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Returning to the community health clinic the following month, Betsey
asked me how I was doing. I told her that my intestinal issues were
far improved if not completely better, but that my headache still
persisted. My vitals showed that my body temperature was now normal.
She asked if I'd like to continue with the antibiotics and I readily
agreed though wondered if perhaps my headache, itself, might be
caused by something else. She noted that if it was, then we
wouldn't have a reason to continue the antibiotics. Message
received, I decided not to question it. The persistent headache
was vastly less painful than the three times a week bathroom bouts.
After eight months of being on the fat enzymes, I had just barely
gained over five pounds, leaving me just under thirty-five pounds
below my ideal weight, two and a half months on the antibiotics I had
gained another five pounds and felt ready to run a marathon. When I
returned to Betsey for my second follow up, given my progress we
decided to continue the antibiotics and schedule me with a
neurologist to look into my leg pain of the previous ten months. As
they didn't have a neurologist on staff, she found one newly in town
and made an appointment for me with her. While we were at it, I
noted that the fat enzyme prescription would run out soon and asked
for the refill script while I was there. As we weren't exactly
sure why I was gaining weight so rapidly, it made sense to continue
it for now.
Dr. 'Robins' was the neurologist I was sent to see and based on my
description of the leg pain she suspected it was a pinched nerve
after doing a wide range of physical mobility and reflex tests in her
office. She ordered an MRI and found I had a bulging spinal disc
that was pinching the nerves in my lower back. I was given a
prescription for ibuprofen and physical therapy plan at our
subsequent appointment. While I was there, and since the headache
still persisted, I asked her if perhaps that might also be caused by
a pinched nerve? I was soon scheduled for an MRI of the neck.
The ibuprofen was a huge improvement to the over the counter pain
pills I'd been taking and I was feeling even better by the time I was
to take my next two-day trip to Denver to get my next three months of
fat enzymes. When the Premier Medical Center doctor saw me to renew
the script, he was surprised by how great I looked. I was thrilled
to tell him how much better I'd been in the past two months since I'd
been put on antibiotics and they'd even found the long term leg pain
I'd had during the past year was from a bulging spinal disc. Two
months of antibiotics? He asked. Yep, I replied, and I
was just starting my third month.
When I next saw Betsey, she was a bit sullen and felt we should
either stop the antibiotics, or at least change me to a different
kind. I was fearful of stopping them completely given how much I'd
gained in the previous three months, I didn't want to return to how I
had been. We agreed on a month of a different antibiotic while she
also made an appointment for me with an off site gastroenterologist
to look into why the antibiotics had made me so much better and find
a diagnosis to support my continued treatment.
The MRI of the neck showed another bulging disc and so when I started
physical therapy for my back, we also addressed my neck as well. The
physical therapist played with the motion of my neck and also
concluded I had a vertebrae out of place and wanted to 'adjust it'.
I agreed and she asked me to loosen my head and let it flop in her
hands as she wriggled it back and forth and then – snap! --
the headache on the side of my head for the previous three months was
suddenly gone. She scheduled me for three months of return visits to
perform physical exercises using their equipment. Suddenly headache
free, I was more than happy to come back!
The gastroenterologist, after hearing my story of years of weight
loss and emaciation, followed by the sudden improvement since being
on antibiotics, scheduled me for an endoscopy to take a camera into
my stomach and upper intestine for a look. As part of it, he took a
small sample of my intestine for examination as well. All looked
good and showed no signs of any problem. The question though: Was
that because there wasn't any original problem to find or had the
antibiotics addressed the problem that had been there but overlooked
for all these years? There was no way of telling
now.
When I returned to Betsey for my third follow-up since starting the
antibiotics, I reported to her that the alternative antibiotics
hadn't been as effective and asked to go back to the original kind.
She agreed, though at a reduced dosage of three five hundred milligrams
of Cephalexin each day.
With all of my health issues addressed and much improved with this
whirlwind of treatment after so many years of being ignored, I was
ready to get back into the work force and concluded it would be best
to do so through the state's Vocational Rehabilitation office, if
possible. I made an appointment with them.
In the meantime, Betsey decided I should be evaluated by a
neuro-psychologist. Seeing Dr. 'Maverick' we in part discussed the
time I woke up with the terrible pain in the side of my head two
years prior and my subsequent problems typing the wrong words. It
was at that time she concluded it had been a stroke and was shocked
by the way the emergency room had 'streeted' me without a significant
workup at that time. As she checked me for everything else in her
field, she concluded that the stroke was the only thing of note along
with the significantly improved I.Q. score versus the Vocational
Rehabilitation score I had received three years earlier. That result
again indicated that I had been suffering from a cognitive impairment
due to my health issues at the time.
After all this work on my condition, it was once again time to renew
my fat enzyme prescription and make my quarterly two day trip to
Denver to pick it up. When seeing the Premier Medical Center's
resident doctor for my fourth time ever, he had this sheepish smile
on his face as he came in and told me how his attending doctor had
reacted when he told him the news of my dramatic improvement after my
last visit. The attending doctor was outraged that the community
health clinic had been treating me, he called up Betsey and screamed
at her about it on the phone and threatened to have her medical
license pulled, so I was told. The attending doctor had
further informed her that if she continued treating me he would make
sure she would never be able to practice medicine in the state of
Colorado ever again! At the time he told me this story, it had
already been over two months since that call to Betsey had taken
place...
''So, is
she still treating you?''
He asked me.
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