maryandred.com

I am sure many of you have heard by now, but yes, it is true; I spent last week in the hospital trying to recover from Typhoid fever. And yes, that is THE Typhoid fever from the Oregon Trail/Middle Ages. Ah the glories of visiting third world countries. Mind you, Red and I both took the Typhoid fever vaccine, but it is only a certain percentage effective, which means I lost that gamble. I was also on Cipro when I got home, which is supposed to kill Typhoid fever, but apparently I got a strand of Typhoid that is resistant to the usual antibiotics. Another point for Mary.

I had a fever of over 102+ for 13 days straight and I spent 5 nights and 7 days in the hospital.

Here I am in the hospital with a refrigerator blanket set to 57 degrees, trying to cool me down from my 104.6 degree fever.

This is a particularly painful shot. My IV’s had busted in both arms so they had to use the last vein left, which was in my wrist. They put on a splint so I wouldn’t move my veins and here she is checking my blood pressure, despite the busted arms (I still have massive bruises up and down my wrists.)

Here is the staring contest that I had with Wonder Woman. Sharon got me this piggy bank so Wonder Woman could stare down my Typhoid fever. Still waiting to hear if it is in fact, gone, but Wonder Woman clearly ended the fever part of Typhoid fever.

That being said, I still say it was worth it to go to India. I plan to go there many more times in my life and in fact, my first non-hospital meal was, of course, Indian food.

The culprit was either paani poori (left) or either item in my hand in the top right photo, all of which, I have now discovered, are easily available for purchase in Hoboken, NJ (bottom).

Thankfully, I am home now and feeling a lot better and my doc said it would be okay to (finally) start my summer job this Monday. I do have a PICC line (pronounced “pick” line) which is a tube that goes from my arm to my heart so I can do my own IV injections after work. Don’t worry; it is not as bad as it sounds.

Here I am. I took this maybe 10 minutes ago. I am giving myself the injections as I type!

In fact, the worst part of the whole ordeal was the fact that I had to miss out on Scott and Elizabeth’s wedding. I forced Red to leave me in the hospital and go to Seattle so he could represent Team Kopczynski and take pictures and video for me.

Congratulations Scott and Elizabeth! They are honeymooning in Costa Rica as I write.

The other bummer was that my sister weekend was slightly botched by the excessive fevers. However, in retrospect, if I had found out I had Typhoid fever earlier, I would have called Sharon to fly in anyway to help take care of me, which she did, a LOT. Here are the photos with captions from our awesome week together (including some great fever shots, since I pretty much had a fever the entire time she was visiting).

We had a lot of fun laughing all weekend.

Finally, for those of you who are worried about Red and his bar studying, you should be. The poor guy took care of me 24/7 and missed five days of bar classes. Of course, we know he is brilliant and will pass with flying colors; however as a practical matter, this means that no one will see or hear from him between now and July 26th. Please don’t take it personally.

The hospital is not the most conducive environment for studying.

And it just wouldn’t be a website update if I didn’t include birthdays and announcements:

Congratulations to Scott for graduating from high school!

Happy Birthday Nancy!

 

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday Grassesschi & Co.!

In the end, I am mostly feeling proud that I contracted something as rare as Typhoid fever and lived to tell about it. I am inspired to donate more to eradicate third world illnesses because I would have died if I had contracted this as a poor person in a developing country. So there.

I hope all of you are doing very well and that your health is PERFECT.

Love,
Typhoid Mary