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It's Never Lupus

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DrFrylock, Sep 9, 2010.

  1. DrFrylock

    DrFrylock
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    Over the weekend I flew on an airplane and saw somebody wearing a surgical mask. We all know that planes are hotbeds of infection, and this person was probably trying to avoid joining in the fun. Maybe they had a compromised immune system or some other thing, who knows?

    The joke's on me, because a couple days later I come down with a nasty cold that has been trying to rape my sinuses like they were the fresh meat at the local prison. Based on my reading of the Rant & Rave thread, and the number of people who have been calling in sick to work this week, I'm not the only one that has this exact thing, and there's something going around.

    This is certainly not the sickest I've ever felt; the sickest I've ever felt was 2+ weeks into mononucleosis. I finally broke down and went to see the doc, who told me that "you're too old to have mono, so we won't even test you for it. You must have gotten a really nasty cold. Twice." My throat was so swollen that swallowing felt like getting jabbed in the soft tissue back there, making any sort of sleeping impossible. I went through more lozenges than is healthy in a natural lifespan, and they still didn't help. Days later I was in a pretty bad way and went to see another doc, who gave me a mono-spot test (positive!), IV fluids, and a script for viscous lidocaine - the best thing ever - that allowed me to survive until I could fight the damn thing off myself, which took another three weeks.

    FOCUS: Post your stories of illness. Could be as simple as a nasty cold, the time that slut gave you the clap, or something more serious.
     
  2. Disgustipated

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    Are you a real doctor? Because I've got these bumps on my penis. Does that mean I'm ribbed for her pleasure?


    My parents were never what you would call sympathetic in any shape or form. In grade 11 of high school I was out of school sick for a couple of days with blinding headaches and mild fever. The only reason I got to stay home was because I couldn't stand up and walk in a straight line without falling over.

    On the third day, the headache abated and my mother told me I had to go to school. I'd noticed little fluid filled blisters starting to come up on my arms and torso and asked her if it might be chicken pox as it was going around. She told me to stop being stupid, get dressed and go to school.

    Roughly two hours later, she received a phone call from the school nurse, "Dear Mrs. Disgustipated. Please come and pick up your son. He has chicken pox and is infectious." I knew better than to pull out an I told so you (I instead kept that for years later) as I was in no shape to deal with a grumpy, passive aggressive mother.

    To add insult to injury, I was made to strip down to my boxers for photos front and rear, and sent back to school prior to the sores healing to sit an exam. No kid wanted to come anywhere near me, and I didn't blame them
     
  3. Durbanite

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    This thread was made for me. Thanks to asthma (and untreatable allergies - the only asthma medication that works for me is known to affect allergy test results), I cough and sound sick a LOT. Right now, it's Spring here - I'm not badly sick yet, but I expect it soon enough. I wheeze like an 80 year old multiple times a day. Fuck, I'm wheezing now while I write this. Asthma SUCKS.

    My asthma was a direct result of having my tonsils removed, as I was having repeated bouts of tonsilitis as a toddler (I believe I was somewhere in the 18 months - 2 years old age group) - three times in one month was enough for the doctor to advise immediate removal. He also advised there was an 80% chance I'd contract asthma as a result. He was, of course, dead right. Even worse is that, unlike some people whose asthma becomes less severe, mine has only worsened. I know that if I go out at night, or leave a window open, my lungs will fuck up. I know if I enter a room with any strong smell, my lungs will fuck up. I know that there's a good chance my lungs will fuck up in an airconditioned room - really great news in South Africa where EVERYWHERE has air conditioning because it's hot. In fact, there's no situation I can think of where my lungs won't fuck up.

    I really should be dead at this point.
     
  4. Samr

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    I don't get sick. Aside from the occasional seasonal allergies (which I have now), my immune system is built like a WWII bomb shelter. I can't remember the last time I ran a fever -- my body temp actually usually shows up as a few degrees retro-grade -- my blood pressure is and always has remained normal, and my resting heart rate is naturally very low.

    BUT:

    - I have osteoporosis. At 22 and a male, I have the bone density of a 70 year old woman who has osteoporosis. This has resulted in 8 broken bones that I know of. Unfortunately, my pain tolerance has gotten to where I only ask for x-rays if it's physically impeding me now.

