Catching Up: Who Let the Dogs Out?

I'm still alive, I swear! A lot has happened in my little corner of Sick Girl Land as you'll soon see. Over the next week or so, I'll be catching you up. We have now made it up up to April 5,the night it all began...


The morning of April 5 dawned clear and bright. I pulled myself to sitting, took a deep breath and suddenly was thrust into a nightmare from which I haven't yet awoken. That deep breath resulted in a deep,barky cough. This is an all-too familiar sound to me. It is the harbinger of impending asthma issues. Or usually it is. I was diligent about doing my asthma regime that morning. I had grown lax about it in recent days in the wake of news that my asthma was well-controlled. I did my inhalers, packed my bag with my liquid lunch and rescue inhaler and headed out to work. The cough hadn't subsided despite being treated. I knew it was going to be a long day. I got to work and turned on my heater/humidifier and slogged through the day. By the end of the day, I had coughed my voice away and my ribs felt like they were being torn out of my chest. By 10:00 that night, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to need to see a doctor the next day. This was a Thursday, and I could see the writing on the wall forecasting an ER run over the weekend if I wasn't seen on Friday.I did my nightly med regimen and settled into a restless sleep.

The next morning at 9:00 I called my primary doctor. She is oddly territorial sometimes and I've been chastised before for going to the ER instead of going in to see her. At the same time, now that I am the Queen of Specialists, my primary won't touch me for much. It's just strange. Anyway, all of that was kind of moot since no one answered the phone when I called every five minutes for fifteen minutes. I finally gave up and called Dr. Lungs.I unloaded on the poor receptionist. "Hi, This is Emalie. *bark bark bark* Something's wrong with me *bark bark* and my primary won't answer the  *bark bark* phone." Whatever I said convinced her and a few minutes later Dr.Lungs was on the line.
"Emalie? What's going on?" he asked. I had never call with something urgent before and I think it threw him.
"I..don't know. I started coughing yesterday, and usually I wouldn't worry except that it's Friday, and my chest hurts with it." All  this was said between breaks to cough.
"Let's up your antihistamine and add a nasal spray to  dry up some of that drip into your lungs. I'm also going to call in an antibiotic in case you start to run a fever over the weekend. Give that a hot and call on Monday to let me know how you're doing. Hope you feel better."

So, I slogged through another work day. The blessing of this day was that we were getting early dismissal  because it was Good Friday. As soon as I could, I left work, picked up meds at the pharmacy and came home.

Throughout the weekend, I took my meds as directed and continued to cough my head off. Anytime I moved, talked, or ate the coughing would escalate. I was also on the lookout for a fever, the signal to break out the just in case Z-pack that Dr. Lungs had called in. I stayed cool as a cucumber, though. By Sunday night, I realized that the meds weren't working. I still felt awful. I resolved to have Dr. Lungs  see me early that week. Little did I know just  how much I would be speaking to and seeing Dr.Lungs over the weeks that followed..

To be continued...