Injuries/Illnesses

A couple of weeks ago, I had my first on the job incident since working up in Alberta almost 2 years ago. It wasn't even anything serious. During the morning of my work shift the temperature had increased sharply in a matter of two hours. I was doing some monitoring and I noticed a sharp headache pain just above my left eye. I had been drinking water over the entire day, but as soon as I let one of the safety inspectors take a look at me; up to first aid I went, and they diagnosed me with mild heat exhaustion.

What this truly taught me, is that no matter how safe we do our job or how healthy we try to become we're never truly invincible.

To the GFF community what have been some of the worst injuries or illnesses you've ever had in your entire life.

Here are mine:

Illnesses: I've been pretty healthy for the majority of the time, and I don't recall too many times in which I had to stay at the hospital overnight. I think the longest stay I had in the hospital, was when I was 5 years old. I had an incredibly high fever and I actually stayed in the hospital during Christmas which kind of sucked.

Injuries: I don't know if you would classify heat stroke as injury but I had a very severe case of heat stroke back in the summer of 2002. I was working with the provincial forestry and wildlife division. One day we were suppose to get a severe rainstorm, so we dressed accordingly to what we thought was going to be miserable day. That day it turned out to be incredibly hot, at least 30 degrees Celsius. We tried to accommodate for the warm weather as best we could, but in the late afternoon I was too exhausted and when I took a drink of ice cold water; I collapsed and regained consciousness as I was being helped out of the woods. I remember getting into the truck and taking a 3 hour drive home, which I was asleep for the majority of the time. For the next two days, I was off trying to recover.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My god... I have suffered martyrdom from my pilonidal for FOUR years. It just healed 2 months ago, making me able to ride my bike again w/o a problems. But I do tend to ride standing more often...

As for illness... I can't say I have been radically sick.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Ha, call me Illness Overflow. That is, if the Overflow meme were still going...

Anyway, I've had a number of health problems over the past year. At the beginning of August last year, I landed in the hospital and had to have an emergency surgery on my right lung. I had had some breathing problems since the beginning of July, and doctors had sent me for xrays and such, but my family doctor kept saying 'No, it's not pneumonia--you don't have a fever.' ...So in the end, the scan they did at emerge that night in August showed that my lung was pretty much full. The xray of that side was almost solid white. There was a pneumonia that had hardened, plus a NEW pneumonia on top of that, and a whole bunch of other stuff. They ended up sticking this huge needle in my back to try and drain it, but they said it was too thick/hard to draw out. Ouch. Anyway, they ended up doing a surgery and cleaned it all out, and apparently had to remove part of the lung, too. They told my grandma [who brought me into emerge] later that "If you would have waited another day, he would've died." Lucky me.

Since then, I also ended up spending a week in the hospital in September, October, and a month from November to December. They determined that my stomach wasn't working properly, and took way longer to digest food than normal. So I'd be okay for a couple weeks, and I guess I'd slowly 'fill up' to the point where I'd end up puking for a week--and spend said week in the hospital on an IV. The visit in November though, it just wouldn't go away. They suggested trying a feeding tube. I was wary, but decided it was for the better, anyway. So they stuck this long hose down my nose [worst feeling EVER] through my stomach, to the small intestine. And basically it worked like an IV tube, but it just stuck out my nose, and I'd plug this other hose/machine that pumped Glucerna into my body. The nose-tube was incredibly annoying, but was basically just a 'test' to see if I could tolerate such a treatment. In December, they did another surgery to insert a more 'permanent' [it can still come out if need be] tube into my stomach. So now it sticks out near my belly button. It's less annoying, but I hate it. Mostly because I can't take baths or go swimming. I can shower or whatever though.

