Life With Boys

I’m sitting here eating what must be my 30th bowl of oatmeal and figured I’d take a few minutes to fill everyone in on what has been such an exciting week.

Matt has upgraded my condition from “Freak Show” to simply “nasty.”

Here’s the story:

I’d been on Lamictal for 22 days. I missed my dose on Wednesday and took my regular dose at the airport on Thursday. By mid-flight I was starting to itch. By the time we landed I made Matt buy me benadryl at the airport. I made it itchingly through the day. At that point I had remembered that I had been told a rash was a possible side-effect to watch for when taking Lamictal.

By about midnight I made Matt take me in as my tongue was swelling. Of course the first urgent care we went to didn’t take my insurance. They checked me out, decided since I could still breathe that I would be OK to go back to the hotel and take two benadryl. I asked for another opinion.

We went to the Dessert Springs Medical Center where they gave me an “epi” shot and started me on prednisone (a steroid) and sent me back to the hotel. So now it’s Friday, I just keep going along. We saw Ka at the MGM and I knew I just kept itching more and more.

I made it to Saturday morning. At which point Matt called one of his friends who we were visiting with (who happens to be an ER doc) and he indicated I needed to get myself back to the hospital. He was worried that the rash had spread to the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet (there isn’t one part of me not covered in spots.) This time we went to the University Medical Center as it is known for having good doctors.

I went to the ER at 9:45 a.m. and was finally seen at about 2:45 p.m. They moved me into an ER room for a while and then, deciding that I wasn’t going to infect everyone, moved me into the hallway (with an awesome view of the ambulance bay) until 1 a.m.

I was finally moved upstairs to a shared room.

I was so frustrated that the docs would not believe me that I was nearly 100% positive that the reaction was to the drug. Instead I was tested for everything from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, to rubella, to god only knows what — they just kept taking blood. And I wasn’t getting better.

At this point my entire mouth (including lips) had turned into a giant canker sore. I was starving and couldn’t eat. Finally got them to give me oatmeal which I could get down with the help of “magic mouthwash” (Maalox and numbing liquid, yum).

Dad and Minz flew down and spent Monday with us at the hospital. I knew how hard it was for them to come and I can’t begin to express how happy I was to see them.

I finally convinced the docs that I was going to keep breathing and to let me come home on Tuesday. The only glitch – we took a charter down to Vegas and didn’t purchase travel insurance (will we ever learn?). So, we didn’t have a way home at less than $600 each. At this point someone was finally looking out for us and my roommate’s husband gave us his frequent flier miles so we could get home. I can’t thank them enough.

After we got home (1 a.m.) we headed into the Dermatologist in the morning. He knew what he was looking at right away and immediately changed the drug regimen to ensure I would be able to overcome this.

So here it is Friday, I’m healing which is weird to say, because healing looks gross too. The sores are forming blisters and popping. I head into my general practitioner this morning to have things checked out. I continue on my strong doses of steroids and the super Benadryl which knocks me out. Speaking of which — it’s kicking in and I’m going to crash for a bit before I have to make my appearance for Dr. Patton.

I’ll keep you posted. Hope to be back to normalish on Monday. We’ll see.