    - Costochondritis. Yeah, have that too. It basically an inflammation of the cartilage between your ribs, essentially causing them to "dislocate." Feels like a heart attack; first time it happened, we all thought it was.

    - Heart palpitations. I've learned to live with it, as it's genetic, and no big deal for me. Any doctor that happens to be doing tests on me while this happens, freaks out.

    - Brain tumor at 19. Took up a quarter of my brain, almost killed me. Operation resulted in an absolutely shitty case of pneumonia, which again almost killed me. I was was taking routine steroids which basically nuked my immune system, and was told that if I got sick with ANYTHING, I'd have to return to the hospital and it could potentially get much worse. Despite this knowledge, and the fact that I was in "critical condition" for three months after the surgery, I returned to work (I work in education, and a school is not the place to be with a nuked immune system) six weeks later and went back to working full-time on the day I came out of "critical condition." (Quote marks because that's the way the doctors officially labeled me in order to expedite my care if/when I returned to hospital.) I don't know how my body made it through that.



    I don't get viruses very often, but as far as my physical condition, I basically have some real shitty luck.
     
  5. Disgustipated

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    I debated about whether or not to post this because it may come off as me looking like a hypochondriac jerk. But what the hell, it's 1am and I'm bored.

    I have two medical conditions that have only recently been determined (so to speak - see below). They both appear to be related, are chronic and I've had them since birth. Their insidiousness, coupled with a family where if it wasn't lying in a pool of blood detached from your body you weren't sick, has meant that it's taken me over 30 years to even begin to find out what the issue is.

    The first one has been diagnosed as Idiopathic Hypersomnia. Translated, that means "you're really sleepy and we don't know why". It's related to narcolepsy, incurable and a massive pain in the ass. It worsens with age. Basically, I'm tired all the time. Sleep does nothing to refresh me. I would get bouts of sleepiness where I literally could not stay awake. I've fallen asleep in mid-morning meetings, or sitting on the couch at 10am, after an 8 hour sleep.

    There's a test scale where you determine your level of tiredness by answering a bunch of questions. It's out of 24. Over 18 is considered severe. I'm a 21. The actual test for the condition is an overnight sleep centre study, followed by a Multiple Sleep Latency Test where they hook you up to electrodes and get you to try to go to sleep various times over the course of a day. In every instance, I fell asleep. A normal result is 8 minutes. After a 10 hour sleep, and being up for 1 hour I was asleep in 3 minutes. The doc put me on an insanely expensive, non-amphetamine based medication (Modafinil, it's what they give to Armed Forces personnel on long haul missions). I'm on the highest recommended dose and still capable of falling asleep easily if I'm not careful. Unfortunately, I'm at my most awake at night, hence being completely wide awake at 1am after a full day. Barring a leap in medical knowledge, I'm stuck on it.

    The second one is baffling. Basically, I'm in pain constantly. It shifts around the body, tending to pool at the joints. My knees and ankles, especially, feel like they want to explode. I'll get random knifing pains. Occasionally I'll get tingling, numbness and shooting heat in my extremities. I've had X-rays, MRIs, nuclear bone scans and even a synovium biopsy in my knee. I've been to physiotherapy and tried aquatherapy. I've tried anti-inflammatories and even a course of tri-cyclic antidepressants that are often prescribed for nerve pain. Too much exercise hurts. Resting and doing nothing hurts. Getting up in the morning is a daily exercise in pain. In fact, it's pain that usually wakes me up.

    I spent years seeing a rheumatologist. Fibromyalgia was discounted. She finally threw her hands up and said she has no idea what it is. The nearest she can determine is that it's a central nervous issue and if I wanted to put a tag on it, I could say it is "chronic fatigue syndrome with pain". She offered me painkillers, but nothing short of opiates touches the sides so I refused. I'd rather not be a zombie. I deal with it but just pushing through everything, and knowing what I can and can't do. Now that I know I'm not actually damaging anything, I'm pushing a little harder.

    The scary thing is, it's getting worse. The best guess I can tell from what I'm feeling is that my nervous system is screwing up the signals to the brain and tricking it into feeling what is there to a greater degree than is true. If my actual body is, say, feeling a pain of 1 then my nervous system is telling my brain it's a 5. 2 becomes 10, and so on. I think I'm really starting to notice it now because I'm in my mid 30s and the wear and tear of youth is starting to catch up to me. My nervous system is just adding interest to everything.