As for injuries... This past Christmas [about a week after the tube-surgery] after I came home... Well, Christmas Eve to be exact--I was taking a shower. We got a shower chair/seat thing from my grandma for me to use until I was feeling stronger, so I was using that. After the shower though, I stood up to grab my towel hanging over the shower curtain rod, and got really light-headed and sorta fainted. I grabbed the towel and curtain, and fell over the side of the tub. And ripped the shower curtain, heh. Needless to say, it hurt like a bitch. Fast forward three days, after all the Christmas shenanigans with family... It still hurt. Plus my nurse [that was being sent to me for a few visits after the surgery to make sure the surgery site was doing okay and whatnot] was taking my blood pressure... and apparently I DIDN'T HAVE ONE. She tried several times, and my pulse and pressure were so weak that she decided to call an ambulance. I ended up in emerge AGAIN. Only for a few hours, though. The doctor determined that a new medication I had started was making my blood pressure drop. And that I had broken a rib or two when I fell in the tub. Grar. So he just sent me home with a bunch of percocets.

Worst part? The percs didn't even help.

Holy crap, that was longer than I expected.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I count myself fortunate that the most serious physical injury I've suffered in the course of my life has been a hairline fracture of the right wrist requiring only a soft cast. Masturbation jokes aside, it was little more than an inconvenience that I wasn't able to participate in little league for that summer.

Where I have fared less fortunate is in disease. Now, I was born an asthmatic with severe allergic hyper-sensitivities. My parents tell me that I spent the first few years of my life in and out of hospitalization, but to this date I have very little recollection of those times. What I do remember is having to spend 15 minute periods with a nebulizer three to four times each day. That simply became a matter of routine, and I didn't really mind the time sitting still during my childhood. I did mind the twice-weekly allergy injections, but that is expected of any little kid who has to face needles. At some point--I cannot precisely remember--I hammered down and simply accepted the injections without complaint. They, too, became a matter of routine and little bother to me. Ultimately, I don't consider my disease of asthma and allergies to be serious burden on my life. It is what happened a little more than four years ago that I consider something worth mentioning.

It was the day after a friends birthday celebration at a local microbrewery that featured live music, decent beer, and filling pub food. I was stricken with what I thought was the typical reaction to a night of knocking back beer after beer on a stomach full of a southwestern jalapeño burger. After a day of the runs, I began to notice spotting of blood. I phoned my doctor thinking it was a case of food poisoning, and he scheduled me for an office visit the next day. Things only got worse as my abdomen began to cramp painfully. The doctor took my vitals, and agreed that most likely I had a mild case of food poisoning. He wrote me a scrip for antibiotics, and requested that I drop off a stool sample to the local lab for culturing. I was on the antibiotics for three days when the culture came back clear. The diarrhea was now supplemented with nausea, and the bleeding was much worse. The doctor insisted that I come in the next day for a sigmoidoscopy--not a procedure I recommend anybody do in an office environment. After finding no signs of trauma to the colon, he sent me home with another scrip for a strong anti-diarrheal and instructions to take of work and rest. A few days passed, and I began to suffer high fevers with terrible night-sweats. I went to stay at my parents as I had degenerated to the point where I could no longer tolerate anything on my stomach, not even liquids. A last call to the doctor was made, and he insisted that my parents take me to the emergency room immediately, as undoubtedly I was becoming dangerously dehydrated.

After three hours waiting to be admitted, I was taken into a preliminary examination room. It was when they took my body weight that I discovered that in the two weeks I had been ill, I had lost close to thirty pounds in mass. They put me on a gurney, and tried to get an IV started for fluids. The dehydration made the task difficult, and after several failed attempts a veteran nurse was called over. I spent three days in the hospital while doctors ran more tests: cultures, bleeding scans, CT scans. Finally, a young specialist came to my hospital room and told me the final diagnosis. I had Ulcerative Colitis. My own immune system was methodically destroying my large intestine. It explained the diarrhea, the bleeding, the nausea, and the fevers. There is no cure, he told me, save for removal of the large bowel, but there were a wide array of medicines that would put--and keep--the colitis into remission.

