On the one hand, it's a diverse flotilla of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa:
-a drug-resistant virus in the leg
-giardia at the forefront of the intestinal distress
-something else to account for the bleeding
-tropical sprue to account for inability to gain weight for so damn long.
The doc said tropical sprue is just something some farangs deal with in SE Asia. It has plenty of easily-observable symptoms, but no causes beyond eating food grown on the far side of the world.
Giardia is tough to spot and can be tough to kill, but it will account for the fever and frequency.
Something else will contribute to the frequency and account for the blood: most likely, if giardia could get it, so could a number of its friends. So it could be a life form or it could be something more chronic. Hard to say since neither came up on a test.
The thing in the leg is a nasty infection that's been appearing more frequently in the past few years and generally appears after some sort of foot or leg scrape. So it could've been any of the dozens of stubbed toes I get walking around in sandals, the ingrown toenail or two I've had over the past 6 weeks, the scraped knee or ankle, little punctures from sundry whatnots encountered while walking barefoot, or the place where the skin stuffed to sausage-like corpulence finally blew into a rash that was rubbed raw in my shoes. (The doc was just about disinterested as she asked, "have you had any injuries to your leg recently?" She seemed enthralled by the end.)
Generally, this would not be a cause for celebration or uplift. But given that it's in relation to me, the guy who can aim from the back almost as well as the front, who has continuously received "Nothing's wrong, numbers are just low," it's something to go on. And that, somehow, is a relief.
-a drug-resistant virus in the leg
-giardia at the forefront of the intestinal distress
-something else to account for the bleeding
-tropical sprue to account for inability to gain weight for so damn long.
The doc said tropical sprue is just something some farangs deal with in SE Asia. It has plenty of easily-observable symptoms, but no causes beyond eating food grown on the far side of the world.
Giardia is tough to spot and can be tough to kill, but it will account for the fever and frequency.
Something else will contribute to the frequency and account for the blood: most likely, if giardia could get it, so could a number of its friends. So it could be a life form or it could be something more chronic. Hard to say since neither came up on a test.
The thing in the leg is a nasty infection that's been appearing more frequently in the past few years and generally appears after some sort of foot or leg scrape. So it could've been any of the dozens of stubbed toes I get walking around in sandals, the ingrown toenail or two I've had over the past 6 weeks, the scraped knee or ankle, little punctures from sundry whatnots encountered while walking barefoot, or the place where the skin stuffed to sausage-like corpulence finally blew into a rash that was rubbed raw in my shoes. (The doc was just about disinterested as she asked, "have you had any injuries to your leg recently?" She seemed enthralled by the end.)
Generally, this would not be a cause for celebration or uplift. But given that it's in relation to me, the guy who can aim from the back almost as well as the front, who has continuously received "Nothing's wrong, numbers are just low," it's something to go on. And that, somehow, is a relief.
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