If It Wasn't For Bad Luck

I know I haven't posted in many weeks. At the beginning of the year there was a whirlwind of activity here that included some pretty major oral surgery for me and of course the twins started a new quarter at Strayer which also resulted in Kian getting a less than responsive professor who started giving him zeros for assignments he didn't think were submitted correctly and Cassie traveling and naturally back at work.

All this time and in the months starting back in September I'd noticed a rash on both my hands with bumps that were hard to the touch and thought it was the hard water here and my washing dishes without gloves on. Various friends here recommended lotions and creams and although they felt good, the rash remained. Right about the time of my oral surgery I'd then developed a rash around my lower torso and on my arms which after the surgery spread to my stomach and my face looked like I'd been sunburned. The rashes were very uncomfortable and cause a lot of skin irritation and itching and that in turn started to keep me from sleeping much at night. On February 8th I called the American Hospital here in Paris and got an appointment with a Dermatologist named Louis Zylberberg. He saw me that afternoon and all I can say is that he should never play poker as his face showed alarm and he wanted to take pictures of where all of my rashes were and then sent me to the lab for blood-work which was 13 vials all at once! He wanted me to come back the following day for a biopsy at 10:30. Pretty much immediately after I arrived the next day and entered the small surgery suite Dr. Zylberberg told me that I was very seriously ill and he had to admit me to the hospital now........... It's then that he told me he was pretty certain that I had what is called Dermatomyositis .http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dermatomyositis/DS00335

Of course I had no idea what he was talking about but was pretty freaked out when he told me how sick I was and seeing my level of stress he got his nurse to get me a valium which was VERY welcome........ Then I called Cassie and told her that she needed to come to the hospital as they were admitting me and after that Dr. Zylberberg's nurse accompanied me to the Emergency Room where I was admitted and the tests began which of course was 7 more vials of blood and the backless robe and EKG, full evaluation by the ER physician and then chest X-Ray, Echo Cardiogram, and deep muscle and tissue biopsies under local anesthesia which took an hour and that I'm still sore from 11 days out. A new doctor entered the picture during this named Dr. Khayat who is an Internal Medicine Specialist who would manage my medication treatment and also Dr. Usdin who's a Cardiologist I'd seen previous to my oral surgery.

Of course my diet changed to a low or no salt diet as well as restricted sugar and fat intake and my inpatient saga began. To tell the truth, I'm loath to go into too much detail here so I'll try to condense the schedule of tests and information that kept coming at me while I was there.

While in the hospital over an 8 day period I had:

3 different CT Scans all that included either radioactive injections or injections of something they called "contrast" as well as some kind of oral vaso dilator that would enlarge my aorta during the last CT Scan when they looked at my arterial spaces (which were fine thank you very much....)

1 PET Scan which was a full body scan with more radioactive stuff injected into me which was essentially looking for any kind of obvious Cancer (negative)

2 different radiological scans the title of which I'm still uncertain of that took more pictures of my heart which also included radioactive injection both of which involved me having to lay on my stomach for 25 minutes at a time with my arms over my head. This was one in the morning and another later in the afternoon......

1 MRI which was also a heart exploration with "contrast" injected which was also not fun but at least I got to wear headphones. This one is where the French Radiologist came to me while I was still on the table who told me that they saw something "not so good" on my heart which also freaked me out........

I spent a 24 hour period wearing a small telemetry device that was really a continuous EKG looking for "crazy rhythms" in my heart.

All through this, I was getting to know my doctors which all being French are a whole different animal than Americans. In the US, there is a giant specter of litigation so all doctors and health care professionals are very forthcoming with information about just about everything. Here in Paris, docs order things and patients comply period and so there were surprises for me in the hospital every day to the point that one morning the transportation guy came for me before I even had my pants on and the nurse just shrugged and said you must go for this test.
I lost my temper that morning...............

Overall though through it all, my experience was a very good one and what differences there were had to do with culture more than bad things happening.

11 years ago I suffered some heart disease while we lived in Iowa that almost killed me but I recovered fully after a year. I have a suspicion that some of the findings on my heart here by my medical team are residual from that time period but of course none the new guys had ever looked before so there was some consternation and resultant more "explorations" because of that. I give my medical team an A+ for their continuing efforts on my behalf and I will do everything they tell me to do. I'm not sure if I'll ever beat this auto immune thing but I'll sure as shit deal with it. Count on it.

The last thing that I'll mention here was what I now refer to as the "twofer" which was a colonoscopy/endoscopy that was conducted by Dr. Louis Zylberberg's twin brother Herve' which was disconcerting a bit but that too ended up with a negative report. Go figure, I was treated by twins in the hospital here........*

Of course the American Hospital here is billing Blue Cross back in the states and we had to pay the Doctor's fees which although steep were nothing as high as would have had to pay in the US.

I'm still a bit whooped from all of this but have been out walking and am on a strict diet now which will result in me looking like a Frenchman before years end. I will however NOT wear pointy toed shoes.........*

Through this all, I received numerous emails, phone calls, and visits from our friends here in Paris and my friends and family in the US. As I've told all of them and for you who might be reading this now, you all lifted me up in what was for all intensive purposes a very scary thing for me and my family. Cassie was magnificent as always as were Kian and Niall who ran the house without us pretty much for 8 days which included grocery shopping, going the library by themselves and basically holding the fort down while there was an upheaval happening. I'm so proud of them and so humbled again to be a part of such an amazing family without who I would most certainly be lost even on the best of days......... Even through all of this, I woke up under a rainbow every morning and continue to do so..........*

I promise to be more in this blog on an almost daily basis as I have a lot of writing to do the rest of this year.

Love to all everywhere..................

Bon journee!

Sid