Health update · 3:40pm Apr 4th, 2014
In case you didn't see the updates in comments to my non-april fools post:
The emergency room ran a swath of blood tests and an ultrasound on my leg veins, and confirmed that nothing was going to kill me in the short term. What they proposed as a tentative diagnosis is hypersensitivity vasculitis, which is essentially an autoimmune problem where my body gets a little too aggressive scrubbing out my bloodstream and causes swelling/bruising in capillaries. (This seems eminently reasonable based on matching symptoms, and the lack of fever/signs of infection/other systemic issues.) The doctor suggested this was perhaps a recuperative side effect of the body cleaning up in the aftermath of an earlier viral infection like a flu (this seems more dubious but I'll buy it while looking for more solid evidence).
I've scheduled a followup appointment with a dermatologist who should be able to drill down into it a little more specifically, and plan to continue exploring whether there's any internal contributing causes. In the meantime they have me on a short-duration run of the steroid prednisone — which among its other effects is an immunosuppressant, designed to get my body to stop kicking its own ass for a little while as I heal. "Hypersensitivity" vasculitis gets somewhat ironic at that point, because I've spent most of the last two days freaking out at every tiny suggestion that suppressing my immune system was going to cause some hidden systemic issue to rage out of control. ("AAAAAAAGH MY LOWER BACK HURTS WHEN I SLUMP IN MY CHAIR, VERY SIMILARLY TO HOW IT BOTHERED ME A FEW WEEKS AGO WHEN MY LEGS WEREN'T SPOTTED … IT MUST BE A KIDNEY INFECTION!") But three days in, I am coming around to accept that I'm feeling more normal, my leg spots are fading, and just maybe I can stop worrying, take a deep breath, and start writing again.
Thank you all for the support.
Edit: *sigh*
Hmm...
Edit: Good to know you're getting better. Hope everything goes well soon :)
Whoa! Holy crap. I didn't see this stuff at all. Well, good to hear that it seems to be the lesser of several considerable evils. I hope it passes soon.
It's good to hear you're getting better. I hope and pray you get better all the way.
You are handling it.
Another flare-up? You'll handle it.
Things get worse? You'll handle it.
Asteroid on a collision course for Earth? You'll handle it.
They cancel MLP after season 4? You'll handle it.
Whatever comes at you, you'll handle it.
It's amazing (to me, at least) how much of modern medicine seems to come down to "eh, it's probably nothing to important."
Still, nothing's a whole lot better than something. Very glad to hear that this seems to be one of the least-threatening possibilities!
I know you can't hear it, but I breathed a sigh of relief, and a lot of other people did too. Glad to hear you're okay.
That's great news! I'm glad you can finally start to relax. I know that sort of thing can be really stressful.
I've been immersed in narrative too much lately, I think. Some instinct in the back of my head was telling me the news would be bad, and you were obviously right at the beginning of a Dramatic Serious Illness arc.
Glad to hear you're bucking Narrative Convention.
Good to hear!
If it helps, I had what I believe was that same medical problem a couple years ago, affecting my lower left leg and the backs of both of my knees. It's now completely cured, with just a darker patch of skin in my leg as a reminder, and that only because I let it get out of control before seeking treatment.
Mine was triggered by depression, BTW. I should have found ponies earlier. And no, not joking; if I had found this community back then, my earlier bout of depression might not have happened, or at least might not have been so severe as to trigger an autoimmune response.
I'll join the legions of people that are glad that it's looking like you are going to be all right.
That actually sounds like a condition where just being told that you don't have have to worry about your health may help, too, because then your subconscious can tell your immune system that it doesn't have to panic right now...
--arcum42
Good to hear that hings are better!
Welcome back to the world of the semi-sane and semi-healthy.
1981523
Holy smokes. Obscure disease brohoof! /) I'm glad to hear yours is such a distant memory.
(What little statistics I've been able to find on HV is that overall prevalence is estimated at 10-25 per million people. It's a damn rare thing.)
1981422
> Asteroid on a collision course for Earth? You'll handle it.
i wILL KICK IT WITH MY SPOTTED GIMP LEGS,,,
Also, I see what you did there, escalating the crises from least to most serious.
1981517
When I first went in to the urgent care clinic I joked to one of my friends via IM:
H> Well, I'm becoming a patient in House, but for the moment I'm feeling better.
H> They even ruled out lupus
J>: allright, then i'll check back in twenty-three minutes when you're almost dead
J> and again in twenty-eight when you're well
H> ;-p ya srsly
J> here's hoping you aren't one of those episodes where they subvert the formula!
