02 January 2010

Day 11

Today's counts:
Hg 6.8
WBC 0.1
Platelets 21
Creatinine 1.26

Today was rough.  I spent all night tossing and turning because of the heartburn.  Then I started spiking fevers around 1am, so the tech came to draw blood cultures around 3.  They ran my CBC at that time and found that my hemeglobin fell 1.2 g/dL in 19 hours.  Apparently that's a lot and that kind of loss usually occurs when patients are bleeding.  Since my platelets were so low my doctors were concerned I was bleeding somewhere in my GI (and since I'm still not regular they can't check my stool for blood).  I didn't have any belly pain, which would have been associated with bleeding, so they decided to start me on blood and see how the numbers react in tomorrow's CBC.

I spent most of the day sleeping and sweating as the fevers would come and break.  The culture tests will be back within a few days.  If anything is found growing in the blood, identifying it will allow the doctors to target antibiotic treatments against it.  For now I was put on two broad-spectrum antibiotics in addition to my antiviral and two antifungals.  Infection also causes problems with controlling glucose levels, so I'm back on the insulin drip.  I think my endocrinologists are being overly-cautious, but they felt strongly that it should be closely monitored until this infection-nonsense is sorted out.

The vision in my left eye has further deteriorated.  Most of my field of vision in that eye is now blurred beyond my ability to discern objects at any distance.  The black spots (where there is no vision at all) also grew, but the change is less extensive.

And I've developed a cough.  On the plus side, my terrible indigestion seems to have mostly passed.  Hopefully tonight I'll get some decent sleep.

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