Reasonable Health (part 3)

Friday was an interesting day.  I was on IV fluids, so my fever steadied a bit, but the doctors were still not sure what was going on.  I was still feeling a bit fragile from a solid week of high fever and the traumatic rigors I had experienced the night before.

In fairness to the wonderful doctors that treated me, I am going to label the doctors with letters so that they will remain anonymous.

I believe the first doctor I saw was a "hospitalist".  These doctors specialize in getting you the right doctors for your particular problems.  In addition Doc A was obviously very knowledgeable and quite upbeat; something desperately needed after a week of high fever.  Doc A told me that she would be sending an infectious disease specialist over to see me (Doc B).  Doc B stopped by later and was pretty clear that she did not believe I had a virus, but instead I must have some sort of biological infection like an abscess somewhere in my lung/abdomen area.  Doc B is a brilliant doctor who came across kind of aloof and disconnected.  I noticed that she did not look at me while she spoke to me but instead stood speaking past me, looking at the wall.  She mentioned that she would be taking me off ibuprofen to see how bad my illness would get.  I told her about the rigors I had experienced the night before and asked if she could do anything for that if it happened again.  She responded that she was not concerned with the rigors, and I responded that I was and was not comfortable with any place that would allow that to happen again.  Sara said, "we are not going anywhere." and with that Doc B walked out of the room.

A short while later, the nurse told me that Doc B ordered a CT scan (Cat Scan) to check out my abdomen and that I was not going to be allowed to eat anything.  A while later, the nurse came in with the first dose of the radioactive apple juice.  An hour later came the second dose and an hour after that I was taken down to get the CT scan.

About two hours after the CT scan, Doc A came to my door looking very happy.
She exclaimed, "We found the problem, you have a 6cm abscess in the center of your liver!".

Sara and I were a bit confused with her smile since it did not sound like great news to us.

I said, "What does that mean?".

Doc A responded, "We can drain the abscess and put you on antibiotics to shrink it."

My response was, "When do we 'drain' the abscess?"

The doctor stepped to the side of the doorway and I could see a gurney there with a nurse ready to take me to have the procedure done.

I said, "Do I have time to pee?"

Doc A said, "Sure"

So I did and then we were off to radiology to have the abscess drained while the doctors looked at my insides using the CT scan machine.