04 January 2007

Part IV: Radioactive Eggs

After arriving back at school, it was decided by my friends that we would hold the Summer of George (reference Seinfeld) in order to recover my “deliciousness,” as it were. I have since posted pictures of this glorious day, which included wake boarding and other fine adventures, somewhere on my pictures link to the right. It was a fairly excellent day and evening and since we had all finished midterms (I had to retake the physiology midterm that I had missed, but survived unscathed) it was a nice day of relaxation as we prepared for the onslaught of the second half of the term.

Sadly, the recovery of my internal stability did not go as well as we had hoped. In fact, I continued to deteriorate. And so, it became increasingly clear that I needed to again head home and receive more medical attention. To ensure that I could not find what I needed in Grenada, I again headed to the clinic and was advised that there was nothing they could do except a blood test, that wouldn’t be drawn for another three days and then we would wait for the results. I politely declined.

My weight-loss notwithstanding (I had now dropped 30 pounds), the rest of my days were suffering from lack of food and drink and I was simply unable to function in a normal capacity. And so, the week before Thanksgiving, it was back to America to seek medical help for whatever was making my life miserable.

After the first round of blood tests came back negative, it was time for some more interesting methods. And so, I headed to the lovely St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee for some radiological studies. I had my first abdominal ultrasound followed by the most interesting test to date: a gastric emptying study.

I ate an egg that was scrambled with radioactive material and then placed in a machine that would measure the distance and speed with which the radioactive particles moved through my system. Finally, a test came back with some interesting results: my stomach empties at a rate which is 1/3 of the normal person’s.

The only problem with all this testing is that there is no definitive reason for why this should be happening. That is, now that we know the stomach empties at a slower rate, we still have to find out what is making it do that and how to make it go faster!

In the midst of all this testing, I was fortunate enough to be able to have Thanksgiving at home. I missed what purported to be the best Thanksgiving dinner ever cooked by my friends Jeff and Nick back in Grenada, but I think I got the better end of the deal. Rotisserie chicken with sweet potatoes, veggies and pumpkin pie for dessert and I was just about in heaven, even though I could only eat a child’s portion.

And so I began on a new round of drugs in the hopes that I would start feeling better. Finally, after two and a half weeks at home, lying on the couch and being force-fed by my entire family, I started feeling like I could eat more and was even hungry for food at some points.

With things starting to get better, it became clear that I needed to head back to school to try to recover and save what was still left of my second term of medical school. It seemed a daunting task. By the time I would return, I had missed a total of four weeks of lectures and was so far behind that I pretty much thought it would be an insurmountable amount of material to cover and recover in time to actually pass my classes.

As luck would have it, I found plane tickets for a Friday flight to Grenada. And, as my luck would also have it, there was a massive blizzard in Milwaukee and Chicago that night, grounding all flights from Chicago and pushing my flight plans back to Sunday. I was starting to cut it close as there were only seven days before exams began. Well, Sunday went well and I even met my roommate Jeff in San Juan as he was returning from his sister’s bat mitzvah.

We boarded our flight and made it back to Grenada without issue. After a week of painful studying and cramming, I managed to pass my classes and officially finished my first full year of medical school. I’m thousands of dollars in debt (made more clear by my woefully inadequate insurance plan), but I’m feeling better, eating more and starting to live my life again. I can only offer many thanks to my friends and family who helped my recover and are still supporting me now.

To recap my recent adventures:

- 1 complete abdominal CT with contrast.
- 1 series of chest x-rays.
- 1 upper-endoscopy.
- 1 colonoscopy.
- 2 IVs.
- 1 abdominal ultrasound.
- 47 separate blood tests.
- 1 urinalysis with culture.
- 3 stool samples for parasites, ova, cysts and cultures.
- 1 gastric emptying study.
- 11 separate plane flights.
- 6 separate doctors.
- 7 total prescriptions (including my now daily fiber dose - yes, I'm an old man now).
- 0 final diagnoses.

I know these last few entries may have been on the more boring side, but they were an important part of my life over these last four months and I believe this entire experience will only make my future career more empathetic and rewarding for both myself and my patients. I can also guarantee that the semi-annual “Bob Marley State Top Ten” and the story of our last night of exams will be more than enough to keep you reading into the new year.

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