If you haven’t been boycotting me you’ve probably wondered where the hell I got off to.
Christmas Eve day I started coming to grips with the fact that I was getting a cold. I didn’t feel all that horrible though, and thought I was going to shrug it off.
Note: That is known as “foreshadowing”.
By the end of Christmas Eve I was feeling pretty crappy with bloody sinuses and a sore throat that went all the way down.
By Christmas day I felt worse.
And for the rest of the week up until Saturday, I was worse. All the colors of the rainbow came out of my lungs and sinuses.
Saturday I asked Cruel Wife to take me to urgent care since my inhaler wasn’t doing a damn bit of good. They gave me a nebulizer treatment to help with my breathing and prescribed… a nebulizer. Like I can find one of those at 5pm on a Saturday or Sunday. But I felt a little better even if I did look like hell – serious dark circles under my eyes, pale, lethargic. Oh, did I mention that I also have a case of pinkeye in both eyes? Yes. I’m not making that up.
Sunday night (last night), around 9pm:
“Uh, CW… I need you take me to the ER… NOW.”
I couldn’t get a breath that seemed like it was enough. I was dizzy as hell. And I felt just as sick or sicker than I did on Christmas Eve.
So, CW packaged up the kids and rushed me to the hospital where I was admitted for IV fluids, X-rays (which loosened some of the phlegm in my lungs), donated about 2 pints for blood work, etc.
They prescribed a nebulizer treatment on the spot and later came in to ask if the nebulizer was helping. I said “Well, bad news is I’m still sick. Good news is I don’t feel like dying quite as strongly.”
White blood count was up a bit so they gave me some antibiotics, finished off the IV drip, Rx for some Tylenol 3 so I can finally get some sleep w/o coughing non-stop, and some gunk that sure makes it easier to cough up the crap that has been nailing me. When the nurse was describing what they were going to prescribe he got to the stuff that helps you clear your lungs out a bit better and I said “I will kiss your feet if that stuff works.” Nearly had a tear in my eye.
So I got a nebulizer for home this morning and have been taking it easy. Like I have any choice as to being active.
I haven’t been hit this hard by a flu/cold since the swine flu. Geez. I got three days of vacation and nine days of what was going to be the rest of my vacation knocked flat on my ass. Wah-hoo.
Merry frickin’ New Year. May it be a damn sight better than the last one.
