My wallet is going to divorce me, or kill me. :)

I've made 2 trips to an area Emergency Room since late last week. Last Thursday, I had chills, fever, nausea (no vomiting), moderate to severe abdominal pain, and diarrhea. I didn't know if it was the flu, food
poisoning, gastrointeritis, or appendicitis. I had taken Phenagren
(anti-nausea medicine), and was too groggy to drive, so I called the
ambulance. They did a CT scan and blood work, and determined that my appendix and blood count were OK, but I likely had caught the Nerovirus (a strain of viral gastrointeritis) that was going around.

Two nights later (Saturday), I started getting pain in the right testicle. It would start as a dull pain, then moderately ramp up to a point for a few seconds, then ebb back off. A minute or two later, it repeated itself. The
pain max was 4 Saturday night, but jumped to 7 by Sunday afternoon. I drove myself to the Emergency Room, having 3 attacks on the way, and no less than 6 attacks while I was there. Examination turned out to be a "classic case of epididymytis". That one, I have no clue how I got, as the last time I had sexual intercourse was the night my wife died. We were intimate at her
request, and she suffered a massive heart attack at 48 years of age (she had had a defective aortic heart valve all her life). The last words we said to each other were "I love you". I still get tears in my eyes to this day,
either typing or talking about it.

While I had been diagnosed with various forms of gastrointeritis several
times before, this was the first time I had been diagnosed with epididymytis. It is a tongue twister, and the nurse who checked me out, couldn't even pronounce it!! They gave me a shot of an antibiotic...it was supposed to be
in the left hip, but was in the left buttock instead. I think they had acid
in it, and a barbed wire needle, as it sure burned and stung when it went
in!! My buttock was sore for several hours afterwards.

They also gave me an anti-biotic (Doxycycline) that I have to take twice a
day for 30 days. But, another strange thing is that they noted "no sex for a month", but added that "sometimes masturbation can help with epididymytis". That seems like a conflict of interest to me!! As a side note, except for abstinence, masturbation, or knowing your partner is STD free, that's about
the only "safe sex" left. The first thing the ER doctor asked me was if I was having "unprotected sex". The arthritis is so bad in the arms and legs now, that I likely couldn't even engage in intercourse, for the arthritis pain.

At least I didn't have appendicitis, and didn't have to have surgery to repair testicular torsion. But, while this will help with my rent recertification in early 2014, it means I have to do without any extra expenses for awhile.

Daryl

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