Dis-Ease
No one's immune. Part I
2024 was a year of dis-ease.
I was sick as much as I wasn’t, and during the in-between times, I felt like a prizefighter standing up only to be knocked down again.
January - The left side of my body went numb while I was commuting to work. Went to the ER for a possible stroke and was diagnosed with a hemiplegic migraine.
March - Strep throat
April - Flu
May - Richard and I went for a weekend getaway near Little Switzerland, NC. Our Air BnB was tucked away in a green-meadowed holler surrounded by thick, forested mountains. An expansive wood-planked patio found us gathered around the firepit, sharing meals and snacks, playing cards, and for him, woodworking and me, yoga. All to the chorus of songbirds and a thin gurgling creek that frolicked alongside the cottage. Prissy and Miss Jean, our constant companions, relished in new territory to explore.
One afternoon, we followed a narrow hiking trail behind the property. Much to our delight, it led to a secret waterfall. The little gurgling creek beyond our porch dribbled along its rocky bed, then exploded over steep rocks, transforming into a spectacular rainforest waterfall.
High on the trail, we rounded a bend and spotted this hidden gem, and with the excitement of someone discovering long-buried treasure, we scampered down the leaf-slick incline to sit at the waterfall’s feet. The damp, thick, lushness enveloped us. Musty earth-scented thick humid air filled our lungs as we shuffled down rocks, past trees, and fallen logs to sit on the mossy boulders flanking the waterfall’s basin. Sprays of mist from all sides soothed us as we surveyed our surroundings and took some pics. The air was light, refreshing, and easier to inhale close to the water. Miss Jean, our daring Chi-weenie, had followed us down. Prissy, our senior seven-pound Chi-terrier, we learned later, had tucked tail and was waiting for us on the porch back at the cabin.
During this adventure, something bit me on my abdomen. No surprise as I had slipped and slid halfway down an incline on our way to the waterfall. Back home, I discovered the bite but soon forgot about it. This Florida girl is used to bug bites. Two days later, the bite was encompassed by a sizable red circle. Uh-oh. I took a picture of the bite and sent it to Tiffany, a friend who is also former EMS. She advised circling it with a Sharpie and seeking medical attention if the redness crept outside the circle. Richard circled it, and it was already leaking outside the circle by the time we went to bed.
The following day, I went to a CVS Minute Clinic, where the nurse practitioner prescribed an antibiotic commonly used for infected bug bites. I popped the prescription and went about my day, which included a trip to the vet in the afternoon for the fur babies’ annual exams. By dinner time, I felt puny. I attempted to eat dinner but was shaky and weak. I abruptly left the table to lie down and scroll TikTok, thinking that the antibiotics likely weren’t agreeing with me. It wouldn’t be the first time.
That’s when the rolling chills and muscle pain entered stage left, alerting me that I might have a fever. I took my temperature but could barely lift the thermometer to my ear. My body quaked and protested against any movement, yet the pain would not let me sleep. My temp was 105 degrees. Panic set in, along with the reminder that when my kids were small, if their temp got too high, I put them in a tepid bath and gave them Tylenol or Baby Aspirin.
“Richard! My temp is 105; please run a lukewarm bath.”
He did, and I plopped into it, a teeth-chattering, goose-pimpled mess. I was freezing. He poured water over my head and brought me a Tylenol. I was in there about five minutes before I retook my temp. Normal! Yahtzee! Phew.
Like a miffed soggy cat, I climbed out of the tub while Richard wrapped a towel around me and helped me back to bed. I was more than ready to slip into the deep annals of sleep and wake up feeling better. Richard took my temp once more before leaving me to it; it was back up to 106. Noooooo!
At this point, decisions needed to be made. Temperatures this high can result in seizures and permanent brain damage. Not cool. My head swam from the emergency at hand to blankness. Richard took the bull by the horns and announced he was taking me to the hospital. I barely remember the ride; I just remember snippets of the sky through the windshield from my reclined perspective.
The wait to be triaged was, mercifully, short. I was in a wheelchair, writhing and moaning. Pain consumed me as I begged to be taken somewhere to lie down. It was too painful to be upright. My head wobbled under the fever’s weight like an infant learning to hold their head up for the first time.
Once they took my vitals, the triage space instantly went from zero to sixty. Finally, I can lie down, I thought as they sped me to an ER bed. Later, when the ER doctor informed me that she was admitting me to ICU, she told me that in triage, my fever was 103, my heart rate was off the charts, and my blood pressure was in the toilet.
I had IVs in both arms—an antibiotic cocktail, hydration, and morphine. My body exhaled deeply into my hospital bed. Maybe I can finally sleep, I hoped at three in the morning when I finally stabilized and Richard kissed me goodbye. He’d see me in a few hours.
Anyone who has done hospital time knows that just as you are floating like a feather on a calm breeze into the deepest, darkest recesses of the best sleep that has ever been known to humankind, that is when they wake you up. Vitals every hour, bloodwork, the changing of the guard, and, of course, the constant hydration turns your bladder against you. My fever finally broke around the same time dawn did. I was out of the danger zone, but my blood pressure was still dangerously low.
Richard arrived a little after breakfast, tired but filling me in on Miss Jean and Prissy’s antics. He was looking through the tablet the hospital provided, and he stopped and showed me my diagnosis on the screen: “Severe Septic Shock.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but severe is serious regardless of context.
The ICU doctor suspected Lyme disease but had called an infectious disease specialist to be sure. The specialist diagnosed me with Lyme based on the “bullseye” appearance of the bite because Lyme disease does not show up in blood work until at least six weeks after a bite. She took me off the antibiotic cocktail and gave me Doxycycline. I wanted to go home, but my blood pressure was still too low, and later that afternoon, a headache ensued the likes I’d never experienced and hope I never do again.
The “headache” encompassed my entire skull. It was deep in the bone, numbing yet excruciating all at once. And it moved around my head like a train on a track pausing in spastic shocks of pain. It traced my jaw, cheekbones, eye sockets, brow bone, forehead, and across the crown down to the base of my skull. Then, back up one side of my neck to the jawbone to repeat the torturous cycle. At one point, I sat on the edge of my bed with Richard embracing me as I writhed with each painful spasm. This went on for some time. I was given a Tylenol for the headache, but it didn’t touch it. When the nurse popped in to check on me, he found me in tears and agony. He brought me an OxyContin.
If you are unfamiliar with OxyContin, as I was, it doesn’t work fast like BC powder or other pain relievers. Because of this, a half an hour later, when no relief from the red hot poker dragging itself around my skull had come, I was begging the nurse to give me something to knock me unconscious. Giving birth had not been this bad. The headache became less intense about the forty-five-minute mark post-medication and gradually faded into the background. Exhausted, I fell into a twilight sleep that brought relief but not rest.
I was discharged the next day.
To be continued.
Whew! Girl you went through it!