Back to square 1

I got the results from the latest biopsies. No abnormalities found, so clearly no cœliac disease, no indication of anything else either. The physician explained that most of the time Irritable Bowel Syndrome does not have any identifiable explanation, so there we are.

Drained and inspected

As mentioned earlier, I was due for a proper medical diagnosis of my suspected cœliac disease. To my confused delight, six weeks of eating gluten again had rather improved the state of my stomach. Now, being enteroscoped introduced some other restrictions: starting a week before the examination date I had to go on a low-fibre diet and fast completely the last day, combined with a “gut flushing” powder. Well, a lot of flushing was involved… I was also forbidden to even drink anything for several hours before the examination. The reason for this was made clear as I found myself desperately retching with a gastroscopy tube down my throat—there was nothing to throw up no matter how much my reflexes wanted to. Thankfully the gastro-enterologist was skilled and had his biopsy done in a few minutes. The coloscopy was a rather longer procedure but nowhere as painful. Nothing obvious was visible to the naked eye, but in another month we shall have the lab results back and consider where to go from here.

Enjoy it while you can

Today I had an appointment with a gastroenterologist, to see what modern medical science can do about my recurring tummy problems. As a starter I will get a full course of anal probing and biopsies (and we all, or at least I, remember my experiences with those) in about six weeks. BUT, until then, I am to eat gluten in order to provoke the suspected inflammation into clear showing. So, leaving the hospital I walked through a lightly snowy Stockholm, realising that what with living in two suburbs and working in a third, I don’t see much of the city proper these days. There was construction work going on, new shops had appeared and when I arrived at my target, Hötorgshallen, they were renovating (way overdue!), but still had their full complement of shops. I looked over the bakery desk for a long while and eventually decided on a rounded crisp Italian loaf. And then some Milanese salami to go with it.

Presumed healthy until further notice

I went to see the oral surgeon for my diagnosis. He was somewhat frustrated: in spite of me having visible lesions in the oral mucous membranes I felt no pain, was not even itching and to boot the biopsies showed nothing but normal tissue, so he grudgingly had to admit there was nothing he could do for (with?) me but ask my normal dentist to keep her eyes peeled for any changes and let me go.

OK, I guess?

Cut up

I was back again at the dental surgery after the recent debacle. This time I managed to stay conscious, even though the surgeon decided to make no less than two biopsies from different spots for a more definite diagnosis. So I am now in stitches though I do not feel like laughing much. Another side effect was that I passed the maximum limit for health care payment, so doctor’s visits are now free until October.

Analysis results will be in in a few weeks.

Out cold

My dentist was a bit concerned about the state of my gums and referred me to a specialist, so I turned up at Södersjukhuset expecting to be poked and peeked at a bit. And so I was. The specialist had a look and then explained to me in a comforting Southern Swedish accent:
This looks like typical lichen planus. Shouldn’t be any problem at all, usually disappears on its own, but just to make sure of the diagnosis I’d like to take a tissue sample. I’ll make an incision and stitch it up afterwards. Ah, this looks like a good spot. OK?
He procures a syringe with anæsthetic and proceeds to jab me inside the cheek with it. Ouch! Then he turns towards his compre re re Re Re Re su s s s s s s s s re RY RY RY RY RY. I can’t make sense of my senses, I struggle to think a coherent thought, any at all, while at the same time I somehow observe that I’m not able to. What is happening to me? Finally my mind coalesces.
Oh, hi there. You fainted there for a bit. No worries, happens quite often when you’re stressed, vasodilation causes low blood pressure and you go out. Just lean back and rest.
It takes a minute or two before I have regained enough control to be able to speak. What happened? I’ve never fainted before. Have I become sensitive to the anæsthetic, or was I more spooked at getting cut than I realised myself? After a while I can start moving my hands, but I’m weak and jittery all over. I run diagnostics, counting backwards from 100 by threes. Seems to work. Reading the labels on the bottle of antiseptic. Works, even identifying the languages. (A faint worry that my recollection of the true values might not be correct, but the results seem reasonable.) Still, I’m feeling nauseous and eventually ask for the head end to be raised a bit. The dentist continues calming me down and decides that we will not proceed with the procedure in my current state, but I’m welcome to have a lie-down on a bed. Eventually my legs feel like I can move under my own power and I am escorted to a hospital bed where I doze off for a while. About two hours after arriving I finally feel like all parts are in place again.

