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Jul
16
2012

my left lung

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!

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Jul
09
2012

out for the count

Jovie and I are always doing things together. we eat together, we got to therapy together, we laugh together and now we get sick together. some mother & daughters likes to shop, but Jovie and I like to develop respiratory conditions!

what started out to be a ‘simple’ flu on Tuesday, very quickly turned into pneumonia by Thursday and made our lives a living hell. i’ve never really had the flu (influenza) before – the fever, chills, the aching was horrible. Jovie would cough until she threw up, which made her scream and scream and scream. I would be so out of breath that I couldn’t even walk upstairs without feeling like I ran a marathon – my fever was worse at night, where I would FREAK out thinking about some huge scientific formula that was going to end the world if I didn’t solve it. craze-balls.

by Thursday I had enough with my ‘flu’ and took myself to the dr (got there before it opened to be first in, first out), and got some antibiotics. Jovie seemed to be doing ok, but by Friday was rotten again so I took her in and had another check up myself since I felt worse. after checking both of us out, dr says that my flu/chest infection is now flu/pneumonia and Jovie has the exact same condition. weeeee. and if it’s not improving as expected by Monday, then hospital for both of us. yikes.

more antibiotics, and ALOT more rest was needed, so I spent the weekend working hard on relaxing (hard for me!) at my parents house because if this stuff comes back, it comes back worse and it’s 10 days at public hospital for me. no thanks. (no wifi! lol).

a check up today (Monday) and we’re both on the mend, not 100% but there’s enough improvement to keep us away from the hospital – hooray! the dr says another week and we’ll both be totally good, and i can’t wait. being short of breath all the time is horrible and poor Jovie is really confused about feeling so bad. i was more worried about Jovie than myself, because i’ve heard of girls with Rett passing away from complications from pneumonia, but thankfully it looks like we got in early and she’s doing great 🙂

i’m really grateful for modern medicine for giving us the diagnosis of Rett Syndrome (and not living a life of questions), and for developing things like antibiotics that keep us alive. i try to stay away from antibiotics were possible, but when you need it, it’s an awesome thing to be able to get it.

so that’s my week…. how was yours?

Jun
27
2012

passing it on

the year i graduated high school (was it 1998, or 1999? i can’t even remember anymore), was also the year i discovered Blue’s Clues. yes, i was 17 and i was watching children’s tv while studying for the HSC. to this day, the only things i remember about that year was getting hungry in the middle of my English exam and Steve Burns – the host of Blue’s Clues.

then somewhere along the way, i managed to get in contact with Steve about developing a website for him – i even remember asking him whether he wanted to set up a blog and then having to explain what on earth a ‘blog’ was. oh, the 90’s. we lost touch after a short while and i decided not to go ahead and stalk him. good choice.

he ended up leaving the show, made a couple of awesome cd’s and now lives in an amazing townhouse in Brooklyn. i only just found this video last night after wondering what he was up to –

i have no idea what he’s up to now, but i do hope that he’s happy somewhere doing his thing. or things.

so ANYWAY, Jovie saw a glimpse of Blue’s Clues on a podcast the other day, and I decided to download a few episodes for them to watch. Jasper totally loves it. he wants to be Steve for Halloween and Jovie will be Blue. (and i was so looking forward to being Princess Peach).

i find kid’s tv shows these days a bit like dabbing your eyeballs with dry cotton balls – weird and unnecessary. Yo Gabba Gabba and Mr Moon are probably the only ones I can stand but Blue’s Clues – even though it’s more than 10 years old – is now my children’s favourite tv show and that’s ok by me 🙂

so the point of this post? good things remain good after time. and yes, i have at least one weird & pointless story about a children’s television host. the end.