Adenovirus Is A Great Weight Loss Plan...If You Don't Mind Feeling Like Dying...

Remember this post ? Back in November last year, I wrote something called, "The Plague Unplugged"??? It highlighted the CDC's more recent viral investigations of a specific virus called the Adenovirus14. There are several Adenoviruses...some worse than others. In the aforementioned post (and most likely psychically connected, although I did NOT know that at the time!), I hopped up on my rickety soapbox professing my miraculous AVOIDANCE of most diseases/flu/viruses through the vigilance of proper handwashing and my favorite alcoholic skin beverage, Purell.

Scratch that post from your memory.

I've been diagnosed via Emergency Room with "an" Adenovirus..."they" think. "They" know what I have been suffering through the past week is NOT bacterial, so it MUST be viral. "They" think it may have an unpredictable course of recovery..."they" won't speculate. But, as usual, if I am not better in a week, please come back to the ER for another $5,000 dose of lactated ringers (IV fluids) and more potassium...it's never good to become as dehydrated as I was yesterday...causes stupor and delirium.

I've been running a constant fever between 100-102 since Sunday night...have a cough and shortness of breath that makes walking from my couch to the bathroom an "event"...no appetite and have now lost another 7 pounds (there's got to be an easier weight loss plan, eh?)...weakness ALL over my body with an activation of old MS symptoms in my back and legs...head congestion WITH a gushing nose, which makes the flow of the Amazon River seem like a trickle in volume comparison...oh, and confusion/disorientation/delirium which seems to have gotten corrected via potassium and rehydration...at least I THINK it has?!? If you're confused, does one really KNOW they are in the moment?!? Isn't that how confusion works? I digress...

Dr. She Who Will Not Be Named emailed me today glad to hear I was still alive (I assume Dr. I'm A Crotchety Nasty Fart in the ER may have contacted her upon my arrival)...she "threatened" me with sending out a search and rescue mission since my primary care ARNP is on vacation. I take her threats seriously...she follows through on them. I am remaining home bound for the time being...like I could honestly GET anywhere else at the moment? If it weren't for my dear friend, Merrinuts, who has worked covert "rescue" for me before (by busting me out of a hospital back in 2005!), I would not in all likelihood have MADE it to the ER yesterday.

When I am feeling up to sitting at this computer for longer than 10 minutes, I will most definitely post my ER horror story. If this is any indication of how my "visit" went, I got straight cathed no less than 3 times before "they" were convinced I was fully "French" (Pierre...you know, "peeing air"?) and not simply withholding a urine specimen for FOUR EFFING HOURS! It was only then Dr. I'm A Crochety Nasty Fart fully understood I really WASN'T lying about my inability to urinate ALL AFTERNOON...proof was in the pee...or lack of it. I also spent what I believe may have been the good part of an hour staring at an "ink blot" test on a window frame in my ER room, trying to decide if I was looking at blood or feces smeared...the things I do to entertain myself. If I wasn't already ill going IN to the ER, I am now most likely SICK coming out. Oh, and this was NOT my usual ER stomp at Club Med, where the floors are shiny clean and nurses actually check on you every so often. THIS ER was simply closer and I doubt I'll be going back to it any time soon...

Must go lay down again and let the Adenovirus percolate some more in my lungs...it seems to like me better when I am more relaxed...and defenseless...