Tuberculosis strikes! We’ve been unable to update because the irritating disease hit me just as the new layout got done, and simultaneously, Zeng’s computer went kaput (but who cares about his crummy computer!).

The kind of TB I have is apparently not in my lungs, it’s in the lining between my lungs and my chest, or what is known as the pleural cavity. According to the doctor this means it’s not contagious. The TB had been sitting in my pleural cavity for a while, discharging fluid (or letting it build up, I’m not entirely clear about this point), and eventually enough formed in my pleural cavity that I got a stabbing pain whenever I did anything physical involving the chest (like, say, breathing). Yes, it was time to go see a doctor.

This may seem obvious, but it is crucial that you have a good, regular GP. The first GP I went to was a doddering fool who didn’t even bother to listen for diminished breathing sounds, forgot my answers to his questions and told me “Oh, sometimes when you cough you can pull a muscle in your chest”. The second GP bothered to listen, thought something was amiss and sent me up for a chest x-ray. The x-ray bugged the hell out of the radiologist:

And I was forced to go to A&E. So I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a good, decent, competent GP.

At this point nobody knew what was actually wrong. Worse, every test thrown at me by the hospital was negative. Blood test, blood cultures, all nothing. They poked into the fluid-filled area and drained some of the juice (it looked like thick urine, a very disturbing liquid to have drain out of your chest) and tried to grow the crap in it – nothing.

In the end, I had to go for surgery to do a biopsy of the infected tissue and clean and drain my right pleural cavity. Going under general anesthesia is an interesting experience – I fought it just long enough to inform the doctors how weird it felt (it most probably came out as an unintelligible mumble), and then my vision closed in on me and I knew no more. During the surgery they cut a bit of the infected tissue out, flash froze it, threw it under a microscope and peered at it, after which the pathologist declared it was most likely TB. Then they stuck a 20cm-long flexible tube inside my chest to make sure the area stayed drained for a bit, stitched me mostly back up and let me wake up.

That chest tube stayed connected to a gentle suction device for a couple days, and after I stopped leaking, all 20cm of that tube was pulled out of my chest. To help the doctor close the wound left behind the surgeon had left stitches ready to be tightened, drawstring-style, as soon as the tube was out. Both of these procedures were carried out while I looked on. It was not fun. To give you an idea how not fun it was, I asked the doctor if it would feel like when the nurse pulled the Foley catheter out of me (follow the link, don’t be lazy). His answer was a hesitant “Um, something like that”.

Yeah.

The TB diagnosis will not be confirmed for another 2 months – TB is a very slow growing bacteria. Meanwhile I am on TB medications, which currently consists of 8 pills and 2 capsules:

That’s one dose up there! Luckily it’s only once a day. Apparently the course lasts for 6 months, and gets reduced a bit of the way through – TB is a very hard to kill bacteria.

So hopefully crisis averted – Wikipedia says TB has a 2/3 mortality rate if untreated (I am really NEVER going to that useless GP again, ever). On the downside, I’m not allowed to have any alcohol for 6 months because the drugs are apparently so hard on the liver that straining it more might give me hepatitis.

Now I’m just recovering at home, and as soon as doing stuff doesn’t hurt anymore, we’ll try to get some content up.