October 7 email message

We are not going to Italy. This we decided today at around 11:00 a.m. Here is the why of it.

We hosted Stu and Suzy French here at the lake on the 27th and 28th of September and had a grand time. We finished their visit on Thursday night with a great steak dinner at which I ate gluttonously. On Friday morning, I experienced diarrhea and vomiting and thought it was probably caused by something that I ate. Perhaps it was. Anyhow, we bade the Stu and Suzy goodbye and prepared for the arrival of Larry and Donna, with whom we were to tour the mountains in search of retirement location candidates for their eventual retirement. They arrived at 7:00 p.m.. I threw up again at 6:50 p.m. and looked quite sick when they arrived. I insisted that I was and would be ok, but I was wrong. Larry and Donna graciously returned to Charlotte on Saturday while I laid around and spoke to my doc by phone. He thought that I might have an ulcer caused by the ibuprofen that I take for arthritis, so I stopped drinking coffee and eating anything that tasted good, like chocolate and ice cream. On Sunday, I threw up again but generally began to feel better. We spent Monday and Tuesday doing chores in anticipation of our trip to Italy and I remained relatively weak and without appetite. By Wednesday the weakness was worse and by Thursday was really profound. I could not go up the stairs without resting at the top.

Yesterday I went to see the Doc, who ordered lots of blood work, chest xray, and cat scan of the stomach area. By noon the results were back and confirmed his suspicion that I was suffering from anemia. He ordered 3 units of blood and Eileen and I had a lovely time in the hospital till 1:00 a.m. getting this blood from the little baggies into me. My weakness disappeared entirely and I now feel fine but a little tired from the long day.

As we were scheduled to leave for the Atlanta airport at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, we had to decide whether to go to Italy or not. We decided ultimately that the risk/reward ration was to high and will stay home. More lab tests are due this coming week and will probably confirm my doc's hypothesis that this is some kind of "viral syndrome". He is having weird stuff like Lyme disease checked as well. It is likely that we will never know for sure what hit me, but if we do, I'll let you all know. For now, we know that all of the readily recognizable things can be ruled out, and this includes all of the really scary stuff like silent heart attack, emphysema, and so on. My blood "looks" like a viral syndrome is the answer. Some little bodies therein are segmented rather than round as is normal.

So finally, Eileen and I are both very glad that we did not encounter this difficulty in Italy and we really want to stay put until all of this is resolved. I feel fine and plan to spend my "Italy time" working in the yard.

Love to you all,

Harry