Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Blatherings from the Bilge

In case you were wondering why your boots were a bit less chewed on for a few days and there were no signs of filthy wet foot prints to the entrance to the Bilges.

Well.. that is because I have been in the hospital since the 17th.  When I woke up on the 17th I didn't have much energy and was bouncing between freezing my ass off and sweating terribly.  My fever was actually 96.4 which told me that something was wrong but.. had nothing to go to a doc with.. during the length of the day my wife would periodically take my temperature but other than that I mostly slept... like 18 hours.  at 6:30pm my fever raised over 100.2, which is a point my oncologist has said I need to use for admittance to the Emergency Room.  In the 10 minutes it took my wife to drive from our place to the ER.. my temp kept rising to 100.6 and I got rather.. incoherent.

Eventually, once the docs got their heads out of their asses and actually started taking tests there was a variety of findings:
1) my thyroid had conked out... whether temp or permanent they didn't know
2) my blood sugars were over around 350
3) I had some sort of infection

Over the next several days I was on my tablet from the hospital but.. I have a hard time doing much by my tablet so you likely didn't see me much.

As I did, the docs got me on Thyroid replacement hormones and then started acting like I am a diabetic and that I had been a diabetic for a long time.. but of course they completely failed to listen that until last month none of my doctors have mentioned anything about my blood sugars being anything suspicious.  Apparently according to them, there is no such thing as a brand spanking new diabetic .. only those people that are diabetic. *angry sigh*  They also started me on a hugely broad spectrum antibiotic to address the infection while they spent 3 days trying to culture things to see what infection I actually had.

Cultures failed to show that I had anything.. but that likely doesn't surprise any of you as I don't have much culture on the best of days right?  However the antibiotics brought down my fever and my infection started to go away even without being identified.  lucky guesswork that they were oh so proud of.

Meanwhile I had to start getting used to being viewed as a diabetic, being disbelieved that I had never been a diabetic before, doing my blood testing and taking insulin according to a doctor's note that would change the type of insulin, the intensity and timing sometimes twice a day without letting anyone know.. including the nurses until they went to check notes before giving me my meds and even they were shocked.

In any case... I returned home this afternoon *Pacific Time* and am home.  Fever is gone, medicines hopefully all acquired after some serious issues, mostly brain intact however I am having problems remembering some... words... they will be right on the tip of my tongue but be very elusive.  I have future followup appointments with primary care physician, oncologist and now am adding an Endocrinologist to the team that guides my life through the havoc that it has become.

Good to be back to worrying you all,

Alyxyn/Robert