Since I was fine enough to go to the wedding, I togged up Monday morning to go to work. It was a long marathon of a day. I had a lot to print out, and had to go back and forth to the printer several times, at 75 steps a trip. Normally this is no problem. Today it was a problem: the high sides of my Reeboks rubbed the swollen sides of my ankles and by the time the day ended it was quite painful. I'd typed over the weekend, but not as much as I needed to do at work. Soon my hands were sending out pain signals, and my wrists were hurting.

Less said about the one-hour commute home the better. There was no position in which my shoes didn't irritate my ankles and my hands were very sensitive gripping the steering wheel. I walked the dog and then lay down until James got home.

I could only get the advice nurse on Tuesday and she told me to put my feet up, take ibuprofin, and rest. I did. I had an appointment this morning with Dr. Nguyen, since my doctor had no openings.

Of course, since I hadn't seen him before, I had to tell him the entire saga again. He looked at my hands and my ankles, felt them, and frowned, and then went back and read the bloodwork readings and the note that accompanied it. Then he said "I don't believe you have Lyme disease at all."

What?

He said that according to CDC guidelines (CDC. You remember them.), one must have at least five of the dozen or so markers for Lyme disease show up positive for you to be diagnosed with Lyme. I only have two of the markers, and even if one of them is positive, the other often shows a false positive.

"But then what caused the rash?" He didn't know that, either, but he didn't believe it was Lyme. And then there was the swelling of the ankles, hands, and wrists, plus other joint soreness. Now, this was something that was also puzzling me. In none of my online searches on Lyme did it indicate any swelling as a symptom. Fever, joint pain, rash. Not swelling, not lumps under the skin. But what do I know?

(He also said I really should follow up on a case with the same doctor. Well, what am I supposed to do when he's on vacation? I had to see some other doctor since I was breaking out in a rash all over my body! And today my fingers are so swollen...)

Anyway, so he said not to take the doxycycline anymore, that he was sending me down to the lab for (guess what) another blood draw and also to pee-in-a-cup (he's checking my kidneys, for what I don't know, but that's upsetting), and he gave me a week's worth of steroid in the hopes the swelling in my hands will go down enough that I can get my wedding ring off without it having major surgery. And a referral to a rheumatologist.

So I went down to the lab, visited the vampires, and while I was waiting for my scrip, called the rheumatologist and got in tomorrow morning.

The blood tests came in later. Nothing seems to be flagged.

So...what's going on? Beats me.

Came home past the mall so I could finally pick up my shoe inserts. The place was like a zoo at noon on Wednesday! The inserts feel really nice; I put a set in my dog-walking shoes when I got home and I was able to walk Tucker. I'd stopped by Hibachi and got a teriyaki steak bowl for lunch; I ate all the steak and half the rice and still had a big bowl of rice left over! When dinnertime rolled around James served me a pork chop, but I wasn't hungry. He's minced it up with the rest of the rice, added mushrooms and onions, and we'll have it as a side dish.

We have been watching the old Thin Man series which is running on getTV. It's so-so, but it's Peter Lawford... 

Labels: sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:20:00 PM

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