Day 91, A Visit to the ER

Saturday night, my wife and I attended our church's Easter events, and upon entering the service, I knew something wasn't right about my body. I felt off... An hour later, my head began to throb again, my eardrums were pulsating, pressure behind my eyes, I was have a recurring non-stop dry cough as well. I must have went through 4 Ricola within 30 minutes to combat my coughing. By the time service had ended, my whole body again to feel like I'd been tossed off a 15 foot roof face first. Thank God for hot coffee from our church, it was the only thing that soothed my hurting throat and mouth.

I arrived back at home around 7PM on Saturday night, and my wife boiled me a steaming hot kettle of water to put my head over and inhale to break up my sinuses and give me relief. It only gave momentarily relief and provided no long term benefit. My wife being very concerned over me, more so over my white blood cell counts from my previous liver treatment in 2006, urged me to go to the ER and get checked out. I know with her being an RN, she always will know what's best, so I always listen to the nurses orders. We then went to the local ER and were checked in. To my amazement, I was in a room, checked in and seeing a doctor in less than 25 minutes. I guess everyone could see my suffering, and hear my deep congestion when I talked. The headache was so bad, I could barely open my eyes to look at the nurses checking me in. Before I left the house, my wife gave me 600MG of Ibuprofen to relieve my headache. I checked in with another low grade fever at 99.8. My cheeks were on fire, and I was burning up, I felt a lot hotter at times than 99.8. I didn't feel the relieving effects of the Ibuprofen until almost an hour and a half later when my headache slowly began to subside.

I told the doctor all my symptoms, and of course being in the ER, you have to tell the doctor everything, all the meds your on, so he/she can make the best decision based on own body needs. After I told the doctor my life story basically, I told him the current issues I'm having. He was very concerned about me, and ordered a full lab panel of blood work, a chest X-ray, head CT Scan, strep throat swab, urine analysis and a lactic acid panel. The doctor went as far to say if these labs show nothing, he may order a spinal tap to check for meningitis, I was like EEEEK! After doing all the tests, the results came back within about 30-40 minutes and to my surprise everything was normal ranges! Even my liver enzymes, my WBC was 9.0, and my hemoglobin was all normal range. The chest X-ray didn't show any signs of pneumonia. The urine cultures were all negative and the lactic acid test was normal as well. The CT Scan, however, showed my right cheek sinus cavity complete filled with mucus, I had a chronic case of sinusitis.

I was discharged roughly around 2AM from the ER early Easter morning, and given two prescriptions for a Z-pack and codeine cough syrup to help me sleep at nights. Fast forward to yesterday, Easter Sunday, and I woke up with this weird eye irritation. My eyelids were almost completely crusted over when I awoke in the morning, and all day yesterday, this white mucus was slowly secreting from the inner corners of my eyes near the tear ducts. I didn't think much of it as I had a bad sinus infection and was taking antibiotics. When I awoke this morning, the left eye had gotten a lot worse, and my eyelashes were crusty with this nastiness. I called my doctors an hour ago and asked to speak to the nurse on call today and I am currently waiting on a call back from her to tell her about this new issue with my eyes. My gut instinct tells me I have a case of Conjunctivitis, but I'm not doctor. Hopefully I can either be seen, or get some eye ointment medication ASAP today to stop this itchy, burning eye pain. Feels like my eyes have been ran through some sort of cleaner or chemical. Not sure if I picked this up at church, in the ER or just luck of the draw. Needless to say, the week that will never end continues on.

I'd like to send a special thanks to the amazing staff at South Lake Hospital Emergency Room for their stellar promptness and swiftness in helping me. I'd also like to thank my amazing wife for encouraging me, and being a voice in many storms that I stop and listen to. Also to my friends John Durham and Mike Pitt from my church and men's group for coming to the ER at 11PM at night to check on me and pray with me. Truly, I don't worry about any of this nonsense I'm going through with sinuses, eyes etc... I love a good challenge and prefer to be in the battle than living a life of no challenges and always stuck in rhetoric moments of dullness, numbness and desensitization of one's own emotions. I am literally thrust into the front lines of an ongoing battle of good and evil, life and death, and in the end, this body will not win! I will always triumph over my own body, because in the end, Christ gave me the power to overcome. Whether it's in this life or the next, frankly, God's got this! I just need enough sunshine peering through the clouds above this storm to reach out and prevail, and I will. and in a few weeks, I will be back to normal and rally in God's amazing healing power and awesomeness. My Boss is good and on time like that. Just imagine what kind of stories I get to share down the road while I've been on this liver therapy. It's going to help A LOT OF PEOPLE!!!

Day 86, Aches, Chills & Cramps

So this past week, I was up in Atlanta, GA visiting with a friend and enjoying the sites in and around town. Upon many of my travels over the past 6 days, my wife and visited Six Flags over Georgia and rode all the roller coasters, saw on Broadway The Lion King, and visited some film locations from the television series The Walking Dead on AMC. All was going well until Tuesday night, on the way home from our Broadway show, and shortly after taking my nightly dose of Ribavirin, I became extremely chilled, shaky and my lower back began an all familiar deep ache.

By the time I drove to my friend's house outside of Atlanta, all I could do was get in bed with multiple layers of sheets and quilts on me. I was so bad with the shakes, that my wife could hear my teeth chattering. Being an RN, she advised me to take a hot shower. The thick-headed side of me held out as long as I could, and finally 25 minutes later with my hands, toes, head and limbs all cold to the touch, I caved and my wife started the shower for me. By the time I unclothed and stepped in, the chills had reached it's peak, as my hands literally shook and where pale to the naked eye. I wasn't sure what exactly was happening to me. At first my mind raced that I was coming down with a virus, then continued to run with ideas that my immune system is low, and that I'm having an early onset of the flu. It wasn't until I took the hot shower, warmed my body up, and jumped back into bed that my mind began to think logically as my body temperature became stable. Upon putting the puzzles pieces together, I traced the symptoms back to the previous hour when I had taken Ribavirin that I realized I was the ill-fated flu-like symptoms of "Riba-Rage."

I'll be honest, I've never had an episode strike me this hard, and as severe to date while on therapy. And to be frank, I honestly have no "words of wisdom" to offer other than a hot bath or shower. Preferably a nice soaking bath if you have a tub available. I couldn't take Alieve, Ibuprofen or Benedryl as I wasn't having fever symptoms, nor had signs of pain or headache. It was one of those instances where you toughed it out, and got through the night as best one could. Needless to say, I got less than 5 hours sleep last night, and had to get up and drive 6 hours home this morning. And Atlanta was in a major cold zone when we left at a chilling 34 degrees, which didn't help with my lingering chills loading the car up this morning.

I've had mild symptoms like these before, but nothing this severe. Also, deep in my Femur bones on both legs, and deep in my pelvis and coccyx the dull ache and throbbing from last night still persists even now as I'm typing. I go in for my 12 week lab work this Friday, with a follow up doctor's visit on April 28th, 1:30PM. I also have a routine hematology appointment in which labs were also drawn just before I left Atlanta at my Hemophilia Treatment Center this coming Tuesday April 22nd. These labs were drawn at week 11, and hopefully will offer a lot of insight in what's going within my body since my last labs and doctor's visit over 7 weeks ago. I for sure will keep everyone updated.

On a lighter note, I finished bottle #3 while on vacation, and am now 2 pills into my fourth month/bottle. The feeling is somewhat overwhelming in knowing that I'm almost done with treatment. Hang in there dragon slayers, victory and your new life is just beginning. We have to be refined by pain, suffering and ailments in order to appreciate the new lives and second chances that God has given us with this treatment of Sovaldi.