Medical Jeopardy

As some of you know, I was discharged from the hospital this afternoon after being admitted last Sunday for severe ankle and elbow pain. Random, I know, but I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t give the doctors something to puzzle over. Admitting me is like playing a round of Medical Jeopardy, with all the teams competing to see who can figure me out the fastest. This time the teams included oncology, stem cell, orthopedics, infectious diseases, and rheumatology, each of which visited me daily and asked me the same questions over and over. Their favorite question, which they asked repeatedly, was if I had experienced any trauma to the affected areas. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from responding, “Come to think of it, doctor, I did close the car door on my ankle earlier today; do you think that could be causing this pain?” After repeating once again that I had never injured either my elbow or my ankle, one doctor actually had the nerve to ask, “Never, ever?” Did she really think my answer was going to change because she added “ever” to the question? And shouldn’t that worry her if it did?

Fortunately, the doctors were eventually able to diagnose the cause of my pain and treat it, so I’m doing much better. The pain in my left elbow has been persistent but tolerable for the past several weeks but suddenly grew much worse on Sunday, and the pain and redness in my right ankle appeared randomly Saturday night and by Sunday evening was excruciating to the point that I couldn’t walk or move. The pain and redness in my ankle, which spread to various other areas of my body within a few hours of my being admitted, turned out to be a skin infection and got better almost immediately after I started IV antibiotics. The elbow pain is from AVN, or avascular necrosis, which is bone death caused by poor blood supply to the area and commonly occurs from long-term steroid use. Another reason we hate steroids :(. I’m still dealing with some unexplained itching, but I’m glad to be home and hopeful it will go away soon.