So, I began trials of different treatments during which I was kept on a high dosage of corticosteroids. When the Asacol didn't work, i was put on Imuran. When the Imuran didn't work, I was put on a local-acting steroid. When that didn't work, and after the fourth visit through the ER, I was told that I would be put on a new drug called Remicade. I was also told that if I were to experience another flare, it was highly likely that surgery to remove my bowel would be required as the damaged would be too great to recover from. No feeling enthusiastic to the prospects of wearing a colostomy bag all day, I opted for the Remicade without hesitation. Yes, there were risks. Its a specific immunosuppressant, and you can get tuberculosis. You can have a life-threatening reaction that causes respiratory arrest. At this point, I was tired of the flares and I was tired of the hospital. I just wanted a treatment that worked.

The Remicade was a godsend. Within a week, I was well on my way to full remission. My specialist--the same who initially diagnosed me with Colitis--was very pleased and I became a sort of poster child for him. He would cite me as a success story for future patients suffering from the disease. For a year there was no diarrhea, no nausea, no fever, and no bleeding. I was gaining my lost weight back, and my lost strength. The Remicade intervals were at eight weeks, and it seemed like this would become just another matter of routine much like my asthma. Unfortunately, that would not be the case.

My large intestine had suffered quite an ordeal. I had experienced four severe flares requiring hospitalizations in only six short months. This rapid cycle of flaring followed by calming inflicted significant damage on my sigmoid colon. As a result, the tissue was filled with polyps and weakened. One morning, the tissue failed and several sites in the lining of the intestinal wall split open. There was no pain, but lots of bleeding. Every forty-five minutes I was forced to the bathroom to let go of accumulated blood. After a few hours I started to get dizzy spells and I knew that the situation wasn't going to get better. I called my brother and he drove me down to the hospital. This time, I was admitted immediately as a bleeding patient; they don't fuck around when you say you've been bleeding profusely for hours and feel like you are going to pass out. A doctor on call took one look at me and cleared me for a unit of blood. With the IV in my arm, I was still forced to seek the bathroom every 45 minutes. I tried as hard as I could to hold back the blood with the slim hope that maybe that would give enough time for clots to form. I had no such luck, and I was scheduled for a scoping the next day.

When morning came, a nurse told me that since I had not improved and my blood counts were still falling, I was authorized for two more units of blood. It took about two hours for the first unit to infuse, and the nurse brought me materials to prep for the scoping: A cup of crushed ice and a bottle of Citrus-flavored Magnesium Citrate. The mag citrate went down pretty easily--it tastes just like sprite--and the nurse began prepping a second IV site for a saline drip. The doctors wanted me fully hydrated during the colonoscopy. What happened next, however, was totally unexpected.

I vividly remember what happened the moment that nurse pushed the butterfly needle into my arm. As a bleeding patient, I was attached to equipment that automatically measured my blood pressure and heart rate at regular intervals. If any of those values fall below a threshold, alarms are sounded to alert the on-call staff of a potential emergency. When that narrow steel point penetrated my skin I felt an intense wave of heat over me followed quickly by severe nausea and disorientation. I gasped, "I don't feel so good. Please tilt my head back..." and saw that the readout on the blood pressure monitor dropped from 130/60 to 50/60. I heard alarms sound and as nurses began to pour into my room I felt like a large weight was coming down on my whole body. I was crashing. There was no pain, just a quiet pressure that squeezed all other sensations out. As everything in my vision blurred together, a nurse slipped an oxygen feed over my face and asked, "where is that other unit of blood? How far can we open up this feed?". The response came, "all the way!", and I felt the push of blood being forced into my left arm.

The infusion of fresh blood coupled with oxygen brought me back to lucidity. I rolled my head over to the nurse with the butterfly needle and slurred, "I didn't mean to scare you like that..." She chuckled nervously and said that I could have at least waited until she had her morning cup of coffee. After the third unit of blood was fully infused, I was moved for my colonoscopy procedure. I had some niiiiiiiice drugs for that. I vaguely remember shitting on a nurses hand, and thinking to myself: "I really don't care. Just fix me." When I came to, my specialist told me that he found three bleeding sites that he had to staple shut, and that I shouldn't have any more problems with them. I just rolled my head in acknowledgement and went back to sleep. I was discharged two days later.

