Meet my New Friend Pneumonia

So you may have noticed that last week I never finished blogging about Paris over on travbuddy.com and if you've sent me emails or called me you've gotten no response.

In my defense: pneumonia. double pneumonia even.

I'm way too tired to type this out all over again so im just going to copy and paste my IM conversation with my coworker today.

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maria: how are you feeling?
me: hi maria. i am able to get out of bed so that is good. today i am trying 30+ minute stints sitting up
maria: wow.
do you have good drugs? or is it viral pneumonia?
me: its been so wierd. ive never been so sick ever.
so basically
maria: pneumonia will slam you.
me: i felt like i had bronchitis last week so i went to my dr who said yeah looks like it and thew some amoxicillian my way and cough suppres and inhaler and told me to rest for like 3 days at home
but fri i felt like a truck hit me. i couldnt breathe i couldnt stand up really and my fever was 103.5 all day
so i got scared and called the dr and she said oh no go to er immediately
:(
maria: I figured since they sent you to the ER it was pneumonia.
(I have kids... been there.)
me: yeah so they diagnosed me immediately with pneumonia in both lungs -i had all 4 of the classic signs- the crackling, the shortness of breathe the fever and the spots on the xray (spots look cool)
they gave me iv which was good cause i hadnt eaten all day, anti-nausea in the iv, oxygen
and antibiotics
they watched me for a few hours to see if they could stabalize temp- and they could keep it at 102 or less with tylenol- so they said they dont admit adults anymore who have a spouse and stable vital signs id get better at home instead of in the hospital
i guess thats good?
(not for jon though. he was miserable having to take care of me.)
fri eve i seemed stable to me. not worse not better.
by mid sat i felt worse. like i could breathe a little better, like the antibiotics were working, but my body was so tired. i could barely lift my chest to cough it was just too much. and without the anti-nausea meds i couldnt keep anything down
i didnt eat any food, nothing, from friday until last night.
just water
maria: it will take you a very long time to get completely well.
weakness and lots of coughing for quite a while.
me: sat night we almost went back to the er b/c i went back up to 104 and had a wierd side effect today i feel like i can breathe better
so im following my recovery steps
when you can breathe better, supposed to sit up more, take short walks out of bed.
my fever is down. i am only coughing every 15 minutes unless i talk
maria: any ideas why you got this?
me: i tackled going downstairs to get a bowl of cereal and i did ok going down but coming up was bad.
no- i find out the blood results
which bacteria caused this- tomorrow when i got for 2nd chest xray
to followup
they just knew it was bacterial b/c that presents differently than viral
maria: ...this is awful... but with all your plane travel I kept thinking SARS.
me: but i dont know which till i see results
lol i dunno about SARS. i thought TB personally.
maria: ah!
me: TB pnemonia is a possibility. but i dunno because TB is supposed to be much harder to get better
so anyway i ate a bowl of cereal today. miracle diet - lose 10 pounds in 3 days-with pnuemonia!
maria: I don't recommend the pneumonia diet.
me: so i am sad b/c i got online b/c you know i am inquisitive. and i googled pnuemonia recovery and it says the same thing the doctor does
it could be a month before im up and normal and driving everywhere and being me
maria: yup.
me: well at least my job is mostly mental labor. seems i can do more and more of that each day hopefully starting tomorrow after dr clears me
maria: no reason to leave your house for work.
me: i just dunno when i can go back to the office. it says to wear a mask outside in cold air. sounds stupid. something about risk of secondary infections is high
and avoid stairs and long walks and etc for who knows how long
it says a lot of people have like 4 good days and then relapse b/c they don't follow recovery steps right. slowly.Also, I've never blown all my sick leave the first month of the year before.

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