Updates from the Medical World

I believe I have had my fill now of hospitals and doctors. Not long after my last update, my older daughter, H, ended up spending 5 days in the care of the folks at Methodist. The problem started the first weekend in May. On that Sunday, H said her throat hurt a little. Monday it had gotten worse and by the evening, complained of a stiff neck. Tuesday she missed her first day of in school in two years. She hasn’t happy to say the least. Her pediatrician didn’t see any strep so said to to some children’s Motrin and if things didn’t improve by Friday to come back in.

The next day it continued to get worse. She wouldn’t eat anything but ice cream because it hurt. She had a fever and was otherwise miserable. We didn’t wait for Friday – she went back Thursday morning. This time the doctor could see an infection of some sort in the back of her throat. It was then do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to the hospital. She had called ahead and a room in the pediatrics floor was waiting. H had already lost a little weight which she could ill afford to do anyway as skinny as she is. They wanted to start pumping fluids, pain meds,  and antibiotics in her right away.

The docs found an abscess and wanted to wait for an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist to take a look. I am not sure what his schedule was but we didn’t get to see him until the next day. Meanwhile more problems appeared. H’s urine was dark – blood was in there. More specialists came in and found imflamation in the kidneys making them "leaky." H ws miserable when awake although the pain meds knocked her out for the most part. A kidney specialist came in to talk with us to explain that the throat issue can create the kidney one and that in over 99% of the case, will completely clear up in a year with no further problems. That was reassuring. We also finally saw the ENT guy who decided to drain the abscess. That was done early Friday night.

The next few days consisted of getting more fluids in and her kidneys back in shape. It was slow going but everything came together. The following Monday we came home and by Thursday started to seem more like energetic self. She is still down several pounds and in her follow-up checkup with the kidney doc, wants to put ehr on a low sodium diet. There is still a little blood in her Urine. Poor kid!

As for me, well i’ve had my own issues but nothing I cannot love with. I got the swelling down suprising quickly. with no signs of a black eye. I did notice that my pupil was still very dilated. That filled me with concern so I left a message for my doctor. Within an hour he had to drive to the north side of Indy to see an eye specialist. I was very nervous to say the least. My eye still hurt too so the drive was not a lot of fun. The good news is that there are no head or eye pressure issues. It looks like the muscles in the iris are damaged. The doc would not commit as to whether he thought it would heal or not. The good news is that other than a little light sensitivity, my vision is fine. He put me on some steroids, both oral and eye drop and we’ll see. I had a follow-up last week and no improvement but this will take time. I am optimistic as I have always been a good healer but even inthe worst case, I can live with this.

The stitches healed well and I think there may not be any significant scarring. The stitch line is still a little red and tender but I think that will improve. I was told that I just need to put sunscreen on the area when outside. I’ll probably wear a ballcap some which will help too I am sure.

So that’s life here.