Old-timer's Disease

If it weren't for this blog, I wouldn't be able to remember the who-what-when-where-why of half my life. I have a post from Friday a-comin', and I need to sleep, but can't. Everyone is as okay as they can be. Monday at my gyn's, I found out that the UTI I haven't been able to shake is due to it not being a 'standard' UTI; it's an enterococcal infection, which is a rarity outside of a hospital, or a person who has to, say, self-cath or something. I'm not back on antibiotic yet; I've been off and on cipro and septra since November, and my gyn is concerned that I need vancomycin or have a resistant strain (which would be bad). Right now the thinking is that I picked it up whilst with Mummers in hospital August - October, and just didn't notice the UTI until after her death because of the stress. I'm not infectious, just miserable. But according to my gyn, harbouring a low-level enterococcal infection god-knows-where (it could be in my kidneys, bladder only, or have spread out by now) explains a lot of things, from my constant tiredness to my depression. Let's hope that's true, because I honestly feel as if I've been dragged ten miles behind a tank at this point. :-/ If my urine re-test comes back with enterococcus, I have to go to an infectious disease specialist. I wish I could sue that fucking hospital for everything they have put me and my family through.

And yes, if you get bored enough to google enterococcal infections, I am living proof that (1) it can happen to non-immunocompromised persons outside of an in-patient hospital experience, and (2) I am one tough cookie. I have felt like shit for months. No-one ever believes me when I say that I am in severe pain, terribly ill, having a blinding migraine, etc., yet I still go to work and do all the things that need to be done; well, it's true. I do. I have tested positive for hellacious strep (pre-tonsillectomy), running dangerous fevers, stayed at work because I was too dizzy to drive home...you name it. And now it looks like I've had some fucked-up infection for about four months. I am not trying to sound like Wonder Woman, I am just marvelling at how other girls start in with the 'boo-hoo, I stubbed my toe', and the whole world is supposed to grind to a halt, yet in relative terms, I'm hopping on one leg to the emergency room after cauterising my missing leg myself, and everyone ignores me, telling me I can't be that bad off since I apparently made it there on my own. This is just a strange world, that's all.

I am grateful for my gyn, though; she sent out my labs requesting screening for EVERYTHING, which is how we came to find out about the enterococcus. It's not something normally tested for in a routine UTI screening, cos it's just that improbable. Without her, god only knows how long I'd have walked around sick as fuck before I turned up with something awesome, like enterococcal pneumonia, endocarditis, meningitis, and so on. I guess I should be grateful; one of my friends caught MRSA caring for her dying father in hospital. She's only now getting rid of the terrible sores she'd had from it. Let's just hope my enterococcus isn't the vancomycin-resistant equivalent of MRSA. I should know by Thursday. And in case it ever comes up as a point in your world, if you have a UTI, a good protocol to follow is one round of septra, if it doesn't clear up then, NO MORE SEPTRA. Take cipro, and if it comes back after that, your dr needs to send your urine out for a *full* culture -- to a LAB. No in-office dipsticking. He/she may have to specify strains or something. Tell them you want everything, and everything reported, regardless of value/significance. That's what my gyn had to do after in-office cultures (basically WBC count) kept saying I have a raging infection, yet lab follow-ups kept saying no infection; the lab follow-ups weren't testing for any and every critter, just the common ones. Just so you know, so you can save yourself or a loved one some heartache some day. <3

And christ, do I miss my mom. Like every minute of every day. I'd give anything to have a do-over of 2010. Sigh. I h8 u, World.

Ok...g'night. I may hate the world, but if you are reading this, I love *you*. :-*



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