An Eyesore

Ewww! This is what my eye looks like now, but it was about 10 times as puffy this morning. I woke up at 7:30am (a weird thing in itself), and couldn't open my eyes properly. I looked in the mirror, and realised my eyelids looked like golf balls (yes, they were that big - so much that my eyebrows were pushed up out of the way). How random...

We have this awesome thing in Australia called Nurse-On-Call, so I gave them a ring to see what I should do. They told me to get to a doctor within four hours, so I headed for the hospital.

After about an hour I got seen by a doctor - he was a nice sort of bloke, shook my hand and everything, but I think he was a student because he really didn't know what was wrong with me. Heck, he didn't even know how to use the bed control - I had to show him how to get the back of the bed to go down! (By the way, it looks like the emergency department can no longer afford sheets or pillows - both were absent from the bed!).

After about half an hour, a few tests, and a discussion with another doctor who looked like he knew what he was doing, I was told it was an allergic reaction, and was given a prescription for antihistamines. Thanks! My eyes did deflate gradually, but they still look like that photo, and they're really itchy.

Oh well, I guess we have to have some interesting things like this happen, or life would be boring!

The day I put my brother in hospital

No, I am not a violent person. Last night we were merely play-fighting, wrestling with oven mitts on our hands. It was fun; nobody got hurt.

Then about two hours later, my 12 year old brother came into the kitchen complaining of a sore eye. We knew instantly that something wasn't right; in fact the eye was swelling up in front of us. It looked like the worst pictures in my nursing textbooks.

Mum took him into hospital, and I prayed. I felt really bad once I realised it might have been caused by our playfighting.

As it turns out, it was an allergic reaction. I've had reactions in my eyes to vegetable oil before; although not as bad as his. I conclude that fat in the oven mitts got into his eye, and when he rubbed it, it blew up into a swollen mess.

He's fine now, since the doctor gave him eyedrops and tablets. Besides, it had mostly gone down by the time they got seen in Accident and Emergency.

Needless to say, I hope never to put my brother in hospital again!

All Clear!

I visited the doc again yesterday.

"Well," he said, "It looks like you have Hepatitis A."

"What?" I ask with a disbelieving look...

"You came up positive for Hepatitis A, unless, of course, you have been vaccinated against it, which would show up positive on the test. So, have you been vaccinated against Hep A?"

"Um... maybe... I can't remember. Perhaps..."

"Well, I need you to find out. Otherwise, here's an fact sheet on it."

It turns out I have been vaccinated against Hep A (phew). So this simply means I have NAD - no abnormalities detected. A bit of inflammation, he said, but nothing else.

Meh!

Anyway, it doesn't matter, because since last week I've been feeling absolutely great. Thank God. One night I got fed up with it all and just cried out to God to heal me.

And he did. He's so good to me...

Have you ever been miraculously healed? Or had an unexplained recovery?

Poked, prodded, mystified

Now I know how the guinea pigs feel! As those of you who know me well would be aware, I've been episodically unwell for the last five or six weeks. I self-diagnosed the cause as Epstein-Barr virus, that is, Glandular Fever. Self-diagnosis is a foolish habit developed by nurses such as myself. Really, we should just get over it and go to the doctor; however, when you are cash-strapped, it can save you quite a bit in doctor's fees... if you are right.

Back to my health issue: At first, it seemed I was correct. My doctor agreed it was probably glandular fever, and then decided to do a blood test just to make sure.

The result? Negative.

This was a little perturbing to my good doctor, because he (and I) really thought he was right! The negative result threw him into desperately-test-for-everything mode, and he proceeded to order a page-full of additional blood tests and analyses. Off I go to pathology again, and get myself pricked, again. He has tested me for everything, not limited to but including malaria, dengue fever, and Ross River fever. He has verified my levels for just about every vitamin and mineral under the sun! And because I still have blood remaining in my body that has not been tested, I have been referred to a specialist, because in the end, neither of us look like being sure of what is wrong.

I will update you in two weeks when I see the doctor again. It's just a good thing I'm not afraid of needles.