How Time Flies!

It's hard to believe that it's been well over a month since I made any attempt at an entry.
The truth is, end of August, beginning of September I was sick - but after Emilee had that nastiness she had in August, I figured it was some friend of that bug.

I actually had no symptoms aside from my chest hurting and getting short of breath, so I went to the Doc and kind of poo pooed it. Went home with an antibiotic and called it a day. Went again the following week after trying my asthma inhaler with no luck, and asked for some cough syrup and again called it a day! By this time I was getting serious fever an chills a couple times a day. The third visit to the doc was to be rechecked and ask him to order a chest x-ray. I felt awful, but I had no clue how sick I actually was at this point. Within hours of getting that chest x-ray, the head doctor of our office called me personally and informed that I was not in good form and that I needed to stop everything and find someone to get me to the hospital. And he wanted the phone # for Fernie's work and my mom. And let me know if I was not going to go on my own, he would send an ambulance! Of course, this didn't help one bit since now I start to panic on top of already very shallow breathing. I called Fernie at work and just burst into tears when he got on the phone. When he got home to pick me up, he actually called me retarded for stressing about calling for help...point taken.

After picking up Emi from school and orders from my doc, we headed for the hospital ER...and although admitted fairly quickly, they didn't have a bed upstairs for me so the ER was my home for about 30 hours...and yes, it sucked rocks!

When I finally got to my room it was at least more settled and routine. Aside from being on a lot of oxygen, I had 3 meds hanging into my IV, oral medication twice a day, and breathing treatments every 3-4 hours - every 5-6 hours by the time I was released. They determined that I had very serious pneumonia thick in both lungs and some mystery spot/infection in my right lung. They ended up doing a lung biopsy to try and gather some more knowledge about this rogue bug in my lung. This was the most frustrating and unpleasant experience that I can remember. I was not completely asleep-on purpose, so they can make sure you keep breathing an torture you a little more - I would liken this biopsy procedure to roto rootering. I began bleeding too much before the test was complete and they had to stop the procedure and completely wake me in quite a hurry. By that night, I felt as if someone had been doing the Macarena on my chest.

So, I was there for almost 2 weeks and then went home to mom's for another week, since she's home during the day and Fernie and the girls are at work and school. After having been sick for 6+ weeks now, I was not very mobile. Just like in the hospital Fernie, Kae & Emi all stopped by to hang out sometime each day. I'm home now and even though I'm still on oxygen I am moving around as much as I can. I'm sure that healing at home is much easier than in the hospital. I will find out on the 27th what exactly the name for my right lung spots/extra infection and if the 2 weeks of antibiotics they sent me home with (that I never even heard of) have taken care of it.

I am not completely well yet, but I sure feel a helluvalot better than I did 3-4 weeks ago! Now here's hoping that the pulmonologist says I can get off of the oxygen on the 27th!

If you have what you think to be asthma or a chest cold that is being stubborn - PLEASE do not wait! Be persistent and ask questions! I got very lucky...Bernie Mac just DIED from this crap!

PEACE