Since then, I haven't had any serious trouble with my colitis. Doctors say that the disease hasn't killed anyone, but I know that if I hadn't gone to the ER the night that I started to bleed profusely, I wouldn't be writing this now. But, I made the right call. I'm still on my Remicade. Apart from the occasional spotty minor flare-up, everything is just going routine for me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've never broken a bone in my body. (I was a milk addict when I was younger... wish I could get back to that.) I've never had mono, strep, bronchitis, the flu, and I dont even remember when I had the Chicken Pox, because I was 6 months old when I had them (which actually means I'm quite the candidate to get them again, apparently... only this time, probably as shingles). Even when I get a cold, it tends to be little more than a nasty sore throat, cough, and the sniffles... of course, that's usually what a cold is.

That said, GFF knows of my most recent trip to the hospital, when my gallbladder needed an emergency removal. Not sure if that would be an 'injury' or an 'illness', but still. It was possibly the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I could barely breath, I just had this crippling ache under the bottom of my ribs, and it echoed into my back and shoulders. After 'riding out' the pain the first night, I couldnt put up with it again on the second, so a trip to the ER put me in the hospital for a little over a day. ER at 4 in the morning, surgery at 10am that morning, out of the hospital by 10am the next day. I was told that my gallbladder was practically a rock... 3 stones over a centimeter in diameter, 12 stones just a little under, and countless little ones. I was told I had difficulty breathing because one had worked its way out of the gallbladder into the ducts. I dont know how that would work, but hey, I'm not arguing, as long as its gone. That would be pretty much the only time I've been in the hospital for anything.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Illnesses... lets see... when I was born I was in intensive care for a week. I had pneumonia three times before I was 2 years old. Apparently I'm pretty lucky to be alive.

Injuries? I decided it would be fun when I was 2 or 3 to stick my hands on the stove burner. Other than that, I broke my toe last year jumping down some stairs. Didn't even go to the doctor for that, as I understand that you can't really do much to help it mend.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Poor Sousuke. =[ Also, ElectricSheep, I didn't read that immense beast of a post but my sympathies are with you regardless~

Well, I haven't really had any nasty illnesses or injuries per se. The only life-threatening thing was my having bacterial meningitis when I was a baby; apparently I was really close to dieing! =X But yeah, thankfully I'm fairly lucky in regards to ailments nowadays...

...well, except recently. I have just gotten over the worst string of ailments I've ever had. Four weeks ago I got tonsillitis, severe tonsillitis (I couldn't really swallow, almost had to get them taken out). Hell of a lot of pain that was. I then, being the goof that I am, somehow transmitted the disease to my eyes and successfully got annoying conjunctivitis. When I got over that I got a pretty decent stomach ache to top all things off.

FELIPE NO

I've actually enjoyed good health for most of my life. I haven't broken anything, but I do remember a horrible time where a I had a bunch of problems happening at the same time. I had an infection, eczema, cysts on both eyes, fever, etc. It definitely wasn't fun...

How ya doing, buddy?

I've had no major issues with my health but I can't seem to stop getting hurt. I am always bruising my knees or complaining of headaches or stomach pain. Today, I was at this center donating Plasma and they had to stick my finger to draw blood for this test they do beforehand and it hurt like hell. When the screener started squeezing my finger to get the blood to pour in this little tube she thought she noticed this thing sticking out of my finger and she thought it was the needle. Four people came pouring into the room and staring at my finger, one guy had pliers in his hand. He decided to mess with my finger and decided that it was just a flap of skin that hurt like hell. She didn't stick me right with the needle I guess.

Hm...I broke my arm when I was seven because my brother pushed me off this tall jungle gym in the backyard, when I came to my arm was in the shape of an "S"...it was disgusting.

I used to get really bad urinary tract infections. One time I didn't really have any money to pay for another E.R. visit and I felt one coming on. I decided to ignore it and hope for it to go away, within the next 24 hours I had a fever of 104 and I was pale and was vomiting. I went to the E.R. and they said that I was lucky I came in before it turned into a kidney infection, those are a lot worse.

Jam it back in, in the dark.