Days (or Daze) at the Hospital

[M. (for now!)]

Last Sunday, I wound up at the ER. I’d woken up in the morning, eaten half a piece of vegan banana bread, threw it all up, had diahrrea, drank lots of fluids but wasn’t able to urinate. The idea of taking in any more food turned my stomach and summoned the gag reflex, so I fell asleep soon after I’d gotten up. I woke up in the fetal position, weak, headachy, fingers and toes tingling and FREEZING. My roomate promptly unlocked our front door, walked in from her adventures in the outside world and said, “Dang, it’s hot in here!”

Hmm. My parents were in town for a wedding the previous night and were scheduled to pick me up for an afternoon in the city and a play in the evening. When they arrived, I could barely speak to them. I stayed freezing and, at their insistence, ate (it took about 20 minutes to get through half a cup of soup). Things did not improve.

I called a few doctors, one of whom was unhelpful but attentive, the other of whom was slightly helpful but totally uninterested. Despite my parents’ thinking that things would get better (or, more aggravating, that it was all “in my head”), I dragged them to the hospital, nervous I’d gone into lactic acidosis (a possible, but not frequent, side effect of taking Metformin for Type 1 diabetics).

Since I still feel like I’ve been hit by a mac truck, I’ll give you the synopsis of the details: for reasons not totally clear to me, I’d become totally dehydrated, unable to retain fluids, so I went through a few bags of intravenous saline before I felt I’d “come to.” I then was able to urinate, at which point there was blood in my urine. An analysis of the urine/blood, as well as a pelvic exam, confirmed I had a urinary tract infection (UTI) that had moved rapidly and was headed to the kidneys. I’m guessing this has something to do with the fluid retention issue, but the harried doctors at the ER didn’t seem able to sit around and talk shop with me.

I’m on some medication and, though you think I might be feeling better, I’m feeling… pretty blah. I just am losing faith that any diagnosis (UTI, hypothyroidism, chronic otitis, etc.) is the final diagnosis, the silver bullet that will explain away all the symptoms (for example, I’m still congested and have throat pain; I doubt the UTI has anything to do with that). So… we’ll see.

At any rate, today is Tuesday, weigh-in day. I seemed to be losing lots of weight during the week- thank you, water retention issues, for getting my damn hopes up! But I seem to have held pretty even, which is alright given all the crap that’s going on. So..

Weight this morning: 175.8.

Let’s hope things can improve steadily and soon.