1981548
I have this weird thing with my brain where, if I don't have a reasonable narrative for the facts, I flip out. I need to understand. The ER doctor was excessively cheery and "it's just a short-term thing, you're going to get better!" and I'm sure it was great bedside manner for the vast majority of patients, but all I could think was "Yes, but what CAUSED it?"
On the other hand, when I went to the urgent care clinic a few days beforehand, the doctor sat down with me, went through the bloodwork line by line, and nerdsplained what it WOULD have looked like if I had been suffering from one of the more serious things I was freaking out about. I asked questions about other possibilities which were met with frank talk of symptoms, about things in the bloodwork that had little to do with the leg spots (my blood glucose was normal, which actually ruled out a longstanding suspicion of pre-diabetes), and about what future developments would indicate a more serious concern. She spent half an hour talking to me and at the end of it I felt the best and most hopeful that I've been throughout this whole process. It was magnificent, and if it hadn't been for the unexpected worsening of symptoms a few days later I would have considered that the end of it.
I am so Twilight.
1981622
So... I'm not saying you have to make this your mantra... but as phrases go isn't it kinda mantra-worthy?
1981622
Believe me, I do too. I'm a lot better at dealing with things if I have a mental model of what's going on, whether it's actually valid or not.
I do know that your mind can do amazing things if you believe something will happen, but having a logical and skeptical mind can be a bit of a hinderance in that regard.
I get part of this from my mother, of course. She tended to go into research mode, and would end up knowing more about her own specific health problems then the doctors would...
1981622
And I hope yours will soon be
While no health woe is good news, this is better news than some. You're in our thoughts.
I'm happy that it seems to have been nothing, and I hope it stays that way.
1981624
I don't know, I kind of like it.
global3.memecdn.com/well-we-amp-039-re-fucked_o_2166763.jpg
Don't worry, I WILL KICK IT WITH MY SPOTTED GIMP LEGS.
Hope this all blows over soon for you.
I hope you have good health insurance.
Whew, I'm glad to hear that' you're doing okay.
Here's hoping it all works out mate.
Very relieved to hear that you will probably be alright! *hugs tight*
Hear that? That's us all breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Glad to hear you're doing better. Just make sure to always wash your hands before eating.
Are you sure you weren't just starting to develop mutant superpowers or something? Be a shame if you were about to turn into a ninja turtle or something and now they stopped it.
But sincerely though, glad to hear that you're feeling better and it doesn't seem to be anything overly serious. My continuing best wishes!
1981517
… seriously, I should know better than this.
You do NOT tempt fate by saying that everything's okay while you're still in the middle of a narrative arc. This has been ESTABLISHED. It is a BAD IDEA. And yet I do it anyway.
(*sigh*)
tomorrowlands.org/images/20140404-armspots.jpg
But you know what? Fuck it.
1981422's right; I am bigger than this thing. 1982368's right; these are MUTANT SUPERPOWERS. 1981866's right. BRING ON THE STORMS.
The universe is making a mistake. Now it has given me SPOTTED GIMP ARMS, so I can both kick AND punch it STRAIGHT INTO THE FLAMING CROTCH OF DEATH.
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw4010-147483_-_animated_pinkie_pie_super_saiyan.gif
WITH EVERY PASSING MOMENT THE UNIVERSE IS MAKING ME MORE INVINCIBLE
I'm going to go home and write a thousand words tonight. See if I don't.
1982431
Nothing makes narrative convention stronger than telling it you're subverting it. O! The folly! The great human hubris that causes us to dash our fragile bodies and psyches on the jagged rocks of an uncaring story line!
Anyway, that's clearly bug bites from subspace noseeums. You will be getting Dr. Spidermanhattan powers any time now.
1982431
Good for you. You're a writer, you get to write your own damned narrative. Whatever-this-is can throw you curveballs, but, dammit, you can keep swinging away as much as you like.
Besides, everyone who's seen shonen manga/anime knows that the villain coming back for a rematch just means the hero is about to become insanely strong and go curb-stomping the bad guy into jelly.
Wishing you the best, man.
Sad to hear you are not well; glad to hear you are not dead. And even if it is belated, I am faxing you an internet hug from my ethernet port as I type.
Hope you get well soon, man. You’ll be in my thoughts.
I would normally present you with a picture of a horse of your preference here, but she is a grumpy soul, and what you need now is smiles, not frowns. So I would like to ask you to imagine Luna smiling in a box down below. A person with an imagination of your calibre should surely produce top notch results. Just don’t think about it too well: such a blatant contradiction could make you mad, and that is not what is needed right now. No.
This is where I wish I was able to pay more attention to my friends blog posts...
I'm sorry you are going through all this man! I really really am! I wish I had payed attention, and I would have known sooner. Get better please.