"fifth disease"

It was a rather interesting weekend around here! After Luke's ordeal on Friday night, Saturday morning I awoke with what I thought to be a pinched nerve. In fact, initially I just thought that I had slept wrong on my arm and it was 'asleep' when I first woke up. However, the pain, tingling and numbness continued throughout the day, and I began to be aware of pain in all my joints, as well as occasionally the tingling and numbness in other parts of my body. I also noticed that my hands and feet seemed to be swelling. Saturday night was simply awful trying to sleep. I ended up unable to find any comfortable way to lay, and tried sleeping sitting upright in the recliner. By Sunday morning, the swelling, numbness and pain were all quite bad, so I called to see if I could get an 'emergency' appointment with the chiropractor. He did treat me, but said he really couldn't place what it could be, and strongly suggested I get in to my medical doctor right away. I did that this morning, only to have her puzzled as well, and sending me for bloodwork. I haven't gotten that done yet (I went, but they were closed already) so I have to go again tomorrow. However, I had to call ahead to get a price quote, as I currently have no health insurance and had no idea what to expect. Most of the tests ran between $40-$60 except for one, which I had never heard of, called B19. That one was $268!! I called the doctor's office back and asked if we could drop that one for now, and see how some of the others turned out first. She agreed, and I decided to do a little research on this B19 to find out what was so important to cost so much more than the others. Odd thing...B19, or the Parvovirus, a.k.a. "fifths disease" is basically a very mild illness, usually a childhood illness, though about 50% of adults have never had it and therefore are susceptible, and often is so mild, it goes undetected. There is no 'treatment' for it, and once you get it, you are then immune to it, kind of like chicken pox. Of course, as I looked over the symptoms, it seemed like a perfect match to what I've been experiencing! And it goes away on it's own! Reading it all, coupled with the fact of the swelling and joint pain both definitely decreasing, makes me really want to just bag the bloodowork altogether. However, my hubby would like me to still follow through with it, just to make sure (the doc still wanted to test for Lyme disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and about 3 other things) so I guess I'll still be doing that. But, I suppose, as is usually the case, there will end up being nothing that 'needs' to be done, and I will have laid out several hundred dollars for basically nothing. Oh, well...there's always that niggle in your mind that says "just in case..." that prompts me to follow through. Maybe someday I'll be thankful I did.