I get a time for a new appointment in a couple of weeks.

My knackered knee

Got the results back from my MRT pictures: a (collapsed) Baker cyst, nothing to do anything about, unless it begins to hurt worse.

Stoic

I went to the local care centre to have a minor ailment looked at. As I had to repeat my little story at each level of triage, this particular snippet was also repeated at each stage:
“So it started about five, six weeks ago…”
“A week ago?”
“Five, six weeks ago.”
[Weird look]

Is the concept of “Wait and see if it gets better” all dead? Or maybe just the practitioners of it.

Anyway, the physician suspected it was a benign condition, but referred me to an ultrasound to make sure, so further updates as and when I get probed.

When bygones are bygones

Friday evening was spent at the Usual Place in the company of friends. Just as we got up to leave, my mother called.
“Hi, when are you coming over tomorrow?”
“…… Oh! The cherries! Right, er, uh, I’ll get in as early as possible.”
And so I did.

Mother’s cherry tree had excelled this summer and was full of plump red cherries. In a few hours we had picked perhaps 15 litres of cherries, and there were still plenty left in high branches. Being a mother, Mom admonished me sternly when I stood swaying on top of the ladder and reached for cherries, yet had no qualms at all about standing on the selfsame ladder, taking the saw to branches she decided were better off gone.

All picking done, I took some bags of cherries to take home and then we took some bags to my aunt. Chatting over cherries, coffee, cake, and Coke.
Then I got home for an evening of nothing special.

In the morning Mom called:
“Auntie said there were worms in the cherries, you should throw yours away.”
“Moom, I ain’t afraid of no worm. Anyway, I’ve put the cherries in the freezer, so any worms will be dead now.”

Honeybuns and I prepared for a day outing to somewhere, but just as we were ready to leave Auntie called. She’d just been on the phone with Mom again and Mom had had no recollection of any cherries, any visit, or anything. This surely couldn’t be good?
Uh-oh! I immediately called Mom and indeed she denied having talked to Auntie recently, did not recall having spoken to me either and certainly I hadn’t been there yesterday. Oh, no! 112 connects me to a nurse who listens to my explanation and suggests that it probably isn’t anything dangerous, but to go and check on Mom and call again if anything further happens.

In the taxi out I review the options and decide to take Mom straight into hospital anyway. As I arrive Mom is very upset, since I’m so clearly agitated.
“What’s happened? What have I done?”
I try to explain that she may have had a stroke and that I want her to see a physician. Further conversation makes clear that she has no memory of the last day or so, but neither is she aware of having lost any memories. She is much confused by my insistence that there is a problem, since she feels perfectly OK. When we get to A&E we are within minutes received by a neurologist and further testing bears out that this is the case: Mom is in good shape (for her age), knows perfectly well where we are, what day it is, who I am, and it’s so nice to see Honeybuns again. So, everything OK, except that Mom does not remember the events of the last day.
The neurologist explains that this probably is a case of transient global amnesia—causes are unclear, but it should clear up by itself with no aftereffects. Nevertheless, they’re going to run some additional tests and keep her for observation over the night.
After a CT Mom gets rolled up to a Neuro ward. More tests. She passes them all with flying colours. Some bits of memory seem to be returning, but Auntie’s phone call is still completely gone.

My brother and his girlfriend arrive. Sis is away, but is informed of events.