    I'm real fun to talk to at parties.
     
  6. Frank n Beans

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    I haven't been able to smell for over 6 years because of allergies. I never had allergies growing up, then my junior year of college it felt like I just got a head cold except it never went away. Being in college I never went to the doctor to get it checked out, but a few years back I finally went and I guess my entire sinuses and nose were filled with polyps. They gave me some prednisone which cleared it up and some medicated spray to help keep it away but that didn't work. So about 2 years ago I went in and they basically drilled my nose and sinuses to clear them out. It didn't hurt afterwards but I was off work for a week since you're very sensitive afterwards. Well by the time my week was up I couldn't smell again but at least I can breath through my nose. So that's where I'm at today, I can breath but still can't smell. I keep thinking of going in again to get drilled but with the twins coming in a couple months I may wait until they quit shitting 80 times a day before I try it again.
     
  7. Primer

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    The week my house caught H1N1.

    I live (well, used too) with four roommates, it's a big house, so we don't really have space issues. One of the roommates is a nurse and works at a local hospital in the ER. He basically works around impressively sick people all day and has the immune system of a god; his body is resistant to everything but one thing.

    H1N1.

    It started out innocently enough, a little headache, lack of energy and being a bit nauseous. It took an entire day to take hold of my body and then it went into rage mode. Swine flu is a lot like a normal flu, except it's on steroids and has every desire to make your life an absolute hell. At one point, my throat was so sore that I stopped drinking fluids because it felt like someone was shoving a knife that was on fire down my throat with every sip of water; I went through packs of those throat numbing lozenges. It wasn't all that terrible as four of the five of us managed to catch the swine flu at the same time and we basically sat in the basement, occasionally vomiting or groaning in pain, while watching terrible daytime TV and crappy movies - it was a real bonding moment.

    It was a week off in hell with pay.
     
  8. AdrianSSS

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    A few years ago, in the middle of winter, when I was young(er) and dumb(er) I had a one-night stand with a random girl from a bar. Now, winter where I live doesn't get all that cold (52-70deg) but compared to our summers it's fucking freezing. Unfortunately I have a compulsion about having fresh air in my bedroom no matter the season, so this led to us being naked with the windows open and passing out the same way, with cold air pouring in.

    I've got one sensitive immune system when it comes to sleeping without a shirt (for some reason) and I always tend to develop a sore throat and cold symptoms. To my detriment, I posted in the Rant and Rave thread on the old RMMB about getting laid, but getting a sore throat/cold the next day, and our friendly neighbourhood Geigs repped me saying those were the first symptoms of AIDS.

    That spooked me enough to call her and ask if she was clean. Yes, that's right. I am one smooth motherfucker. Some basic cold symptoms and I jump to the conclusion that a girl gave me AIDS. It cleared up in like two days after drinking a shitload of tea with lemon and honey.

    Don't worry ladies, she didn't. Did I mention I'm single again?
     
  9. effinshenanigans

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    I actually got this rep from Tuesday when I posted about the horrible fever I had on my birthday that turned out to be caused by lyme disease.

    Luckily I caught it real quick and I'm already on my second round of antibiotics. If you let that stuff go, it can cause all sorts of auto-immune disorders and fuck you up permanently.
     
  10. lust4life

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    Hands down, mono. Take everything Frylock said and multiply by 10. Thank God you can only get it once. Sheer misery.

    Other conditions I've been diagnosed with:

    Cushing's Disease (a not-so-fun endocrine disorder)
    Hypothyroidism (as a result of the Cushing's)
    Peripheral neuropathy in both legs
    Hypertensive cardiomelagy (enlarged heart due to high blood pressure)
    ADHD
    Major depression

    Yep, I'm a walking CVS.
     
  11. lostalldoubt86

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    Around the beginning of August, I caught an absolutely horrible 24-hour bug. I woke up at 5 in the morning so drenched in sweat that I thought I peed the bed. The reason I thought it was pee? I was shivering cold. I didn't have the strength to strip the bed, so I found a spare blanket in my closet and went to lie down in my living room.

    I woke up half an hour later and drank a cup of coffee, thinking it was just a headache and chills kind of illness and the coffee would warm me up. Not a minute later, i start vomiting. I threw up the coffee, any food that had not yet been digested, stomach acid, and bile. Now, if you have never vomited coffee before, it stings like a scorpion stuck in your throat.

