In Many Ways, the News Is Not Good . . . .

I think I'm ready to talk about this now.

I've been at home for about 6 weeks now off work. The problems started the third week of April when I came down with the flu on a Wednesday or Thursday. While I've been known to get the flu before, my vitamin regimen (3 multivitamins a day with 1000 mg of Vitamin C -- plus 10 mg Pepcid for the stomach and an aspirin for the heart) usually prevents anything but the worst flu.

By the Saturday the 101.2 fever had broken, but only down to 99.5; which is high for me (I usually run in the 97.2 range. Being a nurse, I check these things a lot when testing thermometers.)The head congestion had settled in my lungs, and I had an almost continual hacking cough that was not only giving me headaches froim coughing so much, but also tore my itsy-bitsy umbilical hernia (the size of my thumb) open much larger (the size of my fist.)

I took a few days off the end of that second week (Wed/Thur/Friday) and went back to work Monday and Tuesday with the low grade fever; and went to the clinic Wednesday when I couldn't stop coughing long enough to type and started having breathless episodes and chest pain after coughing. THAT was scary enough to wake me up.

After two weeks off work being treated by the Physician's Assistant at the Clinic, all we knew was that it wasn't (a) Tuberculosis, (b) Hepatitis in any form, or (c) AIDS. We did find out that I had an abnormality in my liver enzymes, and that my EKG was "a little off" according to the Primary Physician.

Meanwhile, my supervisor at work was saying things to my co-workers like " . . . if he's as sick as he says he is . . . " and threatening to terminate me "so we can hire some more nurses." This despite faxing all my paperwork I received (and the "Off-Work" slips) to her after every appointment, and staying in contact every three days per their own policy.

So on the Friday of the third week off, after hearing the above comments, I decided to drop off my paperwork in person. For my effort I got escorted off the premises and placed on "Administrative Leave" and escorted off the premises.

Huh!

So I've been on Administrative Leave for three weeksnow when I get a call Thursday from the Director of Human Resources. I'm going back to work Monday morning. (Translation: "We tried to find some dirt on you for three weeks and haven't been able to; so we need nurses desperately -- so come back now.")


Meanwhile, here's the score from Dr. McMahon's tests:


1.) I'm diabetic. I don't appear to be Insulin-dependent, but we still don't have a good handle on it yet. The glyburide they're giving me is having some pretty awful side effects -- so there's some tweaking to be done there, obviously.

2.) I have "Reactive Airway Disease." This means when Ai cought hard or exercise, the outer portion of my lungs shut down, leaving only the bronchus open. It means it's hard as heck to get rid of lung infections (like chest colds or pneumonia) and very easy to get bronchitis. It's one of the reasons I'm still coughing two months later without any cold or upper respiratory infection present.

3.) My Ulcer is re-activated. Dr. McMahon switched me from Pepcid to Nexium when 10 mg of Pepcid became 20mg became 30-40 mg.

4.) We're still not sure about the ticker. I have a Treadmill Stress Test June 16th, and possibly an angiogram after that. Personally, I don't see anything grossly unusual with my EKG, but she's the doctor.

5.) I also have a surgical consult for some time in July to see about surgery for my ugly little umbillical hernia to finally get it fixed.


6.) ALL of these things are directly related to STRESS. And the only place I'm having lots of stress lately . . . .is work.


So . . . . you might think I might not want to go back to that particular job.


I have an appointment Monday morning to discuss just that with them. Stay tuned. I'm pretty sure it won't be a very polite conversation.

~~JD~~