Gluten Freebies by Miel

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Not for the Bashful: My Mystery Ailment

Posted on | October 3, 2010 | 7 Comments

I feel as though I’ve completely disappeared from the blogosphere in the past two weeks.  Originally, I was planning to wait and post because I had forgotten my camera cords at home and hadn’t the time to drive home to get them.  Cineaste Magazine has also started back up for me, meaning another round of photo research, editing and proofreading.  I’m also reading like crazy for my 20th Century British Lit class, along with the homework I have for my film courses.  All of those are perfectly swell reasons not to have time to blog, but something worse came up.  I’m once again mysteriously sick.

It all started on Monday, the day after my Cineaste meeting.  I woke up, went to the bathroom and sat down to my breakfast of Chocolate Rice Chex cereal when I realized that I still felt as though I had to pee.  Having had several urinary tract infections in my medically sullied past, I was quite certain that I had yet another one.  But I had to go to work.  See, our secretary, Rita, was out on vacation and I had to open up so the graduate professors could get into their offices.  So I went.  I opened up, sorted the mail, made copies and ran to the restroom about five times within the fifteen minutes that I managed to stay.  After the fifth time in the bathroom, I noticed a pain in my left side, leading me to call my mother.

I always call my mom when I’m sick.  I think I always will.  She takes care of me and her advice makes me feel grounded when I’m nervous or completely out of my mind worrying about whatever might be wrong with me.  She told me to go to the health center, the one thing I try to avoid.  I’m that person who will avoid going to the doctor at all costs.  I don’t know why because most of the time, they’re pretty helpful and it ends up being a pretty painless process.

So I went to Rider’s Health Center.  The women there are so nice.  Any Rider student reading this, make sure to go if you’re not feeling well because they’re so helpful and accommodating.  I was told to pee in a cup, and after years of UTI’s, and various medical issues that call for peeing in a cup, I’m a pro.  My fellow women can attest that it isn’t always easy to aim, but I manage quite well.  I won’t go into too much detail there.  (Maybe I’ll teach myself how to pee my name in the snow this winter.)

Meeting with the doctor I was told that there was a large amount of blood in my urine, which to all of us meant that I did have a UTI.  So they gave me antibiotics and sent me back to my apartment and my urine off to be tested in a lab just to make sure I actually had a UTI.

Tuesday, I felt fine.  There was no frequency or burning or anything like that.  I went on with my life, taking the antibiotics.

Wednesday, I get a call from the Health Center informing me that I didn’t have a UTI.  The lab results had come back negative.  I had been feeling fine on the antibiotics, so what was wrong with me?  Then, the frequency started coming back.  All afternoon, I felt as though I had to pee.  It was a damn good thing I didn’t have a three hour night class that night or I would have been in big trouble.  Sleeping was really rough that night.  I woke up every hour starting at 2:20 a.m. and had to urinate each time.  And every time I did, I still felt that urge to run back into the bathroom.  But I also found that each time I did this, it got a little bit better.  By the time it was 7:20 a.m., I didn’t feel much frequency anymore.

Instead, I had a fever.  That was a little alarming.  I had to skip work and trek back on over to the Health Center in the pouring rain.  Luckily, it isn’t so far from my apartment.  So I told them everything about the night before and the fever.  I also mentioned that when I was thirteen, I had a bad case of hydronephrosis.  With another urine sample they found small traces of blood and ketones, which are usually present because of starvation or dehydration, which obviously I haven’t been suffering from.  My mother found online that there’s a relationship between Celiac Disease, ketones and Type 1 Diabetes.  Yeah, that scared the crap out of me.  For now, I’m trying not to think about that.  Let’s move on!

Hearing that I’d had hydronephrosis, the doctor sent me to the radiologist to get an ultrasound.  I’m so grateful to my friend Jennifer, who took time out of her day to drive me there and sit in the waiting room with me (Also to my friend Sam, who offered as well).  Ultrasounds are pretty harmless but they’re also quite dreadful.  Imagine drinking a ton of water just to have someone punch you in the bladder.  Yeah, that’s almost what they do.  So I drank all the water they told me to and we were on our way.

