The Sickness: Update

At the follow-up doctors appointment the doctor had me do the two laps around the office again. The results showed that my lungs were functioning much better; however, my pulse was quite high given that i was simply walking (110 bpm).

The doctor was also still concerned about my fatigue; he ordered another blood panel to be sure i was not anemic (the results from the ER visit showed slight anemia). He also ordered an echocardiogram stress test and referred me to a cardiologist.

So the good news is that the blood test results were fine. It is also good news that the echo-stress test was perfectly normal as well.

The bad news is that all the tests were fine. :-/

The diagnosis has been amended to simply "nasty virus". Ideally we'd all love to know exactly what attacked my system, but things aren't always ideal.

The best news is that currently i am at about 98% of "normal" and feel pretty well.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers. I really appreciate it.

The Last Three Weeks

Have you been out of the country?

Have you taken any trips?

No, those aren't questions being asked by friends who have missed my smiling face, er, avatar.  [Those are more like "whazzup dog?" or "sup hos?" or "hey sweetie pie?" (the latter from somone called SpringBabe9783 via AIM)]

No, those questions are being asked by my doctors; the physicians being charged with fixing my physical condition.  Oh, the problem? Well...

It all started the 7th of March (or so we believe), ran a fever for one night, felt horrible, and spent the next two days recovering.

Two days later the fever returned and i went to the doctor for the first time. The diagnosis was walking pneumonia. The doc prescribed avelox and home i went.

Five days later -- having spent the majority of that time in bed -- i still had a fever and felt horrible. Back to the doctor i went.

After checking me over, the doctor decided to hook me up to a pulse oximeter. At rest the SpO2 reading was 94%. A tad low to start. The doctor asked me to take a couple of laps around the office.

After lap one, the reading sagged to 90%. After lap two, we watched the reading plummet to 84%. After sitting down again in the exam room, i began to feel hot and my vision got blurred...yeah, i was headed for la-la land; fortunately, the doc got me some water and up on the exam table pretty quick.

After recovering on the table for while, then receiving a shot of rocephin and a prescription for a Z-pack, i headed off for a chest X-ray. I also had a new pet name from my bride, hypoxic man.

The diagnosis was amended to community-acquired pneumonia.

But now it gets interesting. The nurse calls the next day to let me know the chest X-ray is clear.

Three days later things are looking-up, sorta. I was no longer feverish (yah!), but still hypoxic man; any exertion would leave me sucking-wind, literally. And by exertion i don't mean dance aerobics, i mean simply standing-up or walking. :-/ My wife called the doctors office, explained my condition. Their advice? Take a trip to the emergency room.

Simply getting checked in to the emergency department was a chore. The person in front of me had fell from the "second story" of a building and had head and back pain. The question posed by the check-in nurse must have been worth a million dollars: "how far did you fall?" It had to be worth that much because it necessitated twenty minutes and using all three life-lines out to spanish-speaking staff members to ask the question. Apparently the difference between 12 or 17 feet had huge ramifications for the questionnaire in front of her. Of course, it wasn't until she got her question answered that she offered the guy a wheelchair.

ER Tip #1: "i'm having shortness of breath" produces a wheelchair immediately.

After getting checked-in and triaged, i only had to wait about 15 minutes for a "room". Over the next 8 hours i would have: much blood taken, a flu test, another chest X-ray, two small cans of ginger-ale, some saltine crackers, and a chest CT. The latter was ordered after one of the blood tests (D-dimer) came back and the doctor wanted to rule out a blood-clot in a lung.

So after a day of testing they found nothing to warrant any further testing. Translated: it was time to go home.

So the latest diagnosis is generally: viral pneumonia. Which comes back to the questions the doctors are asking, because it would seem that i'm the only one around with this virus...or at least with this set of symptoms. The ER doctor actually came back in to the "room" twice to ask if i had been somewhere.

My wife and even my kids doctors are still concerned. The exertion => shortness of breath connection is also associated with many ticker-related issues.

The good news is that i am improving, but only a little each day. I'm sleeping a lot, usually taking a couple of naps during the day. This morning i stood up for about 30 minutes doing stuff in the kitchen and then needed to sit down.

On the improvement side, even though i am still having the shortness of breath it is taking a little longer to show-up when doing stuff and recovery after sitting down doesn't seem to be taking as long. Hey, i'll take it!

I have another follow-up with the doctor in another 5 days. He seems to expect me to be pretty well recovered by then and wants me to run laps around the office again. Should be interesting.