So, I had to call the emergency services in the middle of the night for a neighbour. Apparently he has been ill for a week, but for some reason didn’t want to see a doctor or go to the hospital.
He had felt weaker and weaker over the last week and didn’t eat or drink much, which probably didn’t help. Today, he was too feeble to walk even to go to the bathroom or grab the phone. He’s in his early 50s.
What intrigued me is that he complained from pain along all the right side of his body, from the chest to the knee (and he was obviously in pain). It seemed to me that his lower right leg (emerging from under the blanket) looked somewhat swollen (but I didn’t check closely enough to be really sure).
I’m not asking for medical advice, he’s already at the hospital, right now. I’m just wondering what condition could cause that.
When I had shingles I felt a really intense pain along a narrow track from my back to my chest. According to this it can also be on one side of the body.
After my dad’s stroke, he felt numb on one half of his body, and was in pain on the other half. ISTR the line went right down the middle of his face, and I believe the halves “reversed” above and below his neck - i.e., the left half of his head and the right half of his body hurt …
OK. My neighbor was released from hospital today, he’s in a quite good shape and I saw him. However, his French is quite approximative, and even though he described in many details what he had and what was done, I’m still puzzled. Maybe it’s a kind of curiosity some people will find unsavoury, but really I can’t help wondering. The following descriptions are his.
So, besides the symptoms I described in the first post, he also had an “inflated” chest, and could barely move the neck. Same for the arms.
At the hospital, where he stayed for two weeks, they :
-Put a tube in his throat to see inside
-Took a bit of his liver
-Took something from his lips
They told him he had :
-Water in his knees and in other places like the chest
-Crystals, I think in his articulations
-A worrying “inflammation” of the heart
-Some problem with his liver
-A condition that could be lethal next time
-A condition that usually only pregnant women have
-And that he pisses too much of something
He must :
-Take unspecified drugs for life
-Eat bananas and chocolate (so I suspect Magnesium…note that he dislikes the prospect of having to eat chocolate but will abide by the doctors’ prescription)
-Drink less alcohol
-Drink a lot of a specific mineral water.
So, what mysterious medical condition could my neighbour have ??
Sounds like cirrhosis or a fatty liver in conjunction with something else.
A liver disorder would explain:
-Put a tube in his throat to see inside
-Took a bit of his liver
-Water in his knees and in other places like the chest (partly)
-Crystals, I think in his articulations
-Some problem with his liver
-A condition that could be lethal next time
-And that he pisses too much of something