In the waiting room, I shivered, having to pee so badly.  But a small child with a Yoda tattoo offered great distraction when he came up to show me an Jen said tattoo.  His mom said he has a thing for blonds (I dyed my hair blonde recently).  He really made my day though.  And it was right after they left that I was called in.

Ultrasounds are definitely weird.  They put really cold gel on your stomach and roll a wand around it.  I’ve had it done before now, but it’s still weird, seeing your organs up on a screen.  And the woman performing the task doesn’t look at you or talk to you except for a few directions and a couple questions.  I wanted to ask so badly what was wrong with me, but she’s not allowed to tell and I knew that.  So she just did her best to squeeze the juice from my bladder and then told me to go pee.  Hooray!  I nearly jumped off of the mat and bolted towards the bathroom. Sweet, sweet release.

I soon found that though it’s more comfortable to have an ultrasound done on the kidneys, it takes longer and is perhaps a bit detrimental to my health.  She told me to take a deep breath and hold.  Okay, I can do that.  I always had breathing contests in the pool with my sisters when we were younger.  But this woman expected me to hold my breath much longer than I could.  And when I found that I could no longer hold my breath and breathed out, she would say, “Okay, next time do you think you could try to hold it?”  What have I been doing all this time?

Needless to say, I was relieved in more ways than one when I finally left the room.  Rider’s Health Center would have the preliminary results in a couple of hours so we headed back to Rider.  I tried to sleep off the fever in the meantime.  It wasn’t long before the Health Center called though.   Hearing my ringtone (Ben Fold’s “You don’t know me”), I woke up and immediately picked up hoping to get some news on how to fix this.

Nope.  No such luck.  Nobody knew what was wrong with me.  I have to go see a urologist.  After battling to try and get a doctor in Toms River, we managed to get a Monday appointment up in Lawrenceville.  I’m home now, waiting and waiting for tomorrow to come so I can maybe figure out what’s wrong with me.  I feel okay.  The fever has gone down and the frequency kind of comes and goes.  It all seems to be getting better (knock on wood) and I hope that this was just some freak virus, but I’m going to follow through and make sure that it isn’t anything more serious.

So that’s why I haven’t been around, posting or commenting on other blogs that I love.  I haven’t even been able to do my homework…er…maybe I should do that now.  I just wanted to update everyone on what’s been going on and see if maybe anyone else has had a similar experience.  I hope to get back into the blogosphere soon!  I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes!

Miel

Category: celiac disease, college, hydronephrosis, juvenile diabetes, ketones, rider university, sick, urinary tract infection

Comments

7 Responses to “Not for the Bashful: My Mystery Ailment”

  1. Jenn
    October 3rd, 2010 @ 10:55 am

    omg how scary! hope everything is ok and you get better soon!!

    [Reply]

    GFree_Miel Reply:
    October 3rd, 2010 at 10:56 am

    Thank you, Jenn! <3 I'm sure everything will be fine once we figure out what's wrong.

    [Reply]

  2. Tina Vairo Byrnes via Facebook
    October 3rd, 2010 @ 11:56 am

    poor miel. :(

    [Reply]

    GFree_Miel Reply:
    October 3rd, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    Wah…

    [Reply]

  3. Theresa
    October 3rd, 2010 @ 8:20 pm

    Oh that sounds awful! I really hope you find out what’s wrong soon, that uncertinty is so horrible ay?!
    I’m with you on ultrasounds ay, I had one on my neck and it was actually like they were trying to suffocate me. Seriously.

    I’ll be praying for ya :) remember that God is in control, he knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, he know’s what’s going on with your body. I always find that really comforting to remember.

    [Reply]

    GFree_Miel Reply:
    October 3rd, 2010 at 9:36 pm

    An ultrasound on the neck?!? That sounds even worse! I can’t even imagine.

    I’ll definitely remember your wise words and thanks for keeping me in your prayers. It’s definitely a big comfort. <3

    [Reply]

  4. roclafamilia
    October 21st, 2010 @ 9:46 am

    Helpful blog, bookmarked the website with hopes to read more!

    [Reply]

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I'd love to hear what you think about the content of my posts or my writing. I'm always looking for advice and constructive criticism. So thank you in advance. -Miel





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