Adam Hinz: The Blog
Playing with Ketchup
On 2006-01-25 at 1/25/2006 02:53:00 PM...
[music] The New Radicals - Someday We'll KnowSo I'm looking at my last post and realizing I haven't chronicled my adventure in this blog yet. So a copy from my livejournal again becomes necessary.
Originally posted December 28th
greetings from Paris...still
I'm sure most of you knew that I was spending my 3-week vacation on a tran-Europe site-seeing beer-drinking extravaganza, but I'm sure none of you know how my trip is going. So here is an update.
(brief)
You probably knew that the week before the trip I was feeling like a lot of crap. I had seriously bad abdominal pain and even more serious diarrhea (I always imagined a coal loader dumping coal onto a train, or the levee breaking in New Orleans). I struggled through my first final monday morning (only doing about 3/5 of it), but by Tuesday I felt better and took 2 more finals. By Tuesday night I was sick again and Wednesday was spent either in bed or on the toilet. Thursday morning I went to the IU med center, and they said it was most likely my appendix. I went to a surgeon who confirmed it (he was so sure, a CT scan wasn't even necessary). My appendix was taken out Thursday afternoon and I was home by Friday afternoon. I was feeling fine as my doctor had prescribed codine for the pain, and he said there was no need to cancel my trip. Great news! He also recommended the American Hospital in Paris if I had any problems. So I packed and left for Europe.
I won't go into all the details yet, because there are a lot, but I will give you the jist.
We got to London Sunday morning and found out my luggage was still in Chicago thanks to a strike from the United workers. We took the chunnel to Paris that day and checked into the hostel at about 9pm. We went out to find food, but I was not too hungry.
The next day we were all set to explore Paris. We went to the Louvre, which is very amazing and very very huge. After about an hour at the Louvre, I got the exact same symptoms I had before trip. I was more than a little concerned. I ended up going back to the hostel before everyone else and slept/pooped. At around 5am I went downstairs to buy some water (my diarrhea made me dehydrated to serious conditions). The guy downstairs said I should probably go the hospital, and I agreed.
So we took a taxi to the American Hospital, where they said I probably had a gastro infection. I would have to stay for at least a few days so they can pump antibiotics into me. They didn't know exactly what it was, so they give me a general gastro antibiotic. After 2 days there was little improvement. Two stool samples, a rectal exam (yes, a rectal exam, but it gets better), and a CT scan later and they tell me I may have Crohn's disease. At the time I didn't know what it was but, it is a very very serious disease. I would have probably had to change my diet for the rest of my life.
They were still not sure, but they decided the next course of action was a colonoscopy. For those of you back home who don't know what a colonoscopy is, it's when they stick a camera right up your ass and look inside you. My parents told me that back in the states they always give you a little anestesia so you don't have to deal so much with the pain of a metal rod up you butt. Apparantely in Paris they don't. Instead, they gave me a cube of sugar to bite on. That's right. A sugar cube. I bit the bullet, and it was sweet.
Aside from the constant excrutiating pain of the colonoscopy, it was still pretty cool watching the monitor. I seriously could see inside my bowel. I also saw them take a biopsy from inside me. Attached to the camera is a little claw, and you can see it shoot out and pinch off a little sample of tissue. And yes, it hurt.
The good news is that thanks to the colonoscopy, they made a great diagnosis. Clostridium Difficile, or C-Diff. Right after I type this out I will look it up on Wikipidea. I'm still not sure of the exact details, but I think clostridium is a bacteria in your bowels that helps digest food, and I either had too much or too little (probably too little). More research is still needed. The great news is that it is totally treatable. I took 4 Flaxyl antibiotics a day (plus 2 potassium tablets to make me more healthy), and a constant IV pumped the nutrients I wasn't getting, and within 3 or 4 days I was feeling fine.
I just got out of the hospital today. I stayed a total of 8 days there. My friends stayed an extra 1 or 2 days in Paris, then flew to Barcelona (I was not upset, I would have done the same. Also my the exact details of what happened on what day are a little hazy). Plus, on Christmas I got probably the best present I could have asked for (other than a fun eurotrip). My parents managed to fly here to Paris to help me out. I'm sure it is costing them a hell of a lot (not to mention the hospital bills, thank God our insurance covered most of it). Just knowing they were coming helped me eat at least 3 more bites of food (that was another symptom, no appetite. I probably had eated a total of 6 meals during finals weeks).
So my trip is a bit of a bust, but at least I am now healthy. I asked the doctor how serious it could have been if they did not catch it, and he said they would have to do surgery to cut away the linings of my bowels. They were very very thick.
I'm coming home early, but not without seeing a few more sites with my parents. I still hate travelling with my parents (my dad gets upset too easily, and they both like to shop), but I am extremely glad they are here. They rescheduled my flight back home, found me a flight to London, and just having them be here with me means more than I could every say.
And so, I hope all of you had a better Christmas than I had, and hopefully we can meet up before school starts again. I'm flying home the 30th, and I'll be back in Anderson the 31st.
So long! See you soon! Auvoir! and MERCI for reading
Adam