More fun at the ER...

Jeez louise, I haven't visited that place in a long time...now I remember why!  I just had a little run-of-the-mill garden hose diarrhea this past weekend, nothing too out of the ordinary.  But Sunday night I started feeling feverish and by Monday a.m. my temp reached 103.  Blech.  I called my PCP's office and the doctor told me to go to the ER because she thought it could be "thyroid storm" (i.e., thyroid crisis - a rare but serious complication of Graves disease that causes high fever and tachycardia and diarrhea, among other fun symptoms).  I was like, uh, lemme check with the endocrinologist here, don't want to jump the gun...but he also told me to go to the ER.  Oh, poop.

It was pretty easy getting in, though; they had me in a room within five minutes!  I had the EKG tech and vampire bats in there within another five.  The ER doc was this miserable man who mumbled incoherently and didn't seem to know his way out of a paper bag.  I proceeded to wait three hours while my thyroid levels were checked.  Good gracious.  I literally soaked that stupid little bed in my feverish stupor; no Tylenol, no fluids, nothin'.  The high point of my stay was overhearing a conversation several nurses were having across the hall about their 401K plans. 

My CBC results were out of range all over the place (a low white count, for one), but my thyroid levels were A-OK.  The doc didn't seem concerned and told me I "probably had a virus of some sort" and discharged me.  I proceeded to sweat the night away (freakin' nasty) and now the fever has disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. 

Just thought I'd share another fun ER story.  Crikey. 

Sounds like you still have something going on in there besides thyroid. I guess you're back to square one on the pooping problem and random fevers. You know my motto: nothing says you can only have one thing wrong with you at a time. But, you know, it looks like there ought to be an upper limit for you!

Thanks for the sympathies, everyone.  It actually wasn't so bad; I mean, after I read that article on the state of ERs (which I posted somewhere here), I really can't complain about waiting only ten minutes to be seen and only staying for 3 hours total!  I just wish I could tell if it was something serious versus something random and dumb that will go away on its own.  But when I get a 103-degree fever, I wonder...

Cathy, I've seen two ID docs actually, and they were both befuddled.  I did have a confirmed parasitic infection six years ago in Africa, but it evidently cleared up (or at least they've never been able to recover any parasites or ova from my stool samples).  With the thyroid thing, it just messes with my head even more. 

Well, I'm not too worried about it because pretty soon I'm going to be a doc and will be able to figure it all out myself!  LOL

Lil,

I'm in a god-awful five-hour long meeting (on a 10-minute break now).  How come I couldn't have had the (@#*&$ fever today instead of Monday?  OH THE AGONY.  I will call you back afterwards!

Wow, your ER sounds like a walk in the park compared to ours, however I will say if you have a high heart rate they do get you in fast or chest pain but other than that the wait for something in my eye was 4 hours to be seen. On other ER visits I have never been there less than 6 hours even when they take me in at once. I hate the ER but sometimes you just got to go. If only people didn't use it for colds, flu,etc. We have 2 urgent care facilities in town, one connected to the hospital and that is where most the people should go. I knew they could not do the eye thing there so had no choice. Glad everything is back to normal. I was hopsitalized for 4 days with a fever that high, only slightly elevated white count so you were lucky to get out so fast. They had me packed in ice. No fun. Felt like a popsicle.