A holiday story
Three weeks in Queensland seemed like a sensible thing to do in the face of the last of Melbourne’s winter weather.
How it started …
The holiday started well, and included some very productive online work interactions and (I think) useful output for my projects. As well as some terrific sightseeing - snorkeling on the reef with turtles etc (Lady Musgrave Island); visiting some great local national parks.
Noosa
Town of 1770
Lady Musgrave Island
After that …
A general feeling of off-colour, headaches, then awful gastric symptoms led to an overnight visit, by ambulance from Agnes Water, to Bundaberg hospital.
After release the next day, we stayed in a nearby motel for a night in case of any recurrence, then the Queensland tour continued, to Sunshine Beach.
Recurrence of symptoms took me to ICU in Sunshine Coast University Hospital, one of Queensland’s excellent public hospitals. The most amazingly thorough and comprehensive care imaginable, over 4 days in ICU then another 4 in an acute medical ward, has led to the following interim conclusions:
Main diagnosis is FMD (fibromuscular dysplasia).
Rare condition that may underlie the observed symptoms, the most worrying of which is Aortic dissection. It appears I have a few of these. Basically at different parts of the aorta (the walls of which are multilayered) a tear (dissection) occurs creating a pathway for blood to go somewhere not wanted. So there’s a true lumen (the correct and main active blood pathway) and a false lumen (dead end pathway created as some blood forces its way through the split). As long as the true lumen continues to carry blood to where it needs to go, it’s treatable (or at least survivable). Keeping blood pressure and heart rate low will allow the false lumens to close up or at least to stabilise.
This would likely take weeks of low-activity recovery. It may take extended hospital care to ensure blood pressure stays low, though I should be able to manage this myself from home with the support of my regular doctors.
Further tests were undertaken to seek explanation of severe headaches, vomiting, etc. Meningitis was ruled out. Stroke was ruled out. Vasculitis was also ruled out. It seems likely that I also had a virus that caused those symptoms. A PET scan on Monday showed nothing to suggest any other problems, and tended to confirm the current hypotheses. Immunology was also under careful scrutiny, as another possible explanation of why this has all happened.
After 8 days I was discharged, with a whole heap of new or adjusted medications. We stayed nearby in Maroochydore for a couple of days to gather strength and to be close to care just in case, before flying home to Melbourne. Luckily there was a large TV screen on which I was able to see the Melbourne Demons fall short of bloody Collingwood’s winning score.
It remains to be seen how much work I will be able to do during convalescence. But it is nice to be home.