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My Story (Part 1)
To start off my story I will give you some background details. The story starts August of 2007. I was 20 years old. Have never really been sick in the past, (growing up my mom has said I only had 1 ear infection). I was about to start my junior year in college which also happened to be a semester I was going to be studying abroad in London.
Sometime towards the end of the month of August I develop a mild/serve cold that i can't seem to shake off. I go to the local Minute-Clinic and they prescribe a round of antibiotics and send me on my way. The antibiotics seem to help and almost complete kick back my cold. September 6th rolls around and it is time for me to head off to spend the semester in London. The program I was in was run through my University so it was pretty convenient. There were 19 students in the program and we all stayed in 4 flats located in the same building. We had some "typical" class taught in a class room and then we had classes that consisted of attending theater shows and going to museums. During the first month everything was going good, I celebrated by 21st birthday and was enjoying my time. Towards the end of September/early October "cold" I had had a few months earlier came back in full force. It truly knocked me on my ass. I was fatigued and just miserable. I eventually went to Cromwell Hospital to try and see what I could find out.
I walk into the hospitals urgent care type room and wait to be seen. At this point i had sinus issues and my ears were starting to really bother me. When my name is called I go in and have a consult with Collin Wallace. He looks me over and can tell i have a massive ear infection and likely fluid built up in my ears. He prescribes a round of antibiotics and a tapering does of prednisone to see if it the infection will die down. I get an appoint for a week or so later to come back and see him. Over the course of the next week my sinus issues clear up a little but my ears issue worsen. At this point most of my hearing is gone and I have a constant ringing noise in my ears. To quantify how bad my hearing was, if I had head phones on I would have to have the volume on my computer all the way up to barely hear it. Needless to say i had to walk around with a pen and paper just to be able to communicate effectively. By the time I get back in to see Mr. Wallace my hearing is still almost completely gone. He examines my again and determines the hearing loss is fluid built up in my inner ear and suggests performing an outpatient procedure to remove the fluid in my ears. He is confident my hearing will bounce right back after removing the fluid.
As you can imagine I was a little on edge. Not only was i 6,000 miles from home but i was looking at having surgery done. The procedure was scheduled for early morning one day in late October. The night before the surgery I decided to inform the rest of the group about the procedure and thankfully one of them decides to come with me. The morning of the surgery we get to the hospital, check in, and get brought up to a room. My first big surprise of the morning came when they took my weight, (On a side note because I was mostly deaf and bored most of the month of October I picked up the habit of walking 3-6 hours a day... I would just leave the apartment in the afternoon and literally walk for hours) I had lost 40 pounds in the 8 weeks I had been in London. Anyways Mr Wallace comes in and says everything he is going to do (not that i could really hear him) and that by the end of the surgery I should be able to hear again. I remember being taken down to the operating room and waiting in the prep area for 10 minutes or so. I vividly remember Mr. Wallace popping in and giving a thumps up sign, why I remember that I do not know. Waiting to go into surgery I had fifty thousand things running through my mind, some good, some great, some bad.
The next thing I know I am waking up in the hospital room up stairs. Before I am officially told the results of the surgery I already know it did not work as I still had the ringing in my ears. A few minutes/hours later Mr Wallace comes in and says that there was no fluid in the ears and just a massive infection. He wasn't sure what the cause of it was but he put me on more antibiotics and a round of prednisone. Over the next few weeks I would slightly improve and then the prednisone would run out and it would get worse again. I would go back to Mr Wallace he would give me a new prescription and the cycle continued.
