I have viral meningitis...

Yes, and then thankfully divorced after 25 year of pure hell.

 

Oh.
Thats not how I imagined it.


:leaving:

 

Same here! Everyone's trying to get me to go to grad school for something (they all have a different idea), and I'm like, "ha! you gonna pay for it? oh I see... once I make myself into what you want me to be, I'll have to pay for it for the rest of my life..." No thank you.

Strangely enough, my mother and my father seem to be the only ones who are encouraging me to do what I want to. It's just teachers, friends and extended family who seem to think they have a better handle on what's good for me than my parents and I do...

Such a bitch being a bio major... so many possibilities that people can't wait to influence you... mold you into the next genius that they can take credit for... and no respect if you don't go all the way up to PhD... Fuck that, you can keep it.

 

Bio major ain't that bad... lots of stuff that you could do with that.

I'm an English major... imagine. At least I'm not a philosophy major, or something equally as useless.

 

Oh not bad in that sense, but bad because everyone has an idea of what you should do. It seems like if you go as far as getting a bachelor's degree it's just expected of you to go on and at least get a masters.
Well, I don't want one. I wanted to be a vet tech. I got a four year degree so that I would be able to change my mind should I choose to do so, rather than lock myself in to a two-year tech degree in one tiny little field. I'm going into my senior year, and my goals haven't changed much. If I go any further, I will be grossly overqualified to be a vet tech and no one will hire me, so it wouldn't make sense for what I want to do.
Trouble is, all these PhDs around me look down their noses at jobs that only require two-year degrees and almost seem offended that I'm wasting their time if all I'm going to do is some menial job like looking at cat turds under a microscope...

So yeah, bio's great once you have the degree and you're away from all the go-getters. Fortunately, I'll only have to deal with them for about another year...

 

Yeah, you really should follow your heart on that one. Be a vet tech.

You can always go back to school to get your masters... it's not going anywhere.

I plan to get my masters after I teach English internationally for a couple of years.

 

gasp! i think i need to go see a shrink.... for once, i actually agree with you BSR!!

the thing is, doctors are only human as well. i've worked in hospitals and health care facilities longer than i like to admit, and have gotten to know many doctors of varying specialties. they all have flaws. they all miss things from time to time. they all order extra tests you don't need so they can cover their ass if you decide to sue.

people who just blindly trust doctors, and never utilize the wealth of information they have on hand to help them make SMART decisions about their health are the idiots. yes, some people become hypochondriacs from reading all that medical information. but most people who read up on things and are well informed not only get better healthcare because their doctors know they need to stay on their toes cause you'll know if they're bullshitting you, but you can really participate in choice of ranges of treatments.

diagnosis, even after you have been to medical school and all of that other expensive shit that makes you the almighty doctor god, is still just theory. doctors go on the clues that your body gives them to try and make sense of what might be going on. guess what? sometimes the body doesn't give very good clues, or gives misleading clues. it's all just a guessing game, doctors have just gone to school for a very long time to make them better guessers.

quit putting doctors on pedestals... they aren't god, and they don't need reverence. nor are they the only people qualified to learn about the body and how it works.

ok, that's my rant.

firefly, i'm sorry you're sick, that really does suck. hopefully you're feeling better really soon! just make sure you drink enough fluids. that is one thing that does help with viral meningitis, as the fevers tend to burn up the liquids you have in your body. drink lots of water and fruit juice, and hopefully it will pass without you having to get the spinal tap!

 

Agree. They tend to have more insight into certain things, but not always...

I went into the office during my senior year complaining of persistent headaches and body aches. His answer was that I was depressed and should be medicated right away. He put me on Zoloft, which I responded to very well until he upped my dosage (not because of me- because it was "standard dose" even though I felt fine on the dose I was on).
I had a seizure a week later. Lovely. Now I can't drive for a year... at the time in my life when I am just starting to learn to drive. All of a sudden, everyone around me can get their license and a car and I can't even practice...
My doc, clinging to the theory that I may have had a heart arrhythmia (because it couldn't have been the medicine he prescribed that gave me a seizure, oh no), put me on heart meds that screwed me up so bad I couldn't get on a bike, sing, or do anything else physical without feeling like I was going to pass out and/or throw up. I threw them out after 2 months.
Meanwhile, the first EEG we got after the seizure appeared to indicate that I had epilepsy... from an outdated test machine, while I was still weaning off the drug, after I had been very sick the night before with a stomach bug, and after three of the electrodes that were supposed to be monitoring my brain waves popped off... But nooo, take these 3 pills a day with all of their side effects for the rest of your life... you're epileptic.
We ordered a new test a month later from the top neurological team in the state, with the most up-to-date equipment in existence. They cleared me of any brain abnormalities and sent me on my way.

