archenemy blog

Well, the odds finally caught up with me. My run at ignoring physical pain that would send a normal person running to the doctor and walk away with no serious repercussions has finally ended.

Some simple signs not to ignore:

• when your eyes are the color of egg yolks instead of egg whites, you’re in trouble.
• when you stomach feels like an alien is one second from bursting out and scuttling off into a heating duct, you’re in trouble. Believe me, its not gas.
• when you climb into bed at night and you have the chills so bad you look like a bee doing the “this is where the honey is” dance, yet you do not have a fever, you’re in trouble.
• when you walk into work and you colleagues say “Wow, did to jog here from the hotel?”. You then look into the mirror to find sweat has soaked through your t-shirt, dress shirt and wool suit, and it won’t stop. And you took a cab. And you took the elevator up. Man are you in trouble.

So bottom line, I apparently released some gallstones after they had blocked the gall and pancreas for some significant time, resulting in a significant infection of the gallbladder, liver and pancreas. I spent Thur - Sat of last week in the hospital eating through an IV while they dumped antibiotics into my system. Today I feel fine, but tomorrow will have an ERCP performed. Oh - and if you haven’t figured it out from the headline, I’m 3,600 miles from home in Germany. I would be able to write insightful commentary about the state of socialized medicine, but I am happily settled into a nice PRIVATE clinic in Munich. Excuse me, Bettina is here for my massage. ;-)