I have not been a well Weasel. In my last entry I wrote that I was off to see my doctor which is exactly what I did. My doctor diagnosed me as having severe pneumonia (the other possibility was meningitis), and told me I had a temperature of 103 and needed to get to hospital immediately. He was going to call an ambulance for me from there, but since I don't have medical insurance I walked home from the doctor instead (just around the corner a bit) and then IceQueen called car service and we went to the hospital that way.

After I supplied a urine sample we waited for hours in the hospital 'workup' rooms, but then I started losing consciousness and I was rushed to the intensive care unit (or acute care, whatever). They took blood samples had hooked me into a couple of IV drips of saline and antibiotics and stuck monitors all over me with EKG machines etc, the whole nine yards. IceQueen's Dad turned up too and they were both obviously freaking when I went unconscious and went into ICU - I vaguely remember some bolshy nurse threatening to call security on them if they didn't stay out of the ICU, I'm so glad Ice was there though.

I lost consciousness again in ICU and apparently my blood pressure (which is normally slightly above normal) dropped dangerously low and the doctors decided to then run me through a bunch of tests to try and figure out what was really wrong, so off I went for a cat-scan and chest x-ray to see what was causing the headaches etc.

A little while later in ICU the doctors came back and said the cat-scan was clear (whew) and the chest x-ray showed I didn't have pneumonia, so now it was a matter of eliminating possibilities. The blood and urine tests didn't give any definitive answers so they were going to have to do a lumbar puncture, also known as a friggin spinal tap. To make matters worse, since I'd reacted to anesthetics when at the dentist a year or so ago, the doctor was going to have to do the spinal tap without any anesthetic. Lovely.

Spinal taps are not fun. I had three of them before they had enough of my spinal fluid to analyze to see if I had meningitis or some other infection in the fluid around the brain. I didn't scream at all, I think I just said 'fuck' pretty loudly on the 3rd one but that was about it, heh. My lower back is still sore now, four days later - the doctor advised the sore back and accompanying headache will last for about a week as a result of the spinal tap, which makes it kinda tough to know if my headache now is a result of that or because of something else.

Anyway the tests from that came out clear, so no meningitis (good). I spent the next couple of days in hospital on IV drip and my blood pressure leveled out at a nice 110/70 and my fever dropped with the IV drips etc, and finally they let me return home on Thursday late afternoon. Unfortunately after all that, they don't know what the hell I have, it seems to be some mystery viral thing that is particularly nasty, and also I guess weakens me so they have me on strong antibiotics for another couple of weeks and then I have to go back to hospital for a follow-up in about 10 days. Of course if the fever returns they said I'll need to be re-admitted immediately.

The headache has not stopped yet, and I feel very light-headed most of the time too and not in a very good mood at all, as IceQueen found out when I got all shitty last night when she wanted me to get back to bed but I wanted to fix the PC. I guess stopping smoking again at the same time has also made me extra shitty and not the best of company (had half a cigarette last Tuesday, nothing since).

IceQueen has taken time off work and looked after me and visited when I was in hospital and got everything organized re forms etc (hopefully everything will be covered by Medicare) and has just been awesome, so I feel like a prick for getting so shitty last night. Sorry sweetness. Her parents have been really supportive too, coming to hospital and her Mum made cutlets for when I got home again which were awesome. Anyway I'm not feeling great so I'm signing off for now.

update.. my doctor said it looks like I had West Nile Virus - a particularly nasty virus that has killed a bunch of people here in NYC as well as elsewhere. Probably got it from a mosquito bite. Apparently it has around a 15% fatality rate. Eep.