Medicine Man

As I've mentioned in my profile, my health is a disaster.  Up to the age of forty, I never had a regular GP, had only gone to see doctors when there was something fairly serious wrong, and this didn't happen very often at all.

For some reason, at forty, my best-before date obviously came up.  I developed glaucoma and psoriatic arthritis without the psoriasis.  A few years later I developed psoriasis itself, although only mildly.  I have high blood pressure, a bit of a gippy stomach and in 2008 I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Whilst undergoing radiation therapy for the latter, in February 2009, I felt REALLY crook.  I was putting it down to the radiation therapy, or a severe arthritic attack, and increased my dosages of prednisone and ibuprofen (prescribed for me, but purchaseable in half the strength at a supermarket).  On 6 February I came crashing to the deck and got Sharon to take me into Gosford Hospital Casualty.  Initially we thought it was the arthritis (which attacks a large number of my joints: toes, knees, ankles, elbows, shoulders, spine, sacro-iliac joints and my ribcage - the worst is the ribcage...).  After spending a few hours in Casualty dosed to the nines on morphine, and still in EXCRUCIATING pain, a doctor changed shifts and a new doctor came on.  He examined my CAT scan taken a few hours earlier and diagnosed a ruptured oesophagus.

This affliction is VERY hairy and scary.  Immediately he said, "We can't treat you here, we'll get you down to Royal North Shore via helicopter, to do that we need to completely sedate you, oh, and there's a twenty percent chance you won't survive this!"

For the next nine days I was in a medically induced coma, and I was in hospital for a total of 78 days all up.  Fortunately I did wake up.  And I know all about the medical system, which people frequently complain about.  Yes, things do go wrong, but hey, in the vast majority of cases you are in excellent hands and the technology available to fix you up is second to none.

I'll be blogging more about my experiences with the medical profession, as some of the events ARE very interesting.  I've seen a dermatologist and my ophthalmologist in the last two days, for instance.  Today I will need to see my GP, which makes a hat-trick I suppose.