Friday the 13th ended up being an interesting day for me…
Headed out early with Jasper to buy flowers for one of his teachers that was leaving. Then the Rett Clinic appointment at the kids hospital with Jovie. And in the afternoon, a checkup at the GP for Jovie and myself.
I’d been feeling short of breath for about a week & my back hurt, and it was still bothering me on Friday so I mentioned it to the Dr at the checkup. He was expecting that both of us would be feeling much better by then, and Jovie was – but for some reason I wasn’t. Listening to my back/chest – HE COULDN’T HEAR MY LEFT LUNG. Whaa. So straight over to X-ray and then back over to the Dr again for results.
The radiologist called the Dr straight away (while I was making my way back over to him), so I didn’t wait long for the results. Basically, after a week of antibiotics, my left lung was still looking crazy and I need to head over to an emergency department tonight.
So I stop back at my parents (where the kids are), and ask my Dad to drop me at the local private hospital where we’re told it’s a minimum of $5,000 since we don’t have private cover (though the Dr told me to go there and it shouldn’t cost that much…). I’m seen by the triage nurse there before I leave because I’m not breathing so good and they can’t let me go.
After getting the checkup, Dad drives me over to the local public hospital where I check in at 7pm, and proceed to wait 6.5 hours to see a Dr there. Oi.
The emergency room was busy, standing room only. There are absolutely no beds left in the hospital, people are getting upset around me. By the time I get to see the Dr at about 1:30am, I’m told that it’s an unusually busy night (no wayyy…) but he’s really nice and gets me in for an Xray straight away after he takes some blood. 3 hours later at about 4:30am, I get my IV in and make my seat in the waiting room as cosy as I can. Apparently, there were 26 patients in the ER that night, and guess what number I was? 26. It is my favourite number….
I manage to get a few minutes of sleep here and there, and at 7:30am, the nice Dr comes back out to let me know my blood test results look good, and the Xray looks the same as the one I did the afternoon before. There are still no beds, so he prescribes me that stronger antibiotics that I can take at home and tells me to rest because I’m going to feel like crap for a few weeks yet. Hooray. After 13 hours of sitting in that chair in the ER, I headed back to my parents and to my kids, for some much needed sleep….
Flash forward to today, I’m still tired and coughing and my back still hurts but I feel a bit better. At least I can breathe semi-normally, and I don’t think my heart is racing as much which is great all around. I have a checkup at the GP in a few hours and I’m really hoping that left lung is back in action.
I really don’t like feeling so unwell because I feel like a lazy sod, but the thing about pneumonia is that it takes weeks for it to go away, and if it comes back it usually comes back resistant to the antibiotics you had before. And also even if you’re feeling well, you can still be recovering for a while. Blah. I’m taking it pretty seriously because I do not want to go back to that emergency room and be admitted for X weeks. I’m not on the laptop alot so I’m not answering emails, but I’m checking twitter & facebook now and then.
So that’s my weekend 🙂 Here’s to a better week ahead!
