[at-l] Hospital admission followup - I'm still thruhiking!

[kellyswhitman at hotmail.com (Kelly Whitman)]

I thought I had posted this to the list already but according to some 
offlist emails, I don't think it showed up.  It might have been when the 
server was down:

I went into the hospital last week because of a sudden increase in some 
neuropathy symptoms that I've been having since a car accident I was in six 
years ago.  Two ERs, nine hours, one IV, a gazillion blood tests, one cranky 
nurse, one MRI (with and without gelidium), and $100 from my hiking funds 
later, the doctors patted me on the head and sent me home saying they didn't 
find anything wrong (er, then why is my face sliding off of my head)?  They 
told me to follow up with my GP.  I did.  He's a wonderful fellow and 
generally a really good doctor, but he wasn't very interested in discussing 
the possibility of advanced Lyme disease (which is all I can figure out that 
this could possibly be, it's been pretty baffling).

To rule out the possibility of facial neuromas, I'm seeing an ENT next week. 
  I saw my dentist this morning to rule out any kind of dental problems (a 
checkup and cleaning before a thruhike was a good idea, anyway).  The ER 
docs in this hick dust bowl of a town wouldn't know Lyme disease from Saddam 
Hussein's nose hair.  (The nurse kept calling it "Limes disease..." as if 
it's something you get from eating too much citrus, LOL.)  All they know 
here is geriatrics and the odd college student or illegal border crosser 
ailment.  To be fair, Lyme isn't a problem in this part of the country 
(although it can be in soCal, where I'm from), but even my GP, who's pretty 
knowledgeable about other difficult-to-diagnose problems, just didn't get it 
when I was trying to talk about Lyme (he even prescribed steriods which is a 
no-no if advanced Lyme is suspected).  Dude, at least talk to me about it.  
Feh.

All in all, no one has told me not to thruhike (my GP and my neurologist are 
both big time in favor of it) so my ticket has been purchased and I'll fly 
to Atlanta on the 16th for a start date of the 17th.  My second gear test 
hike, in the mountains, is scheduled for tomorrow night.  It's raining here 
in the valley now so I'm hoping the temp and snow levels will drop a bit.  
I'm so busy with cooking, packing, gear tests, and studying (one Hindi final 
coming right up - augh) that I'm almost missing out on the anticipation, but 
purchasing my plane ticket made it VERY real - omgomgomgomgOMG!!!!!

Kelly Whitman
iN*TP*
-----------
"There ARE no other women like me."  -- 7 of 9

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