    For the rest of the day all I did was vomit, lie on the couch where I went in and out of consciousness between watching shitty movies (Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past shitty), and attempted to find a comfortable balance between the pounding in my head every time I would lie on my back and the pressure on my stomach when I would lie on it. (Someone please correct me if I'm using the wrong spelling for "lie")

    By 4 p.m., I started crying uncontrollably and feeling the early onset of dehydration from not being able to keep anything down. I woke up the next morning, completely fine, and ate a pound of bacon.


    Edit: I just read over this, and I want to make something clear. This was not a hangover. I was legitimately sick. Also, I did not pee the bed.
     
  12. A-Ron

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    After reading what Disgustipated, Samr, and lust4life go through / went through, I'm definitely counting my lucky stars when it comes to my health.

    I got mono when I was a sophmore in college. It really wasn't too bad aside from the fatigue and swollen spleen, but the first week was awful. My case decided to manifest itself as slowly increasing dizziness, which at first made me think I was going crazy. I would stand up from chairs and just be slightly dizzy and didn't know why. One week later it was so bad it took me 20 minutes to get to the bathroom and back, and usually I would throw up in between because everything was constantly spinning. My roommate fed me meal replacement shakes while under a blanket for a full week, because liquids were the only thing I could keep down. We figured out that since putting the blanket over my head reduced my vision to about 1-2 inches I didn't feel the full force of the dizziness.

    This spring I got a stomach virus from hell. I woke up on a saturday morning with some diarrhea that within two hours progressed to full on diarrhea/projectile vomiting, many times simultaneously, for the next 12 hours. I woke up at 9am, and by 9pm I wasn't vomiting anymore. In that space of time I lost 12lbs.

    The only chronic condition is my messed up back. I tore either my spinal erector or my oblique (where it inserts into the hip) trying to pull a deadlift with shitty form. It took me a year to recover and it still causes me pain every day. I could probably get it fixed with surgery, but I'm paranoid that a major back surgery would keep me out of the Air Force, should I decide to go into it.
     
  13. Pink Candy

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    Lyme Disease in 2006. Despite two rounds of really powerful antibiotics, I still have lingering afteraffects that come in flares. With the seasonal change out here (going from sun to constant clouds) my body has gone haywire. For the last week I've had bad headaches, extreme tiredness and sore everything muscular. In about a month I'll be fine but I would just like to extend a large middle finger to the fucking tick that bit me four years ago.

    And on that note, I feel another wave of exhaustion hitting me. Luckily today is my day off so I can nap, but yesterday I had a wave hit me during an interview. It took whatever power I had in my body to stay awake while some dude was telling me about how he raped and stabbed someone.
     
  14. zyron

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    When I was 21 I caught something so horrible that when I first got to the hospital I told my Mother (No way I could make it by myself) that I wish I was going in for a gunshot instead.

    I woke up that morning thinking it was just a hangover (I went to the Casino the night before, I think it was from one of the dying oldies in there with their oxygen tanks) so puked a few times, had some diarrhea and headed to work. On the way in my back muscles tightened out of nowhere to the point it felt like someone was tearing them apart. Get to work and start puking, every five minutes and shitting nonstop too. I also was getting dizzy so had to lay down. I was told to go home but someone had to drive me because I wouldn't have made it.

    about a minute walk from home I tell the person to pull over because I was about to puke and told them I would walk the rest of the way. After I threw up I stood up and almost passed out and my vision went completely black for a couple seconds. It took me 15 minutes walk home when it should have taken one.

    For the next 6 hours I did nothing but throw up and shit. It got to the point that what I was shitting was as clear as water. I am not kidding, I threw up at minimum 100 times. Finally my body was getting so dehydrated that my arms had curled up and my toes were cramping. Also, the inside of my body felt like it was asleep (Like when your foots asleep because a lack of blood). It was at this point I called my Mom and mumbled hospital. I couldn't even hold the pen to sign my name.

    I forget what they called what I had caught but was so happy when they injected me with medicine to stop me from puking and shitting. They had to pump me full of a lot of liquid because I was so dehydrated (which led to a ton of fun as the nurse searched for a vein) and I watched as my arms uncurled as it dripped in. Then they told me I couldn't eat for a minimum of 3 days.

    Edit: Oh and the best part, I lost a decent amount at the Casino and was then met with a $1500 hospital bill with no insurance at the time.
     
