Medical Mysteries

We have had all sorts of adventures in health care over the past month. I have had a low-grade fever for a month now. The weird thing is that I haven't had any consistent accompanying symptoms. I've had a few headaches, a few body aches, and some fatigue to varying degrees. After the first doctor's visit which was 10 days after the fever started, he said to give it another week because it could be a viral thing that would go away. So I did rest & fluids for a week, and the next week I had picked up a cold so he gave me a 10-day round of antibiotics for sinusitis. A few days after that was over, I went back and they did a chest x-ray just to make sure they weren't missing anything there, and a blood test for mono. That was negative, and the x-ray was unintersting. Tomorrow I am having a catscan of my nasal area. After that, I don't know what they will do.

In the meantime, it was time for my annual blood work, and I get every test under the sun. I was hoping to be feeling better before I had to deal with that, but I finally just gave up and got it done on Friday. We tried initially on Wednesday but I wasn't hydrated enough to get anything (I have terrible veins). So I drank a TON of water and when I went back on Friday they had to poke me 4 times, but were able to get the 10 vials they needed, so that was good.

Craig was doing great until he caught the cold I had, then started having stomach issues that snow-balled into severe gastroenteritis. He had a headache, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, EXTREME fatigue (like he slept 20 hours a day for 3 days straight and has no memory of the few hours he was awake). After a few days of this, he was lying on the couch almost in tears because of pain in his neck. I got nervous about that and looked up symptoms for meningitis online and sure enough he had all of them except seizures which doesn't always happen anyway. So we called Tad to sit here while I took Craig to the ER (Carolyn was already in bed). It was a good thing I caught a nap that day because I had to stay up until 4 am with the ER visit. He didn't have meningitis but he was very dehydrated, so they gave him 2 liters of saline and some anti-vomiting meds through an iv. His blood tests didn't indicate infection, so it looks like just a really nasty virus. So with all of this, he had 3 visits to the student health clinic, an ER visit, and missed more than a week of school and work. So now he will be scrambling for the next few weeks to get caught up.

Carolyn had diarrhea for 2 days, but hasn't had anything else. The Lord has been very good to me and protected me from that stomach bug, too. I consider it a miracle that between Craig and the rest of the ward that I have been spared. But the Lord knows how much more serious it is for me to get those things with my altered physiology than other people, and I was told in a blessing from Craig that I wouldn't get it. So now if they cam just figure out the cause of the fever, that will be great!