Some time in the mid/end of November I develop a deep cough to go along with my sinus issues. My hearing begins to imporve slightly, I could at least hear most conversations. At this point i am just counting the days until I head back home to try and get some answers into what is going on with me. November 30th I scheduled to depart London, arrive in Minneapolis and then immediately get on a plane and fly to Vegas for my Grandmothers 65th birthday celebration. Everything is going great, we board the plane and they push back from the gate and they stop. We sit there for 10-15 minutes before they come over the loud speaker and say a gauge is not working properly and they are going to pull back up to the gate. After another 30 or so minutes they say it will be a few hours before they can fix the problem. At this point we were aloud to de-board the plane if we wished but I decided to stay on board. A few hours later they decide that they need a part from the states and would have the plane fixed first thing in the morning. They get everyone off the plane and booking in hotels for the night with the optimism of a 730 am departure. We get to the airport the next morning to discover that they couldn't fix the problem and as a result are booking everyone on other flights. I am lucky enough to get on the same flight I was suppose to be on the previous day direct to Minneapolis. I was able to get the Vegas flight moved as well to the next day so that all worked out. To make a long part of the story short it took 46 hours from the time I left my apartment in London to the time I arrived at the Bellagio in Vegas (I almost forgot to mention the Limo driver got pulled over for speeding on the way from the airport to the Bellagio). By now I am in rough shape medically, I have my sinus and ear issues, a deep cough, and I am just fatigued.
After 2 days in Vegas it was time to go home. Luckily that was an uneventful trip back. The next day I have an appointment with an ENT to see what we can figure out. He runs a few test and starts me on an antibiotic. A few days go by and because i have the free time I head down to Florida to spend 10 days with my Grandpa. While en route to Florida I start to develop some odd leg pain/cramps. When i get to Florida I call the ENT and explain what is going on and they think it is likely a reaction the antibiotic and to stop taking it. I do and they presribe another antibiotic that I have had before so we know it works. Over the next 10 days my legs begin to loosen up slightly, I was still not able to do much. My cough worsened and I begin to cough up some blood. I forego seeing a doctor in Florida because i feel it wouldn't do any good. On the 19th of December I head back to Minnesota with a doctor's appointment scheduled for the next day. The morning of the 20th I wake up at about 9:00 am. I manage to get out of bed go to the bathroom and then decide to lay back down. I sleep until 11:00 am or so and repeat the process. Finally at around 2 I decide to truly get out of bed. My doctor appointment was sometime around 3:00 which was good because I had planned to go to that and then i would have time to get ready to go the Minnesota Wild hockey game that night. I get the the doctors office (a general doctor), he take one look at me and flat out tells me i look like hell and need to go to the hospital and that they would call the hospital and tell them I was coming. That wasn't what i wanted to hear....
Needless to say I listened and was driven over to the hospital. Upon getting there and checking in I get placed in a room and wait as they start to run test after test after test. Because i had been out of the country recently they decide they need to run extra tests and keep me in a quarantine room until they know what I have. That night i remember turning the hockey game on just in time for them to come get me to take a check CT scan. I am gone for 30-45 minutes probably and come back to find out that Marion Gaborik had scored 5 goals in the game (not a good game to miss). The major focus of the test were on my lungs as that was the area that was the most effected. They decide to wait a few days for various test results to come in but schedule a lung biopsy for December 24th. The 3 days in the hospital leading up to the biopsy i vaguely remember. I remember being brought down for surgery on the morning of the 24th, I am not sure how long i waited to go into surgery but at some point it happened.
The next thing i know I wake up in a hospital room connected to about a dozen different machines. I had no idea what day it was or what had happened. The next thing i see is a priest coming into the room to anoint me with oil and pray (while in catholic grade school i learned this as Last Rights (as in given to dying people) not as anointing of the sick as it is currently taught). That night my parent begin to explain that after the surgery i was in such rough shape that they decided to put me an a ventilator and I learned that it was 4 days later. After a few hours my, as my parents are getting ready to leave for the night I finally ask if the biopsy found anything. They said it was called Wegener's Granulomatosis and that the important thing was it was treatable. The next morning my dad brought a stack of paper he had printed from the internet with all the information he could find on it. I remember reading through them and being amazed by the differences in the information.
I was in the hospital for another week while i was started on 60mg of prednisone and Cytoxin (not sure the dosage). After a few days I was bored out of my mind and was ready to get out of there. I went in to the Hospital on December 20th 2007 and left January 3rd 2008.
I will continue with the treatment part of my story at a later date, I don't have the time write that now.
I apologize length of my story, to be honest I probably could make it longer.
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Originally Posted by Pete
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