I'm still sick right now, but at least I know a bit more than I did on Monday. I've got a virus called cytomegalovirus, and it can be quite problematic, but guess what? Chances are you've got the same virus that I do. I've been told that 80% of the population has this virus but most of the time it is kept in check by your immune system. Most of the time, it's as harmless as the virus that causes cold sores, but in immuno-compromised people like me it can be a bit of a problem. Here's a direct quote from a medical website I found.
What are the signs and symptoms of cytomegalovirus?
Active infection in otherwise healthy children and adults can cause prolonged high fever, chills, severe tiredness, a generally ill feeling, headache, and an enlarged spleen.
Most infected newborns have no symptoms at birth, but, in some cases, symptoms will appear over the next several years. These include mental and developmental problems and vision or hearing problems. In rare cases, a newborn can have a life-threatening infection at birth. Infants and children who get CMV infection after birth have few, if any, symptoms or complications. When symptoms do appear, they include lung problems, poor weight gain, swollen glands, rash, liver problems, and blood problems.
People with weakened immune systems can have more serious, potentially life-threatening illnesses, with fever, pneumonia, liver infection, and anemia. Illnesses can last for weeks or months and can be fatal. In persons with HIV infection, CMV can infect the retina of the eye (CMV retinitis) and cause blindness.
Sounds fun right? Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. On the bright side my scope (both up and down) is scheduled for Monday to check out the pipes. It sounds like I've got to spend my weekend "cleansing" and I can only assume that means enemas, enemas, and more enemas. At least I don't have to collect any more fecal matter. Two jars of it are currently sitting in my fridge and if you will permit me, I'd like to describe what I went through to collect them this morning.
Have you ever pooped into a large plastic container? I had to for a while in the hospital so they could measure the volume that was coming out of me. The container in question is like a half moon that fits onto your standard toilet bowl so you can sit down and collect specimens in relative comfort. My first issue with this type of receptacle is that the container is less than 4 inches deep. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD A POOP THAT MEASURED LESS THAN FOUR INCHES!!!!! There is nothing more annoying than having to stand up to finish your bowel movement so that it doesn't smear all over your backside. My second issue with the collection container, is that is DOES NOT FIT MY TOILET. Within 10 seconds, the container slipped and fell into the toilet. So, I had to haul a dripping plastic container filled with my own feces out of my toilet to transfer my "deposit" into two smaller specimen containers.
Here's where I learned to appreciate the fact that we normally poop into water. Water does not allow smells to escape very well, and since there was no water in the container, the smells were allowed to permeate the upstairs bathroom with an astonishing speed. Since I'm still fighting nausea I don't deal with smells like that well, so I headed downstairs for a breather, and to retrieve my Popsicle stick and jar to extract the samples. I must point out at this time that some of the drugs that I'm on are incredibly effective at increasing the potency of fecal smells so by the time I got back upstairs to collect my samples, the entire upstairs of my house had become inhabitable due to the odor. 20 minutes later, with nose plugs firmly attached, and all the windows in the house open and both bathroom fans at full power I tackled the task of filling my specimen containers. One of my cats came bouncing upstairs to see what I was up to, took one sniff and ran away. I haven't seen that cat in over 8 hours. I can't blame him though.
So, several hundred dry heaves later, I came downstairs with samples in hand. I really feel sorry for the poor bugger who gets to test those samples. What a shitty job that guy must have.
Anyway, enough about my poop, let's move on to my day. I spent the entire day watching TV and downloading game demos off of the internet. For those of you who are into video games, DOOM 3 is possibly one of the most graphically impressive games I've ever seen. It also has some of the most pathetic game play I've ever played. You're in almost complete darkness most of the time, and while you ARE given a flashlight to see where you are going, you have to put the flashlight away to pick up your gun. So with gun in hand, you get to stare at a pitch black screen while monsters surround you and beat the crap out of you. I loved Doom and Doom 2, but the game designers really dropped the ball when they created this piece of garbage.
I've also been spending my day trying to get back into the habit of consuming food. I seem to be able to drink water and skim milk, but anything heavier than that and I start having difficulty getting it down. Right now I'm slowly working on some pasta, and it seems to be going down alright, but it's most definitely a fight to keep solids down. As of today, I have officially dropped below 170 pounds, however I am losing weight slower than I was 2 weeks ago so I guess that's progress. There's got to be something really wrong with my body, if Zofran (21 dollars PER PILL) doesn't get rid of my nausea. My guess is that I've got an infection, or some kind of sore in my intestines that is getting irritated and causing the cramps and general discomfort. I hope they find something when they go exploring because I'm in great need of some answers.
Well, The Hunt for Red October is on, and it's one of my favorite movies (even if it is edited for television), so I'm going to go. Stay tuned, as I'm going to see if I can get some video from the scope to put on the internet. Admit it, you want to know what my bowels look like!!!!!
Later
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