Back to the drawing board

It's sort of back to square one with all of the fun medical testing. I finally saw the esteemed Infectious Diseases expert today... The good news is he doesn't subscribe to our friend Ted's school of thought and is not considering quarantine as a necessary measure.

The latest is that the Epstein Barr numbers are apparently "meaningless" now that we know the malignancies associated with that virus have been ruled out.

The new plan is to test for many other varied and crazy illnesses, mainly because as the new doctor puts it, I'm "no help at all as a patient." Translation: I give them no symptoms other than fever to go on, so they have no idea where to start.

All of these doctors visits could go to my head and make me think I'm more popular than I am. Everywhere I go now, it seems a whole gaggle of people come in to check out the weird patient. The nurse that precedes a visit at any doctor visit always asks how long I've had a fever. When I reply "about three months" as I did today, the response is always the same. It's some variation of "holy cow" or "Oh my G-d." Since when did they start teaching that as a smart bedside manner in nursing school?

I am heading to Denver, then to Phoenix for meetings starting tomorrow, so I'll be camped out at LapCorp as if there were a new iPhone waiting behind the door for me. I only have about one hour before needing to be at the airport to get half of my blood sucked out. Seriously. I left the doctor today with THREE prescription slips filled with teeny tiny doctor's writing... All names of interesting things to check for. My personal favorite is cat scratch disease. Hmmm.. Wonder where I could have picked that up? Maybe there was an outbreak in some city that I didn't know about and I contracted it from a hotel shower curtain or something. The doctor's the expert. I trust him and will just stick out my arm and keep my mouth shut.

My favorite question of the visit was this: So, you travel out west for work? Were the Santa Anas blowing at any time while you were there?

Uh... Paging Dr. House??

All kidding aside, this doctor is clearly insanely smart and experienced. It was actually interesting to watch his mind work. He also has a great bedside manner. He made me feel like he's concerned and going to get to the bottom of this, but also that I don't need to panic about anything. Even knowing it will take two weeks to get results, I really don't mind waiting that long. Up until now, I've been itching to get results so I know what to worry or not worry about. I feel like I'm in good hands and will just be a patient patient for now!

I'll keep you posted. I'm amazed at how many people have been so gracious about telling me that they're concerned and praying. It really does make me feel better.

My friend Andy should probably take the job of prayer team captain after today. He emailed to check in and say he and Anne were still praying down in Georgia for me. I asked him to say a little prayer for George, too. He sent a reply saying that he would, and not 10 minutes later, I found out George was released to go home straight from the ICU. That's some quick service! The minister himself didn't seem to be able to work that kind of magic... I don't care how it happened. It was good to see George at home and looking good tonight. It puts so much in perspective to see someone you care about go through so much without warning.

It reminds me to do a better job of hugging my family and enjoying life. Worry doesn't make life any more certain... It's always good to be reminded of that.