From Wilson Hospital 7.10.06 in review

Well, this is kind of wierd. I'm sitting here in Wilson Hospital writing out a blog. I've tried to do a blog before because (sorry Laura Roth...everyone else but you) I always thought blogs were for people who had nothing else better to do. Guess what: I now, truly, absolutely, inextricably have nothing better to do!
Monday I felt like crap. I had been feeling like crap: lethargic, slow to get up, tired all the time, only wanting to watch TV and sleep for awhile. You want an example? Sunday Diane was trying to finish her lovely planting work for the year. We still had this pile of dirt in the driveway. I had promised to try and help her get rid of the dirt, so after returning from some errands I started shoveling. The stuff seemed heavy, I was sweating in two or three shovelfuls, and DI eventually took over leaving me to cart the stuff back with my wheelbarrow. After a trip or two in back. I couldnt even do that.
It came to a head Monday, the first day back from our weeklong vacation. Symptoms of fatigue continued. Tiredness standing up for more than a couple of minutes. Tiredness walking. Tiredness lifting. Tiredness waking up. Tiredness everything. I went to work early that day to go through my emails, and left before the morning meeting. Why? Tiredness. It was time to go to the doctor, so about 12:00 p.m. off I went.
UMA's endicott Walk-in was pretty efficient. I got in and saw a doctor within about half an hour. After two blood tests and about an hour, she came back into the room. She said the blood test results were wierd. Low red blood cell count, she called it anemia. Super high white blood cell count, and low platelets. She told me if I were to get cut I might not stop bleeding!. She said the anemia could explain my tired spells.
This doctor looked confused, and I guess you can't expect much from a confused doctor. She didn't offer a diagnosis. She didn't offer a treatment. She DID say I should see a hematologist and made an appointment with one for Friday at 3 p.m.
The doctor also said if my symptoms got worse I should go to an emergency room. She kept confusing the words "hematologist" and "oncologist."
I asked for a copy of the bloodwork results and left. I was feeling a bit better symptom wise but had been feeling better even when I got there. On my way to Wendy's I called DI. She had never heard of such wierd bloodwork and sounded nervous.
I was eager to use my new grill and had bought some Lupo's Spedies and marinated chicken breasts the night before. It was shiny and new and, after some fussing with the gas tank started up right away. The grill got so hot, and the heat made me tired. I had to sit down three times during the 20-minute grilling session because I just couldn't stand up in front of the hot grill. The tiredness of outside followed me inside. Sweat dampened my back on the couch. My head ached. I climbed the stairs and the headache slammed around inside my head. I went into our bedroom and laid down. I turned on the AC and lied in front of it on the bed. My head pounded, I was coughing a weezy cough, I still was hot and I was very tired.
It didn't take Diane very long to convince me to go to the Wilson ER.
We had made a list of symptoms and paired it with the bloodwork from the UMA walk-in. We showed them that list at check-in and started to wait for a bed in Wilson's gawdawful waiting room. My symptoms had slightly improved and I was worried they would think I was faking. There was quite an assortment of people in the waiting room, the most memorable of this was a blonde single mother so proud of raising her strollered one-year-old herself she told an unfortunately pregnant 16-year-old girl how terrible and irresponsible the pot smoking, pot dealing, absent father was. She then told the same 16-year old her baby and the room how she was "so fucking pissed off" about how long she had been waiting and how it was "so fucking unfair" and how she was going to "fucking show them how to treat people" by filling out the UHS comment card in full.
Anyway, we finally got an ER room about midnight. I was going to be there for awhile.