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 weeks, I'll be catching you up. In our time machine, it is now April 13.
On the morning of Friday the 13th, I woke at 7:00 got ready, made sure my bag was packed, that all my electronic gadgets had a charge, and waited. I needed to wait for the hospital to call with a bed assignment, and I needed to wait for the cab I had arranged the night before to pick me up . I figured the cab would either get me to the hospital way before they were ready for me, or that the hospital would need to hold the bed for me until I got there. The second scenario ended up being correct. The hospital called around 9:00 and said they were ready for me. The charge nurse started to tell me to stop at registration, but when she realized how truly bad off I was, she changed her mind and told me to go up to the floor instead. "You'll be in room 412 of the Acute Pulmonary Unit. It sounds like you need to be with us. Let me give you my number in case you need anything while on your way."
Wow, Acute Pulmonary Unit, scary stuff. I knew somewhere in my frazzled brain that my doctor was the assistant director of the unit. It made perfect logical sense that that would be where I'd be admitted. Still, the word acute set off tiny alarm bells in my head. I still needed the cab to come. Finally it did. Twenty minutes and twenty-five dollars later, I was at the hospital. I struggled through the front sliding doors, balancing my overnight bag on my knees, my messenger bag around my neck and still managing not to drive my chair into a wall! Eventually, someone relieved me of the overnight bag and we got into the elevator. After what seemed forever, the doors opened on the fourth floor. My rescuer led me down a short hallway and through a set of double doors. This was APU.
Set up like many hospital units I've been on, it had a central nurses' station and hallways that spoked out from there. My room was at the end of a spoke, pretty far away from the nurses' station. This would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because in theory, it would be quieter. A curse because conceivably it could take longer to get help when I needed it. . Once I got changed, in a bed, asked for the same information three times. (No, I'm not hard of hearing, I promise!) the tech finally came to put in my IV. This was a crucial step in getting better. since the reason I was there (ostensibly) was to get IV steroids. Notice I said ostensibly, that will prove important later in this saga.The tech found a decent vein pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the vein was in the crook of my right elbow. Essentially, this made my only good arm and hand useless, since I was at very high risk of losing the access if I moved, talked, even breathed wrong. After a couple of hours I asked to have the line moved to my other already useless hand. Everyone thought I was nuts. Who asks for a needle stick? But you do what you have to do.
Dr. Lungs stopped by to give me a rundown of his treatment plan. I'd have a chest x-ray and labs, both to check for sneaky pockets of infection. I'd get nebulizer treatments and IV steroids for the asthma. He and I decided that we'd hold off on injections of blood thinner for the time being. He said he would order a CT of my sinuses for the next day once I felt a little better.He told me to call if I needed anything.and left me his cell number.
Soon the X-ray tech came, shoved a film behind my back and took his pictures. A tech came and drew blood off my IV line, and I acquainted myself with the TV lineup while checking in online thanks to the Internet capabilities of my e-reader. I received the first dose of steroids through my IV, as well as IV Zofran. Around shift change, the nurse also hung a bag of a strong antibiotic called Levaquin, Dr. Lungs apparently holding on to the idea that this was a very quiet infection.
I tried to settle down for the night around 9:00. I'd had my last round of meds, vitals, and had talked to both parents and was exhausted. I found a show on TV worthy of falling asleep to, lowered the bed to a flatter angle and turned out the sun-bright overhead light. I rolled over and tried to sleep. An hour later, I noticed a weird pain in the ribs along my left side. It was a sharp burning pain. I tried to take the pressure off that side by shifting position. It didn't work. In fact the pain grew worse. Every breath sent a hot knife of pain into my chest. What did I do? Why, I ignored it of course. I like my doctor and didn't want to bug him. I know, he was on call, that's what he was there for. By the time the nurse came to give me my midnight Zofran, I decided to ask for help. She was frustrated that I'd waited so long, but moved quickly to help me. She brought me a wet-heat compress that she lay over my ribs, helped prop me off of that side with pillows, and then paged the doctor.She paged him several times before I realized he wouldn't answer and I would need to ride it out until morning.
There is never any good TV on past midnight. That, coupled with the pain, made for a very long night. Thankfully, morning comes early in hospitals.
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