Saturday, November 3, 2007

Squatting Bear Narrowly Escapes Death to Re-Join Knights of Cydonia


Fellow Clan Members,

As most of you probably know, I was recently in the hospital with a severe case of mono. I started getting sick on Saturday and on late Sunday night/Monday morning the pain in my throat was very intense and I decided to drive home at 4 a.m. so that I could see a doctor ASAP. My father looked at my throat and thought it was probably a bad case of strep, but I went to see a doctor on Monday morning and the strep test came back negative. I was given some tylenol-coedine to deal with the pain, but my sickness worsened and worsened, and that pain medication proved to be very ineffective.

On Wednesday night / Thursday morning I woke up at 2 a.m. almost completely unable to breath through my mouth, and unable to talk at all or swallow, as my throat was basically completely swollen shut. My mono test came back positive and I was given steroids, super liquid ibuprofen, and morphine at the hospital. These helped some but I was still in much pain.

After a day there the doctor decided it was time for the glorious morphine pump, a pump which enabled me to give myself basically as much morphine as I could handle. Also during this time I had to get an ultra-sound of my spleen to make sure it was ok (it was, mostly) and a CAT scan of my throat to make sure they didn't have to operate on an absess. They were taking my vitals every 2 hours and my temperature was fluctuating between 97 and 103 fairly regularly.

Unfortunately, because of the mono and the pain, I was constantly sleeping, and would sometimes go 2 or 3 hours without any morphine, and would then wake up unable to talk or swallow again. Times were rough.

Yesterday afternoon I finally started to turn the corner, got off the morphine and back on some more steroids, anti-biotics and anti-inflammatories, and now I'm at home, with what seems to be only a normal sore throat. Although, I do have instructions from the doctor for no physical activity for a month, and I still have to take steroids and antiboitics, which apparently will make me extremely hungry. Sounds like a good a recipe to stay in shape.

Final diagnosis from doctors is severe case of mono, along with tonsilitis, deep throat infection, and possibly bacteria growth.

I look forward to making my return to Knights of Cydonia shortly. I hope my skills aren't too rusty. Oh yeah, and hospitals/insurance is a rip off. Because I have to have my own insurance, my deductable is 5k, which I have to pay for all out of pocket obviously. I wish I was rich like daymonster.

P.S. The picture is of a morphine pump

5 comments:

Jeff said...

Best wishes my compatriot. I am going to assume the morphine levels in your body were quite high as the days wore on. 2 hour vitals checks suck, that's what they did at detox for everyone. Unfortunately not everyone was on the same schedule so you were up about every half hour. You didn't happen to have your liver checked while you were at it did you?

Unky Warthog said...

Good to hear you're alright. I am just really surprised they didn't give you Hawk to cure your sore throat. It's worked for me every time.

Daymonster said...

Im glad youre alive. We can't afford to lose you, Dammer? Maybe. But not SB.

DJmaestro said...

All I have to say is that I hope you Squatting Bear recover magnificantly and your Halo skills quadruple, and that I am thankfully drunk because of a faithful member of the clan UnkyWarthog. God bless him and his hawk.

Pablito Neal said...

I'm glad you're feeling better now Petie. I'll be back playing at your place Friday so hopefully I'll see you there. I had mono last winter for 2 weeks and it was the worst, though it doesn't sound as bad as the case you had. Also this means you'll be out of indoor NFC for most of the session :-(