Notes from Sick Bay
Good lord.
Did I not recently express a desire to spend less time in medical facilities in 2006? Yeah, so, that's not really working out.
Before I begin, though, an update: My mother is doing well. She's a cranky bugger, but she's doing well.
A couple of weeks ago, I went in to see my endocrinologist, who poked me in the neck and announced that my thyroid is now normally-sized, which made me ridiculously happy. When I was 14, our family doctor noticed that my thyroid was enlarged. He said, "you have a goiter," which to a 14-year-old girl is somewhat akin to saying, "goodness, you seem to be sprouting a third eye here." I'd met a woman once who'd had a goiter. It was one of those bullfrog, bulging goiters that made her look as though her neck was attempting to digest a medium-sized rodent, and after my doctor's diagnosis, I only stopped sobbing after my mother explained to me that goiters come in all shapes and sizes, and that I would never look like that lady.
My doctor drew blood, declared my thyroid function "normal," and said that I should have subsequent bloodwork done every six months. The condition I have is called Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. It's a very silly little disease wherein one's body, for whatever reason, produces little marginalized antibodies with Scottish accents that paint their faces blue and yellow then bum-rush the thyroid and beat the living fuck out of it. Eventually, the thyroid shits the bed (or "becomes underactive," in wacky doctor talk) and one drags oneself around sluglike for a few months until one's next round of bloodwork, and then one's endocrinologist calls to announce that one gets to swallow synthetic thyroid hormone for the rest of one's life.
The upside to taking yet another goddamned pill every day is that I feel much better and -- very importantly -- the goiter has shrunk. Shrunk! To normal size! Right before the antibodies won out, it had evolved to such a mass that while not really noticeable to those lacking medical know-how, was large enough to press on my windpipe, which yielded the occasional delightful sensation of being choked to death by an invisible fist. I could no longer wear turtleneck sweaters without wanting to immediately tear them off my body in a Lou Ferrigno-style rage, and choker necklaces? Just forget about it.
So, yes, things are well in Endocrine Land these days. The thyroid is shrunken, the sugar is normal, my body doth not overflow with insulin, the birds are singing, etc., etc. This means that it was high time for Marc to hurt himself.
We seemed to have developed this cute little yin-yang malady balance, my husband and I, wherein one of us must always be suffering at all times. This is not helped by the fact that Marc has a well-known, furious ability to hurt himself. Since we've been together, he's fallen down a set of stairs and given himself a concussion that knocked him out for a full 30 seconds and caused him to walk around like a mindless ghoul for six weeks, broken his ribs, cracked his head so hard on the garage door opener that he got one of those towering, phallic Bugs-Bunny-cartoon hematomas growing out of his skull, and slit his finger wide open by attempting to separate two frozen hamburger patties using a steak knife.
This time, in yet another spectacular display, my husband opened the back door too quickly and cracked his kneecap. Consequently, the knee and its surrounding area turned purple and swelled to a size approaching that of Schenectady, and it was off to the Emergency Room for an X-Ray. The kneecap is not broken, said the nurse practitioner. Ice the sucker and go see a doctor if it still hurts in a week. It was just starting to feel better when Marc decided to bang it against a bathroom cabinet, and by Sunday, it was literally about four times the size of his other knee. At the doctor's office yesterday, it was proclaimed that he'd "popped his bursar," and after my initial confusion about what the hell university personnel had to do with anything, we were told that the knee and leg were essentially full of blood from hemorrhaging blood vessels. Marc was given heavy-duty anti-inflammatory medication, had the leg wrapped within an inch of its life, and told to come back Friday for a follow-up, seeing as how the knee was so swollen that the doctor couldn't even tell whether there was anything structurally wrong with the patella.
So now I have this Moaning Man living in my house who's walking with a cane and cursing every nine seconds. To a man with the metabolism of a hummingbird who cannot sit still for more than 5 consecutive minutes, this is the worst torture. I have spent the last two days of my life screeching at him. "What are you doing walking around? Sit down! No, you DON'T have to get up to get some juice, because I can get the juice FOR you. Where's the ice pack? Why isn't it on your KNEE? Did you take any ibuprofen?" Squawk, squawk, squawk. Pass me another Xanax, will you?
I'm going to try to go get some work done now before he comes ka-thumping down the stairs with all the racket and humor of Jacob Marley. Wish me luck.
posted by Kate at 10:40 AM link/comments
