I'm Alive After All!

Oh boy, what a start to 2015. I am not sure I am enjoying this new year at all.....except that I am alive and here to complain about it.

Our grandson brought home a nasty virus and it made it's way thru the family. From him to his sister to his dad to his mom (who got really sick) to my husband. I really thought I beat it. HA!

Did not do much on New Year's Eve. Got a late lunch/early dinner at Amici's and i had one glass of not very good champagne (just because it has a fancy name doesnt mean it will taste good). And then somehow we managed to stay up till midnight. Silly silly mistake. We already decided to postpone New Years Day Dinner because hubby not feeling so well (altho he was feeling better) and me having to work that night.

Well that night I ended up having to go into work after being told initially that I was on call. And I started with a cough. Went home, took some nyquil, and slept all day long. Got up and felt like you-know-what warmed over. But no, super work ethic woman, it is too late to call in sick, they wont have time to find anyone to work.... And I dragged myself to work. Most stupid thing I have done in a long time (up to that point). Made it home, crawled into bed, slept until 2 PM, crawled out of bed, crawled back into bed by 4 PM, crawled out of bed by 6:30 to eat a 1/2 cup of chicken soup. Stayed up to watch Hawaii 5-0 (yes, DVRd) and crawled back into bed and coughed all night.

Sunday it just kept getting worse and worse. And yet at no time did I have a temperature! Just the bloody cough and feeling like a corpse had more energy than I did. And I felt like I was drowning. I could just feel water bubbling in the top of my chest and altho I kept coughing it out (it wasnt water, it was yellow yuck) I kept drowning. I tried everything we could think of.....and let me tell you Robitussin tastes as lousy as it does not work....mucinex worked one dose and but not the second....vicks vapor rub worked a little bit...

Hubby gave me his chair to sit in all day and he slept on the couch next to me for awhile. He went to bed about 0300 and I was very glad he was getting some sleep. I jsut prayed to sleep and I couldnt. I did finally fall asleep sitting on the couch at about 0430. And woke myself up seriously drowning at about 0430. I really did not think I was going to be able to breath ..... I now know how people with CHF must feel like.

So it is Monday morning and we called the MD. No appts until today or Wednesday and at that point I knew I could not survive another night like that.....so we headed to the ER. We went at a good time, we thought, because it was relatively empty, but it sure filled up while we were there.

The MD said the radiologist read it as pnuemonitis which he could not figure out, because that is usually only from aspiration or vapor. See - I told you I was drowning!!! But I have read that it can also be related to a virus.  I kept praying for a breathing treatment and we were just waiting and waiting.....finally husband is standing at the door and the MD walked up and said "she got her breathing treatment and her meds right?" And husband said no - nobody has been in for awhile (best person there was the first time I started coughing so badly and I rang and asked for water; this person rushed right in with a bottle of water for me!). So he told me then what the CXR was - that he was going to give me antibiotics and a codeine cough syprup and an inhaler. He also said he was going to swab me for Flu A&B since the flu shot has been so ineffective this year.

Anyway, this must not have pleased the MD because I could all of a sudden hear someone calling out to have RT come and do treatments now for my room and another room. After a few minutes RT showed up and started a treatment, and then a 3d nurse, whom I never seen before, was in there interrupting and shoving a probe up my nose (I think she is really an alien - one of the most uncomfortable procedures I ever have had!) and shoving meds into me. Antibiotics, and then something for nausea, and then liquid Norco. At this point I am so exhausted, and so overwhelmed, I could not even think. At this point, I really dont think I should have had pain meds or antinausea meds and wonder if the mistake was from the MD or whom....

BTW, that breathing treatment was wonderful. I could finally take deep breaths again!

No sleep, anti nausea med, pain med. Pretty soon I am loopy as can be and say to my husband we need to get out of here while I can still walk. He goes out and asks someone when we can leave. Nurse #4 comes in
and asks if I am ready to home.....and that she will be right back with the paperwork.

When she comes in, she kind of looks at me odd, and says I think I will do a set of vitals before you got home. She listened to my breathing (she, the MD, and the RT were the only ones that did) and seemed to be very surprised at how bad I sounded. So she did a blood pressure with a cough too big, that took 4 times of inflating/deflating before it showed a BP very much higher than normal for me, and higher than I thought someone with no sleep would have. But I finally got out of there with a fistful of prescriptions (no pain meds at all!!) but feeling very dizzy and all of a sudden sweating and hot.

Got home and crawled into bed and slept off and on for the next 4 hours - having some of the wierdest dreams ever - ans still feeling dizzy - but having no pain whatsoever! Even tho all the time I kept telling everyone the only pain I had was from coughing......So I walked out to the living room. Husband started talking to me about the meds he picked up, and handed me the mail, and I just totally erupted - Mt Vesuvius - with vomit - right in front of my grandkids having after school snacks! Walked around the couch on the way to the bathroom, and did it again.....poor kids....I am sure I traumatized them! Threw up a few more times in the bathroom and I think I finally got rid of all that Norco and felt so much better after that!!!

And today? Well, I SLEPT ALL NIGHT! Lying down flat in my own bed!!!!!!!! Still coughing stuff up but not painful and I am no longer drowning!!!

We got the tree down. Tomorrow will get the other ornaments packed away. I think this is the longest our tree has been up and it has been driving my husband crazy! But I will admit I will be sooooo glad to get my chair back in the house!

I also want to brag about the care my husband has been giving me....he has been awesome...even if I will have to hear "I told you so" for a long time to come. First of all about going to the ER (he told me later he was made at me for not waking him up and having him take me to the ER in the middle of the night when I was just happy he was sleeping!) but also that he guessed it was pneumonia......but I can live with that (for awhile)