The whole not-breathing thing lasted till the following Wednesday. The dt's from all the meds lasted through Sunday. I didn't work Monday but was able to be up and about the next day. I was pretty damned miserable, since I wanted to be active but couldn't really breathe, so no walking.
I managed a follow-up ultrasound that week, and a clinic visit with Dr. V the week after. He was very apologetic, telling me that if he had had any idea that I would be in so much pain he would have prepared me better. I told him that it was okay; we all had bad days and I was sure he hadn't planned such a rough procedure.
What made the difference for me was that, the Sunday after I came home from the hospital, I received a phone call from Dr. V. A dr has never ever called me at home. He was just checking in, wanted to know how I was feeling, wanted to tell me what the test showed, and when he wanted to see me next. I was nonplussed, and very impressed. I do expect directness from my drs, and kindness is a bonus, but this was way cool.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Behind Door #2...
Approximately 75-80% of American adults have CMV. That's cytomegalovirus, and it's pretty certain that it's a relative of herpes, epstein-barr, and mononucleosis. It lives in the body, happily cooking along and not really showing up in healthy people.
About 20-25% of American adults do not have CMV. That means their immune systems have never worked up the antibodies to fight the virus.
CMV is an opportunistic virus, meaning it shows up when your immune system is depressed for some reason or other, and when the virus is activated, it can cause nasty illnesses -- and, in a pregnant woman, birth defects for her child. It can arrive as the flu - aches, fevers, sore throat. It can cause gastrointestinal distress. It can cause retinitis (and eventual blindness). It can attack the liver, the joints, and I bet it can even get your teeth. It's not generally passed on through casual contact... and it dies very quickly outside the body.
Anyhow, given the percentage of folks who are already positive, versus the percent who are negative, when transplants take place there's a 20 +/- % overlap of positive donors and negative recipients. They give hefty antivirals right after transplant to keep the virus at bay. After that, approximately 20% of the 20% go on to develop CMV.
Guess who hit that jackpot?
I started feeling crummy about two weeks ago, right as my family were all arriving in town for Sarah and Brett's wedding. My arms and legs really hurt, and I was t.i.r.e.d. By last Sunday I couldn't drag myself off Big Red, and slept almost all day. I also had a fever and a sore throat. By Monday I started to feel tight in my chest, and I broke down and called Nurse M.
6:00 Tuesday found me in my favorite University hospital giving all sorts of bodily fluids to the cause. Dr. H saw me and after 30 seconds said "I'll bet you $100 you have CMV." Yeah, like I was going to take that bet. :-) I knew I'd be back in on Thursday for more venous spelunking (soon will have another "recent misadventures" post) so figured I'd get meds then.
Woke up from my procedure Thursday morning to my darling Interventional Radiology docs saying "you are being admitted but this is totally not our fault -- we would let you go home today..." And I just laughed. I found myself in the same room I was in when I left the hosp in April, with the same nurses. Ahhhhh, home.
I got Thursday afternoon "off" and Friday was poked and prodded in various ignominious ways, and received a "PICC" line, which is basically an at-home iv that runs from inside my elbow, up around my shoulder, and stops just short of my heart. This is a quick and efficient way to get meds throughout the body ... with the effectiveness of oral medications on CMV still under scrutiny, fluid is the way to go.
Saturday consisted of lessons from the home health nurse, more visits from the infectious disease docs, and coming home. It will probably be the end of the week before I start to feel better, at least I hope I do by then. I am still sleeping all the time. As of this moment I've been awake for an hour and three-quarters and am longing for sleep. But I'm sure it will work.
About 20-25% of American adults do not have CMV. That means their immune systems have never worked up the antibodies to fight the virus.
CMV is an opportunistic virus, meaning it shows up when your immune system is depressed for some reason or other, and when the virus is activated, it can cause nasty illnesses -- and, in a pregnant woman, birth defects for her child. It can arrive as the flu - aches, fevers, sore throat. It can cause gastrointestinal distress. It can cause retinitis (and eventual blindness). It can attack the liver, the joints, and I bet it can even get your teeth. It's not generally passed on through casual contact... and it dies very quickly outside the body.
Anyhow, given the percentage of folks who are already positive, versus the percent who are negative, when transplants take place there's a 20 +/- % overlap of positive donors and negative recipients. They give hefty antivirals right after transplant to keep the virus at bay. After that, approximately 20% of the 20% go on to develop CMV.
Guess who hit that jackpot?
I started feeling crummy about two weeks ago, right as my family were all arriving in town for Sarah and Brett's wedding. My arms and legs really hurt, and I was t.i.r.e.d. By last Sunday I couldn't drag myself off Big Red, and slept almost all day. I also had a fever and a sore throat. By Monday I started to feel tight in my chest, and I broke down and called Nurse M.
