Bug #3

Whatever the bug, it hits me hard.

This is actually my third bug since the beginning of the year. I got one in New York City, one in London and another one in Pisa, I gather.

This one had given me headache, muscular pain, upset my stomach, diarrhea, cramps, sore throat. It must be an Adenovirus.

I'll go to my physician to see if I can get some IV. I still can't eat (in 24 hours I had 6 spoons of steamed rice, 2 3oz can of applesauce, 1 small leaf of carasau bread) but I did start drinking, thank God, because I was afraid to have kidney stones again, given the dehydratation.

I'm in pain, can't eat, and I see no quick solution.

Snapshots of My Story

This is a long story. I have no formal day to give you as a starting point, so I'll set an arbitrary one for the first day reality broke thru full force.

June 1st 2004:

Sitting in the bathroom, my head spins. The pain is so much I can't even see the tyles in front of me, just the cracks between them. "I need to pass the brush into them" I think "Ok, when the pain goes away". What a weird intestinal bug, so painful. Painful shivers radiate from my belly, up to my neck and face, down to my feet plants. Right after that, the shits.

July 22nd 2004:

This is my first day out of the house since when my 12-16 daily shits began. I can't believe I'm venturing out. "I can't miss her, I can't miss her" That's all I can think.

February, 4th 2005:

I thought I was past the shits, I have felt better since September. But here they are again. Maybe it will go away again. It must be my gastritis or something, hence the nausea.

April, 8th 2005:

Curled up in the couch, in a ball of pain, I'm watching the Pope's funeral. "What is the meaning of this pain, Lord? What do I have to learn from it?". I wanted to go to Rome, but am still shitting over 10 times a day. I'm, again, afraid of getting out.

May, 12th 2005:

I'm afraid of what I'm shitting. It doesn't look "regular" to me, all that yellow stuff... my God I'm getting rotten. I need to do something. I thought I was getting better because I would shit less, and yet, here I am with all that weird stuff. My God.

August, 14th 2005:

Now I'm really scared. The pain, again, that stuff again. I showed it to mom, who turned white and said: "You have to call your brother's specialist, and you have to do it now".

September, 28th 2005:

The darn thing has a name and the name is intestinal lymphangiectasia.