Weird Coincidences

A new vent opened on the Big Island in March spewing more shit in the air. Funny. That was around the same time my weird series of illnesses hit...

Kilauea's New Vent

I'll stick to Home Remedies

So it appears two things are affecting my health. My medications for other ailments. And the island itself. And of course everything is related to one thing or another. Sulfates...

Most recently...the joint pains and bruises turned out to be erythema nodosum

Being a fair skinned blue eyed female I tend to be a hypersensitive to a lot...prone to sunburn, acne, bruises, and apparently a slew of infections and rashes as well. Erythema Nodosum is essentially a rash that appears as a bunch of red, bruised bumps. Funny thing is, it doesn't really have a hard and fast cause. My doctor suspected it was the antibiotics. Both the Cephalexin and the drops. The stuff I was taking to rid myself of that recurrent eye lid infection. Wouldn't you know...after a closer look at the prescription...sulfates...

The first optometrist had been shocked to see how much my eye had swelled after my initial visit to urgent care. He had suspected an allergic reaction to the sulfates in the eye drops urgent care had prescribed me. While he did prescribe cephalexin, the eye drops were free of the pesky little chemical compound. Unfortunately the eye relapsed, and Dr. Ling was unavailable before I flew out to Florida. I was given a new doc who prescribed a longer course of cephalexin, but a different eye drop. Even after the eye lid itself cleared up, I was waking up with discharge...you know...those lovely eye boogers most of us are used to cleaning out of the corners of our dog's eyes. Yeah. Gross I know. And would you know, sulfates in the eye drops. I stopped taking the drops, planned on finishing the pills. No more discharge after missing two drops. Funny how that stuff seems to work.

But that's about when the bumps and aches started showing up. So to a doctor of internal medicine. Not suspecting the two conditions were closely related (though I had my speculations seeing as one thing seems to be following so closely on the tail of another). After suspecting the meds (and telling me to stop ASAP...with only a day's worth left he felt pretty confident the eye bug had been killed) he sent me down to radiology and the lab to have my chest x-rayed and blood drawn. To rule out those pesky things like tuberculous, liver diseases, diabetes and an assortment of other diseases vaguely assorted with the bruises and bumps that have a tendency to start making an appearance at about this age.

My blood work came back clear this morning. My joints were more mobile though still sore after stopping the antibiotic. My eye seems to be just fine for the moment. Okay...so I've got to be wary about taking antibiotics...particularly those of the sulfur containing variety.

But wait! I'm on a volcanic island. Aren't the trade winds constantly bringing in the sulfurous clouds from the active volcano on the Big Island? Hmmm...vog....

Does this mean the island is indeed out to get me? Possibly. That could explain the extended bout of bronchitis I had this fall too.

No tropical paradise for me then. Darn. Maybe I will have to move to gloomy old Seattle or Chicago afterall...

Illness Abounds

Hawaii must be out to get me. I may be back to the doctor's on Monday due to debilitating stiffness and aches of the knee and hip. Compounded with several (20 at last count) large, swollen, hard, red, goose-egg like bumps covering my shins and calves. Bumps that feel like massive bruises. I suspect spider bites. But that many seems a bit excessive. Though it's possible that I may have stirred something up considering how much we rearranged in the shop this week.

In the last few days, the swelling has receded substantially. My joints ache much less as I move about and pop the occasional ibuprofen. Even with health insurance and the federal stimulus rebate check...I really can't afford to get sick.

Still it seems ridiculous that I've had such a string of bad health since moving out here. Maybe the stress of grad school did actually create a buffer. Bizarre

Are you serious?

This is getting ridiculous. Tomorrow I'm back at the eye doctor's because the redness and sweeling is creeping back in. Almost a month later.

Don't they usually send people away to tropical climates to better their health? I've never been more sick in the my life as I have in the last 8 months. From a nasty cold in October that included a month of bronchitis and painful coughing that lingered a month longer...sore thought in January...my eye and the biopsy...my eye again...another cold...

Is an island really like a crowded room? No where for the germs to go so instead they fester? And no freezing climate to knock them out...instead the ideal warm and damp?

Grr...

Tired of being sick and cranky...

No News is Good News

So the lab results...seems I've got a few random abnormal cells. Not a growth, cyst, tumor or anything of that sort. Just a smattering of cells that didn't develop right due to a virus. And my body should kick it on it's own. In the meantime...I have follow up appointments every three months to make sure my body does just that and it doesn't develop into anything more serious. Like cancer. Which kinda freaks me out a little.