I’ve had norovirus, dueling meds and a nasty fall this year. It taught me a few things

Oh, 2024, I had such hopes for you!

But the first half has been challenging, to say the least.

Yes, I’m still a reporter for The Tribune and The Cambrian. But no, I haven’t written much for either paper in the past couple of months, thanks to a strange convergence of medical oddities that rose to smite me during the past 60 days or so.

Big thanks to all of you who’ve called or texted to make sure I’m OK, to ask if or how you could help or just to see if I had mistakenly headed off for supposedly greener pastures in a far-off metro newsroom somewhere else.

I’d share hugs of gratitude, but a broken rib and badly bruised rib cage preclude those for now.

During those truly weird medical situations (more about those later), I’ve learned some miscellaneous lessons the hard way, but isn’t that always the case?

Here are some of the lessons, in no particular order:

• A sprained/bruised rib cage is the best excuse ever for ditching the bra.

• A flying-squirrel-style leap face first onto concrete is not a recommended beauty treatment.

• Tall grass and weeds can camouflage other dangers besides snakes, lizards and frogs. Also, if there’s a minor split or lip between two pieces of concrete, fix it! Now, please. Don’t just say to yourself, “Self, I know it’s there, I’ll be OK.” Because, eventually it will get its revenge.

• Pick your feet up, Kathe. High step, even. No foot dragging allowed. And in the process, dammit, check where those feet are heading, what the next step beyond that includes and what lies ahead. Yes, it’s a lot to focus on, and can slow things down, but do it anyway! Otherwise, speaking from painful experience, the “ouch” potential rises exponentially.

• Sleeping in a recliner can keep angry ribs from hurting as much, but the butt sure gets sore.

• Putting an IV in my right arm never works well. Third time was a charm … in the other arm.

• An emergency services collar isn’t designed for someone with a short neck. Can we spell “the rack?”
  
  

• Congratulations, if like me, you have in your computer or other file a lengthy, updated medical list of prescriptions and OTC meds, physicians, major medical events and surgeries in your life, allergies and vaccinations, etc. However, that list didn’t do me much good in the computer upstairs when I was one story down, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and being hauled over hill and dale to the ambulance. So, after I got home, I sent our lists to my phone and Brian’s, just in case.

• If you have an Apple Watch, or medic alert device or panic button, please wear it. I don’t care how clunky they are. If you don’t, then keep your cellphone with you. My clothes don’t have pockets or belts, so my cell is on a lanyard around my neck. Again, just in case life happens again.

• The BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) isn’t recommended long-term any more, because there’s not enough nutrition in it. And what sits well in someone else’s rampaging digestive system may not work for you. Our magic bullet was chicken broth and Jello. Separately. Even hot water with sugar and a dash of salt can stave off dehydration for a time.

• Got a new med? Do you really read that long prescription explanation sheet the pharmacy gave you? Uh huh. But please do read the patient instructions: If they tell you to take the medicine with food, do exactly that. I didn’t and spent a day in digestive hell as my punishment.

• If you’re experiencing weird symptoms with no clear explanation, call 911. Better to have the medics do a dry run than to have a heart attack you ignored because the symptoms don’t fit the usual patterns. And no, I didn’t have a heart attack.

So, what did happen to teach me all those strange lessons?

The first episode that sent me to the ER April 11 apparently was a combined allostatic load stress/anxiety attack and a rare but severely scary interaction between prescribed meds.

After two days of testing that showed my heart was just fine, thank you, and so was everything else, the hospitalist docs sent me home.

They never explained what the problem had been, but one action they took spoke louder than words: They took me off an anti-fungal medicine I’d been taking for a couple of months.

Later, Google, the pharmacist and AI told me that prescription could clash with other meds I’d been taking for years, with symptoms that sounded eerily like the ones I’d experienced.

Just as I returned to work from that enforced medical leave, Brian and I were both leveled by a nastily boomerang case of norovirus.

Then, having recovered from that, the last straw was when I took a full-speed-ahead, face plant fall onto concrete. Back to the ER.

High grass and weeds had camouflaged a slight level change between the patio’s new and old concrete, and that tiny lip caught the front edge of my shoe.

I made a seven-point, full-force landing, but thank goodness my ice-skating “fall” training kicked in, and I didn’t go down face first.

Instinctively, I’d twisted to the right. My left side — forehead, left shoulder, rib cage, hip and knee — took the brunt of the hard touchdown.

Brian was within an inch of catching me, but I keep telling him that it’s so much better that he didn’t, because then we both might be injured.

Yup, I was still on blood thinners, so my forehead was a “Nightmare on Elm Street” scenario thanks to a new, silver-dollar sized wound from the impact. Suffice to say, I bled a lot. By the time I got home from the hospital, my blood-soaked hair had dried into a crispy cap.

And, since the patio is on our hillside home’s lower level, the bumpy gurney ride to the ambulance had the paramedics in wildland rescue mode.

I know I’m very, very lucky. It could have been so much worse.

Lucky to have had Brian here with when I had the attack and then when I fell. To have had, so long ago, training about how to fall. To be able to still get up and walk around — albeit with a walker or cane for now — just to keep the muscles working and the blood flowing.

To have what is obviously a very hard head (in more ways than one, yeah, I know!).

To have a devoted friend like Ingrid Turrey, who spent an hour at the salon on Memorial Day, washing my hair over and over again, since I couldn’t do it for myself and bending forward over a home sink was clearly a bad move.

Then super lucky two days later, to still be able to enjoy a magical, long-anticipated visit with a loving granddaughter and her beau, both from London, joined later by another granddaughter and her spouse from Ventura.

All were more than willing to adapt their vacation plans to spend four days with a banged-up grandma who reveled in time with them all.

But I guess 2024 isn’t done with us yet. Two days after my faceplant to concrete, Brian woke up with a raging hernia. Now, I have to heal fast so I can take care of him post-surgery the way he’s cared for me after my fall and these other weird medical events.

That’s what family does, I guess, with love, caring and a full dose of humor to remind us how ridiculous all this has been.