It was quite a while before I was able to trust any doctors again (don't even get me started on the doctor in the emergency room that sent me into acute adrenal crisis after he prescribed me too short a corticosteroid regimen for posion ivy), but I've come to realize that they have their uses... I have learned that it's always good to have a second opinion, though.

Thanks.
I'm drinking like a fish... water, milk, soup, tea... and vitamins out the wazoo. Food is just starting to taste right again, so I take that as a good sign.

 

'Swhat my mama says and I think it's good advice.

 

WOW!! you've had (literally) a hell of a time, huh? sounds like you had a crackpot doc... it's HIGHLY uncommon for someone as old as you are to suddenly have an onset of actual epilepsy. there's usually something else causing the problem. like meds.

because of the things i saw and participated in as part of the medical system, i now have almost no faith in traditional western medicine. as far as stitching things up and helping acute injury, it's great. as far as illnesses go, i think it's all a bunch of shit. but that's just my take on it.

i refuse to go to the doctor for pretty much anything. if i had a bone sticking out of my leg maybe. but if i break a bone and it's not displaced i will splint it, and it will heal. if i cut myself, i will stitch it and it will heal. if i'm mangled and half burned to death... i don't really wanna live anyway, lol! maybe i just have a wierd perspective on things, but you really see some shit working in the ER, and it really changes your view on life, and the systems we set up to worship, such as medicine and doctors. we're all just human beings, no one is perfect. people expect science and medicine to magically fix things, but life is all so fluid. there is no perfect, easy, simple answer to anything. what're ya gonna do?

and good for you pushing the fluids! that's awesome. though milk probably isn't the best in feverish, sick conditions. but if you feel ok with it, go for it. above all, listen to your own body! it always knows what it needs and what is best for it!

 

Haha, he moved to Canada because he was asked to resign by the medical board... Too many complaints. Just the fact that someone like that got a license in the first place is a testament to how unstable this field can be, though.

Yeah, that's pretty much it for me. A really severe injury or a long-lasting chronic condition is about the only thing that gets me to the doc... Unless I wanna get out of a class... then I get a doc's note, haha.

I need me milk for me golden grahams.

 

Symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, neck stiffness, and delirium

Delirium is the giveaway


Hotwater

 

That was me last week... talking to myself and the cats were looking at me weird, lol. I've always been prone to delirium, though. Always talk to myself and have weird dreams and hallucinations when I have a fever. No biggie.

 

So obviously I didn't die. Chances are, it was meningitis. Just like I thought. I went to work too soon after I started feeling better and relapsed for a day, but got a good night's sleep and was fine after that. Just incase anyone thought I was dying of brain cancer.

 

Well thats good

 

it'd be really cool if you did and were posting anyway...

 

I just don't know why people don't use all the resources that they have. I like to look things up on my own, go to natural healers and herbalists and go to doctors. You just can't trust any one source. Doctors as I have found out can be totally wrong!

Mom mom nearly died this summer because all the doctors were too stupid to diagnose her. She was sick and couldn't breathe and had no oxygen in her blood and the doctors just acted like she was hassling them for nothing and didn't do anything for her for days until she was almost dead.

Turns out she was having heart failure. Yeah, way to go doctors!

 

i don't totally trust doctors, either. i do have one i really like right now, and i had one years ago, family doctors. why did i like them? the LISTENED to me. i'm not a bonehead, after all. and while they can come up with some suitable counterarguments when you're probably wrong, coming up with something fairly common that they didnt' think of because they're hassled, harried and overworked is occaisionally helpful.