  15. Nettdata

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    This is pretty fucking cool.

    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/09/pinky.regeneration.surgery/index.html?hpt=C2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/09/pi ... tml?hpt=C2</a>

    I had a similar experience with doctors that didn't really know what they were talking about.

    I used to play rugby, and was tackled in a weird way that resulted in my knee getting bent too far, and the knee dislocating between 5-7". Imagine bending your leg all the way until your ankle is against your ass, and then keep going until your knee pops out of the socket. Fun times!

    Aside from totally destroying 3 of the 4 ligaments in my knee, I also severed the peroneal nerve in half.

    That's kind of not that big of a deal, if handled properly and quickly, and surgery within 12 hours or so gives you a great shot at a full recovery. However, my trip to the local hack at the emergency room led me to believe it was only a sprain, "so come back in a week or two" if it's still bugging you.

    I was too stupid to know any better, so after 2 weeks of having no feeling in most of my leg below the knee, and not being able to lift my foot or toes, I went to see my doctor. He FREAKED. I caught the last ferry to Vancouver (I was living on the Sunshine Coast at the time), and went to the top orthopaedic surgery.

    Within 4 hours I was on the operating table having the top two orthopaedic surgeons of the time cutting into my leg.

    After that, I saw neurosurgeon after neurosurgeon for almost 4 months, and they all said the same thing. They'd stick me full of needles, run current though a bunch of wires, and basically run continuity tests on my leg, only to tell me that it was left too late, and I'd never get the use of those nerves or muscles back again.

    By this point, the right side of me leg, from the knee down, had totally atrophied... it was basically just skin over bone. I couldn't lift my foot, so I had to walk like a gimp, basically throwing my leg/foot forward to get it to raise up enough that I wouldn't trip over it.

    I said "fuck that", and did my own research.

    And I mountain biked like a mother fucker. I wore out 3 knee braces within 2 months of surgery while I rehabbed. Eventually, I said "fuck it" and threw the brace away, and vowed never to use one again. All the doctors screamed at me, and said that I was nuts, but fuck them. The way I figured it, if I learned to use the brace, it'd be a crutch that I'd grow used to and dependent upon. If I did shit without it, my body would deal with it on its own.

    I also went back to practising rugby. I'd never really be able to play again (at least not at the level I had been), but the guys let me come out and run around on the field with them and fuck around.

    I noticed that the nerve was starting to recover after a while. Millimetre by millimetre, it was growing. And I could see it snaking it's way into the muscles in my leg. The muscles on my leg were growing, and counteracting and adjusting for the loss of the atrophied and non-functioning muscles.

    And then, just over 2 years after the accident, I could lift my big toe. Sounds nuts, but it was a fucking HUGE moment. I cried.

    For the next 3 years, my leg and foot and toes felt all tingly, like your legs do when you sit on the john for too long.

    It hurt like a motherfucker, but I constantly pushed and exercised the nerves... even spending hours just doing toe curls.


    Today, you'd never know that I'd had any nerve damage at all except for the monster scar down my leg, and some of the muscle that still hasn't regrown to this day.


    So yeah, the doctors said "give up, nothing you can do", but I firmly believe that working and abusing my injury as I did was the only reason it got better.
     
  16. LadyLecter

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    My senior year of college my dorm got infected with what all of us started referring to as the Death Flu. I was one of those to get it earlier. It started at about 4am when I woke up having to almost sprint to the bathroom to vomit. Luckily, my room wasn't at the end of the hall so I made it in time, but barely. After the third round of vomiting, it hits. Diarrhea decides it wants to join the party. I spent hours sitting on the toilet with a bucket in my lap as everything in my body was violently ejected from both orifices at the same time. My fever was spiking and after almost 9 hours I was so severely dehydrated that I was cramping up and was white as a sheet.

    It got bad enough that I got one of my friends who wasn't sick to drive me to the hospital. I lay there hooked up to an IV with a bucket and a bed pan. I was there until late into the night before they finally let me go home. I spent the next 3 days in bed drinking electrolytes and riding out the rest of the storm with a bucket at the side of my bed.

    Over the course of a month, half of the dorm had gotten it at some point, with almost everyone ending up in the hospital once because of the dehydration.

    Edit: Yes they did give me a prescription for the shitting and puking which helped a ton. The bucket was more because I was paranoid.



