in me and pronto.One of the things that I haven't yet covered for you is my history of illness. Going back nearly 20 years, I havealways had some sort of chronic malady going on. There is an absolute laundry list, but to give you an idea, here are some of the things that I've dealt with:
- Crohn's Disease / Ulcerative Colitis
Crohn's disease, also known as regional enteritis, is an inflammatory disease of the intestines that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, causing a wide variety of symptoms. It primarily causes abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is at its worst), vomiting, or weight loss,[1][2][3] but may also cause complications outside of the gastrointestinal tract such as skin rashes, arthritis, inflammation of the eye, tiredness, and lack of concentration
- Chronic Pancreatitis
Chronic pancreatitis is a long-standing inflammation of the pancreas that alters its normal structure and functions. It can present as episodes of acute inflammation in a previously injured pancreas, or as chronic damage with persistent pain or malabsorption.
- Reynaud's Phenomenon
In medicine, Raynaud's phenomenon (pronounced /reɪˈnoʊz/, US dict: rā·nōz′) is a vasospastic disorder causing discoloration of the fingers, toes, and occasionally other areas. This condition can also cause nails to become brittle with longitudinal ridges. Named for French physician Maurice Raynaud (1834–1881), the phenomenon is believed to be the result of vasospasms that decrease blood supply to the respective regions. Emotional stress and cold are classic triggers of the phenomenon.
- Mediastinal Seminoma Malignant mediastinal germ cell tumors of various histologies were first described as a clinical entity approximately 50 years ago.[when?] Mediastinal and other extragonadal germ cell tumors were initially thought to represent isolated metastases from an inapparent gonadal primary site.
- Testicular Bilateral Microlithiasas Testicular microlithiasis is an unusual condition found in up to 5% of normal males (up to 14% in African Americans) that arises from microscopic calcium deposits within the testicles. It is an asymptomatic, non-progressive disease. The cause is unknown, but this condition has been associated with testicular cancer in a small group of individuals, cryptorchidism, mumps, infertility and intraepithelial germ cell neoplasia. Microcalcifications are present in roughly 50% of germ cell tumors, but the majority of men with testicular microlithiasis will not develop testicular cancer. This disease is usually detected by an ultrasound when the patient is being checked for something else, such as testicular cancer. In 80% of cases, both testicles are affected.
- Thrombocytopenia Thrombocytopenia (thrombopenia in short) is the presence of relatively few platelets in blood.Generally speaking, in human beings a normal platelet count ranges from 150,000 to 450,000 platelets per microliter of blood.[1] These limits are determined by the 2.5th lower and upper percentile, so values outside this range do not necessarily indicate disease. One common definition of thrombocytopenia is a platelet count below 50,000 per microliter
- Positive Rheumatoid Factor High levels of rheumatoid factor (generally above 20 IU/mL, 1:40, or over the 95th percentile; there is some variation among labs) occur in rheumatoid arthritis (present in 80%) and Sjögren's syndrome (present in 70%).[2] The higher the level of RF, the greater the probability of destructive articular disease.[citation needed] Transiently, it is also found in Epstein-Barr virus or Parvovirus infection and in 5-10% of healthy persons, especially the elderly.
A special thank you to Wikipedia for being the amazing resource that it is and for providing the information above about the various conditions that effect me.
I urge you to contribute to Wikipedia both through authoring articles and by financially supporting their efforts.
Now I'm going to take a break from the laundry list of diseases, conditions, syndromes and other medical mysteries that effect me. I will add more and probably put together a post on each one individually. But back to today's story.
So while riding in the car to lunch, I felt extraordinarily ill and had to return home, take my temperature and get into bed. I took my temperature and was able to watch from the corner of my eye that the digital display kept going up, I was watching my fever take hold in real time. I think initially I got a 103.7 reading. I was shaking and convulsing and took two extra strength Tylenol. The fever wouldn't let go nor would the rigors, so I took some prescription spasm control medication called Zanaflex (Tizanidine).
Finally after about 30 minutes, the fever let up a little (but didn't break) but the Zanaflex had helped with the related seizures. Then came the wooziness and the dizziness every time I moved. That encouraged me to take my blood pressure which stood at about 83/55 for the entire day. No combination of salty snacks, caffeinated drinks or anything else I could think of could bring it up. I am usually on medication for hypertension, Toprol and Lisinopril. I obviously did not take my dosages today.
Today, a family member called both my Oncologist and my Pain and Palliative Care doctors. My Oncologist realized the need to see me ASAP, so I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon and I asked my Pain Management physician to work with my oncologist to plot the right route for my acute care, while we got a handle on what exactly is going on right now, causing these high fevers of unknown origin and how this fits into my longer term monitoring and treatment plan.
I am looking forward to some answers tomorrow and if anything of interest comes out of it, I'll post it.
I did my best to let everyone close to me know what a tough day it was. E-mails went out - Facebook conversations occurred and all seems well.
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