A decision is made and Mom gets rolled into the monitoring room. Four beds, all monitored from a central desk. Mom gets hooked up to a machine that goes bing. I’ve always found medical machinery comforting. Nothing shows that you’re taken care of as well as a machine that goes bing. Or breeep, as the case may be.

More tests are done in the course of the evening. Mom is perfectly clear and lucid. Eventually visiting hours are over and I have to leave.

In the morning, all us siblings call the ward in turns and get updates. More tests and then Mom is discharged. Probably nothing to worry about, but keep an eye open and do follow-up tests in a couple of weeks. Mom is much pleased to come home, but is still wondering about Auntie’s phone call that she just can’t remember.

Presumably I did the right thing taking Mom to hospital, even though it worried her and us others—it could have been something much more serious. Still, if Auntie hadn’t felt like making an extra phone call, possibly neither Mom nor anyone else would ever have noticed that anything was amiss, just another day in the life blurring into all other days and might not merit any specific mention.

With determined steps towards the chasm

I have not been very productive at work lately. This is how it has gone:
It has been a fairly hot summer at times and the fans in my laptop got to sound squeakier and squeakier—worn out presumably. I got a repair ticket prepared at the company that does our hardware service and thought I'd drop off the laptop as I went on holidays. The last two weeks before this date the laptop in addition became very very slow, showing a beachball per keypress on average. Well, presumably this would be fixed during service.

So, I went on hols and dropped off the laptop at service. I also specifically requested they'd do a backup of the contents (separately priced option).

When I came back from holidays, the laptop had not been fixed. Call and remind them. A couple of days later I got a call that it was done. I went and picked it up. Yes, the fans were now smooth and silent. However, it was still very slow. Call service guys: “Thanks for the fans, but the laptop is running very slowly, didn't you notice that when you tested it?” “No, we just tested the fans.” “You could hardly have turned it on without noticing…” “You probably just need to reinstall the system.”

Hmm, that would be a major operation. Well, but why might it be running so slowly to begin with? Poke around console logs and error messages. Hmm, here's a weird message being emitted every ten seconds, but what does it mean? Google for relevant bits and find discussion on blogs: “The disk has been overheated, get a new one.” Oh, I can still read from the disk, but apparently it's going to get worse. OK, so I need a new disk. I'd better call the service guys again: “Hi, it seems I need to replace the hard disk, lucky that you have a fresh backup for me!” “Uhmm, eh, actually, no, we don't.” “What? But I asked for a backup and you said you keep them around for two to three weeks.” “Uh, eh, well, no, we wiped it, uh, yesterday. Probably we were running out of disk space.”

Effing brill! OK, now what? I'll have to do a backup of my own. Procure disk. Yeah, this has an earlier backup of mine on it, but I'll have to throw it away to fit in the new backup. (Simplification of the real reasons, but the result is the same.) Done. Now, to start the backup. *grind* *grind* *grind* Eventually it is clear that at this rate of performance it will take approximately two weeks to back up my hard disk, unless it breaks down finally first. Well, what to do? Grin and bear it. I wonder how the service guys managed to make a backup in less than a day. Yet another call gives only vague and clearly unworkable answers.

A consequence of the backup is that I can't lock up the laptop in the safe for the night, as the two-week estimate is based on uninterrupted transfer. Well, what to do? So this goes on for a week and a half, and then when I get in one morning I meet a grinning colleague: “Guess whose laptop got stolen in the burglary last night?” Of course… And while the burglars had been as cock-snookingly polite as to leave the external hard disk on the table, the interrupted backup had been corrupted and was unreadable.

*sigh* Now what? “Maybe you can take the little white one?” OK. Hmm, it seems hung somehow. “Yeah, it's a bit dodgy, you have to do a remote install on it to get it running.” Install. Install. Incompatibility. Re-install. When I finally am on the way to get things up and running, the dreaded lurgy strikes and I'm bedridden. Now I'm on my second week of coughing, missing deadlines left and right.

Life, don't talk to me about Life!