Now engineer De Waal has fully recovered it’s engineer Jansen’s turn for the medical mill. Eye trouble. Left eye has a sudden darker area in the left corner, and weird light sensitivity in strong light, like the sky. As if you have looked into the sun, or a strong lamp. The engineer normally avoids such behaviors, so this is strange.
After a few days: lets go to Urgencias at the hospital. Passed on to Oftalmologia after an hour and a half. An hour later first consult, eye drops and eye sharpness machine. An hour after that consult: sent off to the lab for an eye scan. Ah, your optic disc is swollen, can be your optical nerve is inflamed. Off to the waiting room downstairs, for a CT scan of the skull, to make sure there is no tumor in your brain causing this. Not a settling message. New appointment armband.
The scan turned out fine.
Anyway, the ophthalmologist called for the treatment for acute neuritis optica: 3 days intravenous: 1 gram prednisolone.
That is a very heavy treatment that they are not used to. After the scan result they sent me back for a new appointment to oftalmologia.
Wait, the prednisolone. Oh yes. We’ll get you a pincha (injection). Not via intravenosa? Nono, pincha. Mas facil. Pants down, injection in the bum, off to home. 17:00, been here since 09:00. Hambre! (Hungry)
Next day
Next day, Friday 15 August. Oftalmologia. Closed, as it’s a holiday. (Maria Ascencion). Hm. Ok, then Urgencias.
“I need a pincha prednisolone”
“No, 1 gram prednisolone is not possible in a pincha”
“What did they give me yesterday, then”
“We’ll find out”
Sala de Sillones, day 1
Off to the “sala de sillones”. A room with 10 sort of comfy chairs where they administer intravenous drips. Enigneer de Waal was here too, 2 months ago, before they sent him upstairs in his negligé for his gallbladder operation.
Needle inserted in hand, nice. A big injection arrived. Whats that? Urbason. Is prednisolone. Ok. Odd, that’s not an IV drip.
"Ok, all done, you can go home."
"Ehm, but the IV drip?"
"Nono, that was it."
"Eh, was that 1 gram?"
"Ehhhh.. no, 100 mg."
"Nonono!"
A proper dose arrived, 900 mg was taken from an ampoule, injected in 500 ml salty water, and connected to the engineer, using a pump to spread the time to two hours.
"Two hours?"
"Yes, to make you not die of shock"
"ok"
Engineer De Waal went home to feed the dogs. Whatsapp is nice to maintain contact on progress etc, unless your 2 years ago Apple replaced iPhone SE battery is bad again, and dies on you while there. 80% to 13% to 1% to …. blast!
Anyway, 500 grams more heavy the engineer was discharged, with a paper properly describing the next two days’ appointments.
The engineer researches optical nerve inflammation and optical discs, and finds Lyme
Back home, reading up on optical nerve inflammation and optical discs.
- With an inflamed optical nerve you usually have a headache, I did not.
- Inflamed optical disc: “unilateral presentation is extremely rare”, but I have that.
- Inflamed optical nerves are often caused by things like MS. That is: people with MS often have an inflamed optical nerve.
- “Unilateral papilledema can suggest a disease in the eye itself”
One of the causes that caught the engineer’s good eye: Lyme Disease.
Curiously, May 13 the engineer had been mowing grass, and when changing clothes noticed two red rings that looked like a tick bite, close to eachother. Even took a photo.
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| Engineer Jansen's (impressive) hairy chest |
Lyme has a few stages.
Stage 1: Week 1: red rings that disappear within a week, and possibly a flu-like ilness, and or fever. (Not me)
Stage 2: Week 2-10: possible neurological problems, and eye tissue inflammation. Bingo! May 13 to now is 3 months, is 12 weeks.
Sala de Sillones, day 2
After take-in we were sent to the waiting room, and nothing happened for an hour.
“Have you forgotten me?”
“ah, there he is”
“Is there a consult with a doctor prior to the drip?”
“I’m the doctor”
“Oh, good!“
“I may have Lyme disease”
Showed picture of the rings.
“Did you have a fever?”.
“No, but that does not always happen!"
"Could we do a blood test maybe?”
He was off to discuss.
“yes”
Needle inserted, elbow cavity this time, the hand yesterday has a nice blue bruise.
Commotion again about the 1 gram prednisolone. Do we have enough? Yes! No! Aaargh!
Pump and drip arrived, 3 hours.
The IV connection has a 3-way valve. Very handy, they can turn it so they can extract blood. 3 vials. For the lab tests.
Lyme test takes 7 days.
Doctor engineer Jansen
“Hmm. Maybe, as a precaution, give me antibiotics?”
He was off to discuss.
Came back with a 10 day course of Cefuroxime, 2 x 500 mg per day. As dr. Wiki orders for early detected lyme. Late detected lyme requires 14-28 days, but that can always be done when the test results arrive, hopefully in 7 days.
2 hours later, iPhone battery died, but not before the chauffeur was informed of the end time of the treatment.
Off to the famacia for the pills, €1,90 please. Apparently you pay 10% of the actual price. Good!
All info on prescriptions is in the Andalucia Salud plastic card. Well done.
That was a well spent day. If this antibiotics treatment indeed works the engineer will add the “doctor” title to his name, and apply for the Nobel Prize in Medical Engineering.
Sala de Silones, day 3
Oh, ordered an iFixit battery replacement kit. €40. Not spending €1000 on a new iPhone, so Tim Apple can shove more gold up the orange troll extortionist in chief.
