Doctors as Detectives

During my prolonged treatment and recovery from acute myeloid leukemia, I spent many weeks in the hospital with a severely suppressed immune system as a side effect of chemotherapy. This condition is an open invitation to any infectious agents who happen to be in the neighborhood, and I had my share of them. They included colitis, E-coli, the cytomegalovirus, and several others that were never definitively identified.

I was also on numerous medications, including prophylactic antibiotic, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-rejection drugs as well as other drugs to blunt the side effects of these initial medications. These drugs nonetheless produced some nasty side effects on their own or in interaction with each other.

The upshot was that on any given day, I would experience symptoms that included fevers, headaches, intestinal indignities, rashes, blurred vision, light-headedness, muscle aches, bone pain, and even persistent hiccups. It was on these occasions that I became acquainted with one of my now-favorite medical specialties known as infectious disease doctors.

I’d only known them as heroic figures in melodramatic movies about plagues threatening all humanity. But on a more mundane and realistic level, they were also everyday heroes who often provided me relief from a myriad of infections and side-effects.

Their visits would be prompted by my report of unpleasant symptoms or obvious signs like spiking fevers. They would then begin looking for clues like detectives on the trail of a suspect. They would consider all the medications I was taking as well as their doses and scheduling. They would listen carefully to my recitation of symptoms. They would prioritize which medications were necessary and which could be eliminated or replaced with others. And they would order blood work, stool samples and other tests to nail down the culprits.

It would often take several days to grow and identify infectious critters in the lab, and sometimes a definitive diagnosis remained elusive. Even so, their experience, their listening skills, and their hunches often led to solutions that relieved not only my symptoms but their underlying causes.

While it was unpleasant to weather so many infections and side-effects, I came to welcome visits from these doctor/detectives who so often cracked the case, identified the villain, and brought me relief so I could focus on healing and recovery.