Side Effects May Include: HLH

It was June 2015, and the whole thing had started as hot flashes and a headache at a friend's summer kick-off party. He must've put in some funky ingredients in the punch, I thought to myself after. Or maybe I just drank too much of it? As the days went on the flashes turned into out-of-this-world, 104-105 degree fevers, followed by bed-drenching sweats, then full-on teeth-chattering shivers. I felt like a lobster reaching full boil, only to be transferred to a cryogenic chamber. This went on for almost two weeks. I dreaded the nights the most, when the fevers were at their worst. I couldn't sleep. I went to the emergency room once, where they diagnosed me with mono, and I was sent home to recover. A few days later, when I was starting to have trouble breathing, I decided I needed to pack a bag and head back to the hospital. ----- "Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis," the doctor said. The results of my bone marrow biopsy were back, and I finally had a diagnosis. I picked up my iPhone and asked her how to spell it. "It's called HLH." After that, all I heard was a string of multisyllabic words and acronyms.... Dexamethasone. Etoposide. CMV. BMT. "We're going to start you on a high dose of steroids and an eight-week course of chemotherapy." I clicked on the Wiki page for HLH and saw the words "rare," "life-threatening," and "mortality rate of 50%." She told me that it was not cancer, but it's treated with chemotherapy. So there was good news and bad news. I was happy ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news