Writing is therapeutic.
I took a bike ride back to the hospital today, for a followup blood test. The results were both expected and irritating, or else unexpected and exciting, or any combination of the above - depends on how much water's in your glass. The unbalanced chemicals in my blood continue to inch back to equilibrium, and the vein jutting out of my right arm has yet to collapse like the lightweight in my left arm did a few years ago during dental surgery, so all of that's fine and dandy. That's all well and good in the short term. Relatively speaking. This particular test, now on its fourth encore performance and heading into a fifth on Monday, only takes an hour, which translates to an episode of "This American Life" in the waiting room.
Today also brought me the results of another blood test, one sent out the day after I was hospitalized last week, and that only now yielded answers. We knew immediately that the problem wasn't Hepatitis C or B (groovy!), and a CT scan quelled any concerns over a gallstone (double groovy!), so despite the doctor's regular reminders that nothing was finalized, my family and I have been operating under the assumption that this was Hepatitis A - my unsuspecting liver done in by unwashed spinach, or something of the sort. That I'd be sick a few weeks, then in the clear for the rest of my life. Hepatitis A is a strange beast, indeed, though far from unknown and sporting its very own vaccine. It infects all ages but only really presenting in adults; it tends to set in over a month after contamination; it has no real treatment, other than rest and balanced eating; and, so long as no other liver problems exist, it's generally not serious, only fatal in two in a thousand cases or so. If you've got to have hepatitis, A seems like the way to go.
Of course, it wasn't Hepatitis A.
Officially, we still don't know what it was. The one possible candidate on the tests? Auto-immune. Extremely rare, contracted by maybe 2 in 100,000 people, more common in women. In the slim chance I get worse again, I start steroid treatment, which usually shows improvement. If this turns out to be true - my body has begun attacking itself.
Glean what you want from that. I'm grasping at straws lest I start indulging in paranoid hyperbole.
Oh, yes - I did, in fact, say that I rode my bike to the hospital. Again. At least I got to ride it home this time. And I don't regret it, either. I found a woman running a coffee shop from the back of her van on the way home, and enjoyed a friendly conversation about her daughter before buying the most wonderful, buttery soft sugar cookies I've had in years. Also, I found a "Rabbit Cafe" where you pay to drink lattes and play with fluffedy snuggly bunnies for an hour and they will be seeing me, and those rabbits will learn to dread the pseudo English of LOL.
Plus, I tried Green Tea Diet Coke. It tastes nothing like green tea, yet somehow better than Diet Coke would? At least it's limited edition.
Today also brought me the results of another blood test, one sent out the day after I was hospitalized last week, and that only now yielded answers. We knew immediately that the problem wasn't Hepatitis C or B (groovy!), and a CT scan quelled any concerns over a gallstone (double groovy!), so despite the doctor's regular reminders that nothing was finalized, my family and I have been operating under the assumption that this was Hepatitis A - my unsuspecting liver done in by unwashed spinach, or something of the sort. That I'd be sick a few weeks, then in the clear for the rest of my life. Hepatitis A is a strange beast, indeed, though far from unknown and sporting its very own vaccine. It infects all ages but only really presenting in adults; it tends to set in over a month after contamination; it has no real treatment, other than rest and balanced eating; and, so long as no other liver problems exist, it's generally not serious, only fatal in two in a thousand cases or so. If you've got to have hepatitis, A seems like the way to go.
Of course, it wasn't Hepatitis A.
Officially, we still don't know what it was. The one possible candidate on the tests? Auto-immune. Extremely rare, contracted by maybe 2 in 100,000 people, more common in women. In the slim chance I get worse again, I start steroid treatment, which usually shows improvement. If this turns out to be true - my body has begun attacking itself.
Glean what you want from that. I'm grasping at straws lest I start indulging in paranoid hyperbole.
Oh, yes - I did, in fact, say that I rode my bike to the hospital. Again. At least I got to ride it home this time. And I don't regret it, either. I found a woman running a coffee shop from the back of her van on the way home, and enjoyed a friendly conversation about her daughter before buying the most wonderful, buttery soft sugar cookies I've had in years. Also, I found a "Rabbit Cafe" where you pay to drink lattes and play with fluffedy snuggly bunnies for an hour and they will be seeing me, and those rabbits will learn to dread the pseudo English of LOL.
Plus, I tried Green Tea Diet Coke. It tastes nothing like green tea, yet somehow better than Diet Coke would? At least it's limited edition.