Ok, I promise that I'll start talking about more positive things in near future posts, but I have to get a few things out of the way first. I'm finding that because I've allowed myself to get this low, I have very few things to write about that aren't complaints. But whatever, that's why I'm doing this, right? To fix it?
Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I started getting a little stuffy in my nose. Not only do I have seasonal allergies, but we've found out that I'm also allergic to timothy hay, which we must keep in our apartment in abundance at all times to feed our eight guinea pigs.
So, no big deal, right? Except that after the stuffy nose cleared up, I started finding myself to be a little short of breath and wheezing. It kept getting worse and worse and since I wasn't really coughing much, Karl took me to the Primary Health (doc-in-the-box kinda place) down the road who summarily told me I was having an asthma attack then brazenly falsified my test results RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. My oxygen saturation was 93 when I walked in and after three requisite (for asthma) breathing treatments, I had gone down to 89. The doctor wrote down 90-92 on the paper, 90 being the cut-off for sending me to the hospital in an ambulance per clinic procedure. So I actually appreciated the falsification in lieu of the most expensive taxi service in the world, however... I don't have asthma. He took an x-ray, which showed I didn't have pneumonia, either, so basically, the doctor sent me home with a prescription for the same stuff that had actually lowered my oxygen saturation in front of him and his two nurses and less than absolutely no fucks about what happened to me after I got the hell out of his clinic. Well, good riddance anyway to that shitty, careless doctor.
But I was still having breathing issues. By the next day, I was coughing a little bit and what came up wasn't phlegm, but mildly bloody tasting water. So we went to my regular doctor's office at Family Medicine Residency, only to ind that my regular doctor didn't work there anymore. And the NP that I did see basically said the same thing -- that it was likely asthma, based on steam engine train she could hear running around inside my lungs. She again, gave me a prescription for Albuterol and some steroids and sent me on my merry way. Days later, I had no improvement, so we again went back to FMR to see a new doctor. She looked at my history and saw that I have a clotting disorder, a Mirena IUD, and that I am a half a pack per day smoker. This peaked her concern and told me something I've always dreaded... that I might have a pulmonary embolism. It's what my mother died from when I was twelve years old, and she was only six years older than I am now. So... I got sad. And angry. And maybe a little panicky, while we're at it. For a few days I sulked around, wondering if maybe I might die soon. During a follow-up visit, I was told to immediately go the Emergency Room at St. Luke's to get a CT scan, which thankfully absolved me of worrying about possible imminent death, but the final diagnosis I received from the trip is proving to probably not be correct... pneumonia. After all that... literally 3 full weeks of wheezing and occasional light blood-water coughing, I'm told I have freaking pneumonia.
It's been a week now, and the antibiotics and steroids and inhalor and smoking (semi-)cessation haven't helped. If anything I'm getting worse. And what's missing from all of this is the fact that I haven't, throughout the past month, been "sick" at all. No fevers, no bodily malaise, no snot-rockets, or phlegmy coughs. Just the mild stuffy nose for a day or two, then pseudo-asthma/pneumonia symptoms. Not sure what to do from here, so hopefully this problem will fix itself soon, and the good part of it is that I have a really good reason to quit smoking finally. It's been a monkey on my back for nearly 20 years, so I have that to work on and succeed in doing.
Again, here's my obligatory apology for a hastily written and boring blog post, and like I said before... I promise there's better waiting to come out of me. Bear with me through the insufferable and I'll eventually offer up the irresistible ;-P
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