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Jun. 17th, 2008 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urocyonI've been feeling pretty bad lately, so not much of my energy has gone into spending time online. Since things are looking up a bit, with any luck I'll be around LJ more again.
Earlier this afternoon, I did post something on ethnic minorities, body size, and diabetes over on the blog I got going for the crankier, more political stuff. Don't know if anyone here might be interested, but that's where I've been posting more when I've felt up to it. Yep, sometimes I feel like I have a huge bonnet absolutely bulging with bees.
I talked to my mom for a while this evening, and she's feeling better today. It was the first day she's felt like talking, apparently, and I was glad I'd waited a couple of days to check up. I knew she'd been down with an awful stomach bug a couple of weeks ago, was sick enough that she fell over and cracked some ribs, and got dismissed as some kind of drunken Indian when Sid took her into the ER. Either that, or her liver was eaten up with cancer, before they ran any tests whatsoever; the interns couldn't quite make up their minds, but they were sure telling her about all the possibilities. (Yeah, she turns yellow too from the combo of Gilbert's and a virus. You'd think medical professionals could understand this.) The closest hospital has gotten very bad indeed at dealing with local people. After days of vomiting and diarrhea, she was dehydrated enough to have trouble walking straight, so that reinforced the idea that she'd drunk herself into a sorry state. They didn't even give her anything for the vomiting or diarrhea, but tried to admit her then for scads of testing. She was slow with feeling better, but I figured it was from the Gilbert's as usual, along with the rib pain.
So, Sunday she called, and I found out that Sid had dragged in to see the doctor on Friday; the doc then flipped and admitted her to a better hospital. No wonder; she was having real trouble walking and talking by that point. She came within a hair of dying more than once, and spent most of the weekend getting transfusions for hideous anemia. Anemia has never been an obvious problem before. Her blood sugar was also completely out of whack, so she's on insulin and close monitoring, hopefully temporarily. They ruled out most of the obvious serious things, and are continuing to do more testing outpatient. Apparently they still have no clue what might be wrong. I was pleased to hear her sounding better today, though.
I have urged her to ask her doctor about Familiar Mediterranean Fever. After seeing Nancy Sparks Morrison's account years back, I had to wonder about the possibility with a number of family members. Heck, I'm the acknowledged master of the sudden unexplained 105F+ fever, with pretty much all the other vague symptoms. When I told her about it, Mom could think of several relatives I hadn't considered. We've just tended to blame that kind of thing on being particularly vulnerable to colds and flu. Mom's sudden "viral" type attack with high fever and acute anemia (noticed this time, at any rate) reminded me of it. It is apparently not uncommon among our ethnic group, but doctors rarely think of it, since (a) it's perceived as rare, and (b) we really don't stand out as being of Mediterranean origin. That's at least one more thing to rule out.
Interestingly, my cousin Bryce came up with that possible diagnosis independently. One of his uncles by marriage (whose mother is of Italian descent, and more obviously at risk) has FMF, and what my mom was doing apparently sounded almost exactly like what Mike did before he got diagnosed.
With any luck they'll figure out what's going on soon. This has been a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.
Earlier this afternoon, I did post something on ethnic minorities, body size, and diabetes over on the blog I got going for the crankier, more political stuff. Don't know if anyone here might be interested, but that's where I've been posting more when I've felt up to it. Yep, sometimes I feel like I have a huge bonnet absolutely bulging with bees.
I talked to my mom for a while this evening, and she's feeling better today. It was the first day she's felt like talking, apparently, and I was glad I'd waited a couple of days to check up. I knew she'd been down with an awful stomach bug a couple of weeks ago, was sick enough that she fell over and cracked some ribs, and got dismissed as some kind of drunken Indian when Sid took her into the ER. Either that, or her liver was eaten up with cancer, before they ran any tests whatsoever; the interns couldn't quite make up their minds, but they were sure telling her about all the possibilities. (Yeah, she turns yellow too from the combo of Gilbert's and a virus. You'd think medical professionals could understand this.) The closest hospital has gotten very bad indeed at dealing with local people. After days of vomiting and diarrhea, she was dehydrated enough to have trouble walking straight, so that reinforced the idea that she'd drunk herself into a sorry state. They didn't even give her anything for the vomiting or diarrhea, but tried to admit her then for scads of testing. She was slow with feeling better, but I figured it was from the Gilbert's as usual, along with the rib pain.
So, Sunday she called, and I found out that Sid had dragged in to see the doctor on Friday; the doc then flipped and admitted her to a better hospital. No wonder; she was having real trouble walking and talking by that point. She came within a hair of dying more than once, and spent most of the weekend getting transfusions for hideous anemia. Anemia has never been an obvious problem before. Her blood sugar was also completely out of whack, so she's on insulin and close monitoring, hopefully temporarily. They ruled out most of the obvious serious things, and are continuing to do more testing outpatient. Apparently they still have no clue what might be wrong. I was pleased to hear her sounding better today, though.
I have urged her to ask her doctor about Familiar Mediterranean Fever. After seeing Nancy Sparks Morrison's account years back, I had to wonder about the possibility with a number of family members. Heck, I'm the acknowledged master of the sudden unexplained 105F+ fever, with pretty much all the other vague symptoms. When I told her about it, Mom could think of several relatives I hadn't considered. We've just tended to blame that kind of thing on being particularly vulnerable to colds and flu. Mom's sudden "viral" type attack with high fever and acute anemia (noticed this time, at any rate) reminded me of it. It is apparently not uncommon among our ethnic group, but doctors rarely think of it, since (a) it's perceived as rare, and (b) we really don't stand out as being of Mediterranean origin. That's at least one more thing to rule out.
Interestingly, my cousin Bryce came up with that possible diagnosis independently. One of his uncles by marriage (whose mother is of Italian descent, and more obviously at risk) has FMF, and what my mom was doing apparently sounded almost exactly like what Mike did before he got diagnosed.
With any luck they'll figure out what's going on soon. This has been a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.
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Date: 2008-07-06 11:52 pm (UTC)