6:00 Tuesday found me in my favorite University hospital giving all sorts of bodily fluids to the cause. Dr. H saw me and after 30 seconds said "I'll bet you $100 you have CMV." Yeah, like I was going to take that bet. :-) I knew I'd be back in on Thursday for more venous spelunking (soon will have another "recent misadventures" post) so figured I'd get meds then.
Woke up from my procedure Thursday morning to my darling Interventional Radiology docs saying "you are being admitted but this is totally not our fault -- we would let you go home today..." And I just laughed. I found myself in the same room I was in when I left the hosp in April, with the same nurses. Ahhhhh, home.
I got Thursday afternoon "off" and Friday was poked and prodded in various ignominious ways, and received a "PICC" line, which is basically an at-home iv that runs from inside my elbow, up around my shoulder, and stops just short of my heart. This is a quick and efficient way to get meds throughout the body ... with the effectiveness of oral medications on CMV still under scrutiny, fluid is the way to go.
Saturday consisted of lessons from the home health nurse, more visits from the infectious disease docs, and coming home. It will probably be the end of the week before I start to feel better, at least I hope I do by then. I am still sleeping all the time. As of this moment I've been awake for an hour and three-quarters and am longing for sleep. But I'm sure it will work.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Total Betty
A few weeks ago Martin and I went to visit a friend in her new home. We took her the traditional house-warming gifts of sparkling fruit juice, cake, and ridiculously expensive black salt. I like to think outside traditional boxes, sometimes.
Anyhow, it's always fun to visit with her. Visiting in the older-generation sense of the word: conversation that rumbles through mundane updates about life to broader musings about art, politics, the world, family, and of course city planning.
She was the first to ask (and I was somewhat surprised about this -- both that she was the first, and that she did ask) if I had named my new liver.
Of course I did. The second night home from the hospital, in a semi-lucid state of insomnia.
Friedan.
Because Betty had been taken by a pet bird, and Betsey being my cat, that was too close. But Friedan works...
Based on my rather minimal memory of The Feminine Mystique, the common unfulfilled housewife was "stuck" in a role of menial tasks, cleaning up others' messes, taking the leftovers of others' lives and making something meaningful out of them for both others and finally for herself. Keeping things clean, protecting the rest of the family, providing energy and food, and basically getting little recognition for the work she did.
It occurred to me that this is kind of like the liver's role in the body. (Remember, I said I was semi-lucid.) The heart is sexy and gets all kind of love (seriously) and is the center of our world. We speak from the heart. Things are our heart's desire. Then the stomach gets fed... it's the way to a man's heart, after all. We feel things in our gut. Lungs are obvious and big and we can see them at work by simply looking down. Eyes are the window of our soul... and so on.
Try to think of one with liver. You can't. In most cases "onions" comes to mind. Livers are pretty ugly, and big, and ungainly, and don't do a lot but clean up our messes.
On the other hand, they are also pretty cool. They grow back if they are damaged (see Prometheus -- funny that the liver's element is fire), are a big part of the 3rd Chakra in energy medicine, and if their energy isn't working, no part of the body's energy system is working.
Translation: if mother isn't happy, ain't nobody happy. Coming right back round to Betty.
Anyhow, it's always fun to visit with her. Visiting in the older-generation sense of the word: conversation that rumbles through mundane updates about life to broader musings about art, politics, the world, family, and of course city planning.
She was the first to ask (and I was somewhat surprised about this -- both that she was the first, and that she did ask) if I had named my new liver.
Of course I did. The second night home from the hospital, in a semi-lucid state of insomnia.
Friedan.
Because Betty had been taken by a pet bird, and Betsey being my cat, that was too close. But Friedan works...
Based on my rather minimal memory of The Feminine Mystique, the common unfulfilled housewife was "stuck" in a role of menial tasks, cleaning up others' messes, taking the leftovers of others' lives and making something meaningful out of them for both others and finally for herself. Keeping things clean, protecting the rest of the family, providing energy and food, and basically getting little recognition for the work she did.
It occurred to me that this is kind of like the liver's role in the body. (Remember, I said I was semi-lucid.) The heart is sexy and gets all kind of love (seriously) and is the center of our world. We speak from the heart. Things are our heart's desire. Then the stomach gets fed... it's the way to a man's heart, after all. We feel things in our gut. Lungs are obvious and big and we can see them at work by simply looking down. Eyes are the window of our soul... and so on.
Try to think of one with liver. You can't. In most cases "onions" comes to mind. Livers are pretty ugly, and big, and ungainly, and don't do a lot but clean up our messes.
On the other hand, they are also pretty cool. They grow back if they are damaged (see Prometheus -- funny that the liver's element is fire), are a big part of the 3rd Chakra in energy medicine, and if their energy isn't working, no part of the body's energy system is working.
Translation: if mother isn't happy, ain't nobody happy. Coming right back round to Betty.
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