Unplanned Journey

Please remember San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma in your thoughts & prayers.

Both Aung San Suu Ky and I have had recent, unplanned journeys. She has gone from her home incarceration to Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison; I have gone from my home to the VA Hospital. As of today, I am out; Aung San Suu Ky is not.

After losing my ability to taste last weekend and developing an increasingly painful and swollen throat Tuesday evening, by Wednesday morning I was in dire need of relief. I telephoned MD2U even before they opened Wednesday and continued telephoning until I spoke to the scheduler and told my throbbing story.

Unfortunately, no physician was available to come to see me until Friday morning. “OK,” I said to the scheduler, “I can probably deal with this with Chloraseptic and ibuprofen until then.”

Wrong! By Wednesday evening all swallowing was painful and I was unable to eat. Even drinking water produced an #10 agony on a 1 to 10 scale. When Friday arrived, I was almost perched on the table in front of the front window where Alex sits to watch the people and their pets stroll by.

Jason, the nurse practitioner, arrived on schedule, examined my throat, and telephoned the pharmacy with four prescriptions. Then he told me that I was more ill than any other person he had treated since beginning work for MD2U. He said that my condition was “life threatening” because the swelling of my throat was so severe that it was cutting on air to my lungs. He said I must begin the meds he’d just prescribed immediately and, if I noticed my breathing getting worse or my body temperature increasing I should telephone 911.

Tasha arrived just a Jason was leaving. I gave her my credit card and she went to the pharmacy for the meds. These meds including a pill foir Type 2 Diabetes which Jason said the tests had confirmed that I have.

Shortly after Tasha left work and I had taken my first round of meds, I experience severe difficulty “swallowing air.” I also noticed that I was sweating and my skin was clammy. My thermometer said that in last hour my temperature had jumped from 99.4 to 101.6 degrees F. I telephoned 911 and within the hour I was in the emergency room of Veterans’ Hospital.

I remained in the hospital until Saturday afternoon. Now discharged and at home, I still have a sore throat and difficulty swallowing; however, the condition is no longer life threatening. I hope.

I returned from the hospital with more meds to to add to the box of meds that I already take each day. See:


I’ll not go into the details of my stay in the hospital, which was rather similar to the military hospital experiences that I chronicled in the posts The Rogue’s Tale regarding my leg injury when I was an armor officer stationed in Germany. (I’ll tell you about the hours in the hospital next week.)

Now, I shall end this post by sharing a few KATZ because I can do that just using my mouse and Alex I presently curled in a next made with my left arm.