    Then of course there is the fact that I have had 6 kidney stones and I'm 24 which ... isn't supposed to happen. They still can't figure out exactly why I get them. As a result I have to drink a ridiculous amount of water every day. I have a 24 oz water bottle that I refill 5-6 times a day which equals out to about a gallon of water a day. It's nuts but it's one of the only things that helps. If I don't my kidney actually starts to pang at me letting me know that I need to go refill my water bottle.

    The first one got stuck and started shredding my kidney and almost killed me, and 3 of the others still put me in the hospital. Without question the worst pain I have ever experienced. My last one was about 6 weeks ago (which I posted about in the Rant and Rave thread - said I'd had 5 in that but I was doped on morphine at the time and forgot about one) which was the first in 2 years so hopefully it will be a while before I get another one.
     
  17. TX.

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    With Waylon, Willie and the boys
    One of my favorites is the time I had a sinus infection for over a month. Two days before going on tour I started feeling like absolute shit. I thought, "Damn. OK, I don't feel like I'm about to die, but I need to see the doctor because I do not want to be sick on the road/while I'm performing a ton/living out of a suitcase for the next 3 weeks." My doctor couldn't fit me in so I went to PrimaCare (mistake). The doctor/quack diagnosed me with tonsillitis and sent me off with a script for an antibiotic. I start taking the meds and leave to go on tour. Flash forward to two weeks later. I've finished my antibiotics, but for some reason I'm not 100% better. I'm about 50% better. A few days after I finish the meds I'm right back to where I started on Day One. I go to a walk-in clinic in Denver. The doctor says, "Oh yeah. Tonsillitis. Classic case," and gives me a stronger antibiotic. Flash forward to two weeks later. Same thing happened. I got a little better but ended up feeling like shit. By this time, the tour is over. I've felt and looked like ass the entire time. I make an appointment with my doctor, and he says, "Oh. They said tonsillitis? This is obviously a sinus infection. X and Y antibiotics don't do much for that." (I loved this doctor. He was the best I've ever had). Luckily, he GAVE me an antibiotic and a ton of meds so I didn't have to pay for yet another script, and a few days later I felt fine. Fuck PrimaCare and walk-in clinics in the ass. I refuse to go to one now after that ordeal.

    When I was 18 my knee started acting up, and I had an MRI to check it out. Structurally, everything was fine. Just arthritis. But, my doc thought my bone marrow looked strange. He called me back to do some blood work. That came back with a really elevated white blood cell count, and I had to give more blood for additional testing. I started freaking out because it took almost 2 weeks for the results to come back. It was over the 4th of July, and the lab was in Austin, so it felt like it was taking forever. It had been 3 weeks since the testing started. My imagination was going crazy, and I was assuming the worst...that I had the HIV or something. I actually talked to one of my friends' brother who was PhD student. He said they were probably thinking about some type of cancer. I started freaking out even more because my best friend had just passed away after years of battling leukemia. This is one of the many reasons I liked my doctor: he called me to tell me the results. Everything came out fine. I just always remembered that because he could've had a nurse or a tech call and leave a message. I think he knew I was freaking out. I'm bummed because he moved to the east coast. Tomorrow I'm starting a series of tests because of nerve issues, and I so wish I was going to him.
     
  18. Aetius

    Aetius
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    Watching Master and Commander + a weeklong fever = a hallucination in which I was convinced I was a ship of the line and fired my broad guns on a passing French frigate.
     
  19. Volo

    Volo
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    In the same vein, when I was down with a horrible flu a couple years back, I watched Braveheart in all of its glory.

    Thing was, the TV wasn't turned on, I didn't have cable, and I don't own the movie.
     
  20. toddamus

    toddamus
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    I had legitimate influenza once. It sucked something fierce. It didn't suck in the way that I had bad congestion, soar throat, fever etc, it wasn't like a very bad cold, it was a different animal. It sapped all my strength. At one point I was so lethargic I was starting to feel borderline paralyzed. I was in high school at the time and I missed a solid month of class. I couldn't go anywhere because of the fever/chills I was experiencing. If I did venture out for the day I was in misery because I was either insanely hot or feeling borderline hypothermic cold.

    That experience jaded me in a way because now whenever someone says they have the flu or have had it I am highly skeptical because actual influenza is really scary, it's not the sort of thing you shake off in a week.