Coughing Up a Lung
So remember how I wrote last week that I was feeling funky? I took a sick day Thursday and then was off Friday and felt almost normal. Saturday I started feeling bad again and I was running a fever, which topped out at around 102 that night. Sunday night my fever hit 103.8 and I had a splitting headache that would not go away so the hubby called my doctor first thing this morning and we headed over at 10. My head was still pounding and I had had a dry cough since Saturday. I felt like I had the flu; that was the only thing I could compare it to. They ran tests including bloodwork, which won’t even be ready until tomorrow, and the physician’s assistant prescribed an antibiotic primarily used to treat tick borne illnesses. He asked me twice if I’d found a tick on myself recently and I told him no, but apparently my symptoms were similar to Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Awesome. But it gets better.
We went home around 11 and I called my boss and curled up in bed. I was freezing even though it’s 90 plus degrees here. I then started burning up and could tell it was getting worse by the second. Took my temp and it was over 104! So I started to panic a little a lot but the hubby, God love him, was still home and we headed for the emergency room. There was talk of meningitis (yikes), but the ER physician ordered chest x-rays first. And that’s when they realized I have pneumonia in the lower portion of my left lung. No wonder I feel like dog poop on a cracker! They gave me an IV bag of fluids and of an antibiotic and potassium and Tylenol. I’ve been in bed here at home for an hour and a half and I’m actually a little hungry despite the worst coughing jag ever a few minutes ago and feeling like I had literally coughed up my lung. And now my headache is back. I’m very thankful I don’t have Lyme Disease or Meningitis, but only I would get pneumonia in July.
Oh, and ladies be sure to wear your “good” bra to the ER in case you need chest x-rays and then your every day bra gets hung up on your IV tubing and you end up hiding it under your blanket because you don’t really want your bra waving around like a flag.
p.s. Special thanks to our families (including my sister who works at the hospital where we headed to the ER) who have offered everything from picking up food to watching the girls. Thank God for daycare this week.
