Sorry for the double post - I just remembered something that may be useful to you.
When my mum had meningitis, the family doctor gave her the shot of anti-biotics because although it was ‘most likely’ viral and the shot unneccesary, he didn’t want to be the doctor who let her die on the assumption that she had the most common form of meningitis.
Because she had the shot of anitbiotics, the hospital’s blood tests showed no bacteria and mum was given no further antibiotics, which let the bacteria build up to almost fatal levels before anyone thought to re-test.
The same shot of anti-biotics saved her life and put it back at risk.
Deep Vein Thrombosis followed by a pulmonary embolism days after the flight.
If you ignore the fact that your leg hurts like hell, you get a sudden onset, scary illness that can result in death in the first hour for more than 60% of people that get one.
Plus, it’s a sudden crisis she can’t ignore…
My DVT wasn’t as the result of an airflight but I promise you it will scare the pants off you when the doctor tells you how close to death you were…
A PE from a known cause results in taking blood thinners for 6 months, so that will crap her style if she does things that can cause falls or injury, though.
Does it matter how long she’ll need to stay in the hospital? (Or “stay in hospital”, since she’s British.)
If you want a fairly speedy recovery, Sigmagirl’s suggestion of dehydration is good. This would fit with her tendency to skip meals, and if she’s a traveling musician who goes clubbing a lot she may be consuming mostly caffeinated or alcoholic drinks that aren’t doing her much good on the hydration front. Airplane travel also dries people out.
I can tell you from experience that a person suffering from dehydration can go very quickly from feeling mostly fine to being disoriented, in terrible pain, feeling their skin crawl, etc. But with proper treatment even a badly dehydrated person can normally recover within a couple of days.
Meningitis, already mentioned by several posters, is good if you need her to suffer a long illness and face a greater risk of death after her problem is identified. Bacterial meningitis can be treated with antibiotics but is still very dangerous. Viral meningitis is usually less severe, but can’t really be treated – if she had a severe case your heroine would likely need to stay in the hospital for several days until it passed.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Right now meningitis looks the best, but feel free to keep them coming; many of the stories here are really interesting.
Projammer - I found not that blood poisoning was rare but that generally it occurred as a result of medical procedures, not injuries that were improperly treated.
Yes, I was hoping for something that would keep her there several days. She hates hospitals and she needs to have felt like she spent some time in hell; it takes her nearly three years to mentally recover from it. Yes, I did know about that particular Britishism but as I’m American myself I didn’t use that phrasing in my OP.
Unrelatedly, is your username from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere?
Both my father and my grandmother had appendicitis for quite a while. Dad had minor but constant discomfort for about two weeks before he was diagnosed and rushed into surgery.
My grandmother - at the tender age of 86 - had vaguely similar systems for at least a month or so. She finally went to the hospital when she was having a bit of difficulty breathing one day and was incredibly fatigued. It turned out her appendix had ruptured quite a while prior, and had formed an abscess within her abdomen. There were some complications, but she’s still alive and kicking, and I imagine that a 22-year-old would bounce back perfectly fine.
Ooh, wow. There are occasional cases of it here in my slice of the country, and when I first read that it still happens (but is quite treatable), it kind of became a sort of weird goal for me. If I must get seriously ill while I’m living here, I really want it to be the plague, just so that I can say that. “Oh, yeah, sorry I missed a week of class; I was quarantined in the hospital because I had the plague.”
I’d say meningitis is probably a good choice then. If she had severe viral meningitis she could be stuck in the hospital for some time until she recovered, knowing all the while that there wasn’t anything the doctors could do other than help with the symptoms. Bacterial meningitis is less common but more dangerous, so she’d be in greater fear for her life. As a musician she would also have special reason to worry about possible hearing loss that can be a complication of meningitis.
[quoteUnrelatedly, is your username from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere?[/QUOTE]
No, although that is one of my favorite books. I’ve been using the name Lamia since before I ever read it, though. I took it directly from Greek mythology.
One morning, long ago, I woke up with a very sore thumb. Felt like it was broken. It went to the doctor…he said it was from a reaction to a bug bite and showed me where the bug had bitten me.
More recently, I woke up one day with a very sore pinky. More exactly, at the point where pinky meets palm, imagine a nail through the connecting joint. Merely touching the flesh hurt, it was all red etc. In a reverse-Murphy’s law moment, I actually already had an appt for a checkup the next day.
Saw the doctor, asked if it was a bug bite. He looked it over, couldn’t figure it out. Sent me for an X-ray STAT. Well, I have problems sometimes with my index fingers and knees, and he’d said, “Welcome to the world of arthritis,” so maybe it was that?
Bottom line, he gave me a prescription for pain. He said it could become the most painful thing I’d ever felt and if it did, he wanted to know, STAT. IIRC he thought it could be septic arthritis.
Apparently that shit can go bad in a heartbeat, though wikipedia’s article doesn’t say. But he seemed tacitly skeptical that it really had “just happened” (I think he asked me three times, “…and this JUST happened?”) so I guess you should factor that in as well.
DVT doesn’t have to hurt like hell. I had it after leg surgery, and I just thought I was a bit sore behind the knee from hauling around all the metal crap on my leg. The leg surgery wasn’t going to kill me, even though it sucked pretty badly, but the DVT could have. I was readmitted to the hospital straight from the ultrasound lab (where the PT sent me on a hunch about the sore knee, though I didn’t have the other classic symptoms - swelling, redness, etc.) I spent an additional week there on IV anticoagulants, and had to take oral anticoagulants for several months afterwards.
YM Does V. Mine did hurt like hell, and I actually had an appointment to go get it seen to the day it threw the embolism that nearly did me in. However, like you I didn’t have the other classic symptoms that you mention. Asked my doc later and he was honest and told me he totally would have missed it and would have thought I pulled a muscle, which is a lot like what it felt like, except I hadn’t done anything to cause it to happen.
Problem with mine is that the DVT is unknown in origin, I tested positive for some auto-immune weirdness, and just like that I’m on warfarin for life.
But yeah, 2 weeks in hospital, half of that in a high dependency unit, threatened with surgery or full bore anti-stroke type anti-coagulants, it was scary, which is why I suggested it for Our Heroine.
Another vote for meningitis. I remember when there was a small outbreak in NZ, sharing of drinks among young people was one factor contributing to its spread. This would fit with her night clubbing life style.
Also, Addiction is definitely life threatening and would fit the character profile, although it may be a bit obvious and could really change the plot line.
Maybe Hep C. (sharing the coke straw) AND Hep B. (the ill-considered sex afterwords?) very kinky.
How about tuberculosis? You don’t even have to go anywhere terribly exotic to get it. I knew several people that came down with it in the wilds of Bulgaria.
Obviously anecdotal, but I had blood poisoning when I was about 13, from an untreated wound on my thumb (I’m a nail-biter, I had bitten my thumbnail down to the quick, it got infected.)
Being the nerd that I am, I noticed the red line going up my arm, and knew it was a sign of blood poisoning. I bugged my older brother about it, as my parents were out for the evening. He finally called them, they came home, took me to the ER.
ER doctor said there was a very good chance I would not have woken up in the morning had they not brought me in to the ER. Very scary.
Depends. I have an aunt whose appendix ruptured when she was 18. She thought she had the flu and for three days stayed home and got lots of rest and puked lots of liquids. She ended up hospitalized for a month due to recurrent abdominal infections, and too weak to return to school for another month or two. She dropped from 120lbs to 86lbs. I don’t think that’s the norm, though.