That Bloody Little Leprechaun

Early last week it was quite obvious by the way Ben was looking and feeling that something was wrong. I suspected it may have been due to infection, given that Janyne had been sick with the flu the week before and he seemed to fit the symptoms. On Wednesday (Anzac Day) he broke out in a rash accompanied by a considerable amount of pain and decided to call the hospital. Turned out he had Shingles.

For those of you who don’t know, Shingles is an extremely painful form of Herpes that is a reactivitation of VZV (varicella zoster virus), the primary infection which causes chickenpox. It’s one of many viruses that can be caught by people on immunosuppressants (the drugs Ben takes to stop his body rejecting the new lungs). Unfortunately it’s quite painful and although it can be treated fairly easily, using a drug named ‘Valtrex’, the pain tends to stick around for a couple of weeks.

The good news is he is getting better day by day. Today marks a week since he has been taking the Valtrex which seems to be clearing up the obvious signs (rash and blisters) of the virus, just not helping subside the pain just yet. This morning he commented that whilst still in pain, he’s doing a lot better. The inside of his mouth, and tongue, had that many blisters he could barely eat, now he’s starting to. Interestingly enough it usually only occurs on one side of the body, in Ben’s case the left (strange).

In other news, he went in for a check-up on Thursday and all his vitals seem good. Once he feels a little better he’s going to get back on the computer and start blogging again, so I’ll leave any personal details to him.

This brings us to the title of this post, “That Bloody Little Leprechaun”.

At times it can feel like he (the Leprechaun) has sent us on the impossible mission of finding the ‘gold’ (metaphor for ‘good health’) at the end of the rainbow. So far we’ve had the Transplant, the Hip Replacement, the Fundoplication, two cases of stage 2 rejections and now Shingles (have I left anything out?) it almost brings the question, “What’s next?”

We’re almost at the date of the big 1 Year Anniversary (post on that to come soon)!!! Jax (Jacqui) has assured me she’s going to go and find this bloody little Leprechaun, trick him out of the ‘gold’ (yes, yes, the ‘good health’) and we should be fine for next few years! So keep your fingers crossed for Jax, and Ben, and all of us wishing him good health =)


Paul.