So I spent the weekend with a high fever, chills, stiff, achy joints and muscles, and just generally feeling pretty crummy overall. I was spending the weekend dog sitting out in Mclean, Virginia and basically all I was doing with myself was lying on the couch resting and watching the French Open, so I didn't think too much of it and figured it would pass. However... I woke up on Tuesday morning and was greeted in the bathroom mirror by a face the color of a tomato and my entire body covered in a lovely red rash. So I figured there might be something a little bit more going on there. Nevertheless, it's my second week of work, so not wanting to be the dramatic girl who calls in sick I headed off to the office per usual. I felt alright I guess, other than the fact that I itched all over and couldn't stop shaking in the intense air conditioning we have in our office. (Seriously, it feels like the inside of an igloo down there! Cardigans just aren't cutting it... I might have to spring for bringing my NorthFace to work or something. And a thermos of hot cocoa and those hand warmers you use when you go snow skiing.)
Throughout the morning I received several concerned questions from my colleagues: "Katie, did you go out in the sun this weekend? You are SO RED!"Or "What on earth happened to your face?" Things along those lines. After lunch I gave in and called my dad to let him in on what was going on. He says I started off the conversation with something like, "Hey Daddy, I don't want to alarm you but I just had a question. What do you think I could do about this red rash all over my body?" In retrospect, I think I probably would have been quite concerned as a parent if my kid called me up with that inquiry as well. So I guess I should have let him in on it without nearly inducing a mild heart attack in the process. Anyways, after lunch I had a meeting with my supervisor, who has a daughter just about my age. After we had gone over our to do lists and discussed several of the up coming programs, I casually asked if she knew of an Urgent Care center in the area that I could visit after work since I wasn't feeling well. She immediately switched into mom mode and sent me straight to get medical attention. Which brings me to the start of my lovely stay at the GW hospital.
I managed to get my red, itchy, feverish self back on the metro (definitely received some stares during that ride seeing that I matched my red sweater at that point), home to my dorm to grab my medications and change into comfy clothes, and then I hoofed it back up to the hospital and checked myself into the ER around 3:30. Four and half hours and several crosswords later I was admitted to a room in the back. Honestly I figured I would be home by 10pm or so... I had no idea what to expect. Instead, the fun began almost immediately. A very concerned nice young doctor came in and told me they were all very alarmed by my bloodwork, seeing that my white blood count was at 1.79 (the normal range begins somewhere around 4.5). They told me that, given the symptoms I had listed off, they were worried that I might possibly have bacterial meningitis so they wanted to perform a spinal tap, a CAT scan, and a chest x-ray and then keep me overnight to monitor me. So all visions of going home and being back at work the next day disappeared at that point. The spinal tap was probably the weirdest medical procedure I've ever undergone. I wont' go too much into detail for those reading who might be a little squeamish, but basically they had me hunch over, they gave me a numbing shot in my back, and then they poked a needle into the ligament of my spinal cord and extracted some of my spinal fluid to to check it for bacteria. It was the strangest feeling ever when they would hit a nerve... they told me at the beginning to just say left or right as they were "walking the needle in". I asked how I would know, and they just said, "Oh, you'll know!" And I most CERTAINLY did! The first time they hit a nerve ending it was on my left side, so I felt this intense shooting pain/weird sensation down my entire left leg and I just was like, "LEFT LEFT LEFT!!" It was kind of like when you hit your funny bone or the doctor checks your reflexes but time 1,000,000 or so since they're actually in your spine probing your nerves. Eesh. Well, they finished that and then I just had to lay flat for three hours or so... at this point I'm getting pretty freaked out. Especially since all the nurses and doctors keep asking if I'm all by myself, and each time I just nod my head and think "I want my mommy!!!" (I know, I'm like 5 years old).
At this point, Patrick comes to the rescue via his older brother Stephen who lives in D.C. I am quite certain that a 26 year old guy has a number of better things to do on a Tuesday night than trek down to the hospital to visit his little brother's girlfriend. But regardless, that is just what he did. With a bag of grapes in town nonetheless. :) I was incredibly glad to see him and that made the time pass much, much faster and took my mind off the test results I was waiting. Thankfully around 2am, Dr. Collins came in to let me know the test results were negative and I had no signs of bacterial meningitis. Instead, he just held up my bottle of sulfa pills, which I had recently been prescribed for acne by my dermatologist, looked at me and said "Never, ever take this again in your life, and you will be just fine!" I was like, it's a PROMISE!
So then I was admitted upstairs and got to spend a super fun two days hanging out in the hospital. My white blood cell count continued to drop on Wednesday, so naturally mom and dad flipped out and drove like maniacs to get up here. But I have never been happier to see them and I actually could not have gotten through the rest of that without them. But by this morning my count was going back up, so I was allowed to go home! I was a little sad to say goodbye to all the amazing doctors and nurses (not too sad of course). :) But every single person I came into contact with while I was there was incredibly kind and I give that hospital a big thumbs up. However... I probably won't miss my roommate too much. She snored pretty badly and enjoyed staying up until 3 am watching Sex and the City re-runs with the volume turned up really loud.
So I left the hospital, got an extra large ice cream, and now I'm just laying in bed at my cousin Racheal's house in Arlington. So that's that. No more sulfa. Ever. Guess I learned that the hard way! But at least now my body has returned to it's normal hue, my fever is gone and I no longer need 10 blankets on top of me to keep warm and stop shaking. So things are definitely looking up. :) Week three better include only run of the mill, incredibly boring occurrences. Seriously, I want the most exciting/dangerous thing that happens to me to be getting off on the wrong metro stop or something.
But that's my week in a nutshell. Wish I could have written about something else, but I guess I can now say that I was treated at the hospital where the president goes!
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