagus and in my stomach. He said they were deep and to the nerve. He explained that is why I had such a high fever and big pain. He prescribed medicine and said it would take a total of ten days. I was already through 6 of them, I'm on the downhill side now! Wheee!

I still couldn't eat anything, so they gave me the medicine in my IV. Friday night the IV medicine was burning really bad! I hesitantly pushed the nurse call button. She came in and said it was fine. About ten minutes later, paged her again; I was ready to rip that IV out of my arm! It was swelling really big and felt like hot molten lava under my reddened flesh! When she returned she seemed a little annoyed but then one look at my arm and she apologized and brought ice and cold wash cloths to soothe it after she removed the huge stinger, known as an IV. The problem was, it was no longer in the vein, it was delivering the medicine under the skin. It didn't feel like medicine, it felt like poison! I still have a large bruise to show as my hospital battle scar. lol

On Friday night, I finally ate a popsicle! It hurt but I was ravenous at this point. I ate it despite it's stabbing pain. It tasted so good!

Saturday morning, I was released from the hospital. The discharging doc told me to make an appointment with my regular doc next week because he feels that my immune system is compromised; otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten so sick, kept a fever so long, or had thrush. I continue to feel better each day.

I am out of town with our youngest daughter, Sophie, at 4 days worth of doctor's visits and tests. I will return on Friday night and see my doctor on Monday, get my pre-op testing and then on Tuesday get my pacemaker. The thing is about that, I have to get the leads replaced! And as for me being a "loser"... I'm sure I'll pack it back on in no time. LOL