Pneumonia and Me

This month I have been really sick. I try to hide it as much as I can but I was miserable. My family was miserable as I wasn't able to cope with day-to-day life. I gave it my all on the days I worked, but on my days off I slept. And slept, and slept. I had to set my watch to the time school was out so I would remember to pick them up. I think I ate - I lost five pounds. I know I drank a lot of orange juice.

The problem was in my chest, and in my pride. Mom says it was the lack of oxygen getting to my body that prevented me from making good decisions. I just kept thinking, I'm needed here. I don't have time to go to outpatients and sit there for four hours. And just by chance my doctor was too busy to see me.

I wasn't getting any sympathy at home; Mr. Man just complained about my coughing keeping him up at night - and the fact that there was no supper waiting for him when he got home. Well, that's not exactly true. He didn't complain, exactly, just a lot of sighing and saying "jeepers." Hot dogs and macaroni a la dad, again.

Just when I'd think I am going to see the hospital in the morning, I'd feel better. So I wouldn't go. And then the next day I was down and out. After three weeks, I was calling mom, begging her to take me to the hospital. And of course, she was busy. When I was a teenager, mom stayed at home and I never gave her the time of day. Now that I am grown up and needing her, she is working full-time, and looking after grandchildren. I missed my time. Sniff.

Finally I had a day when I was free to leave the kids, and the business and go to the hospital. Of course I was feeling better so I was determined that they would send me home with nothing. Half way there I started feeling rough again and thought, "I will seriously STRANGLE somebody if they send me home with nothing). So I practiced what I would say. I listed all my symptoms out loud, trying out a few coughs. I tried to remember all the gory details of the past three and a half weeks and I even drew some tears!

So when I went into the triage desk, what does the nurse ask me (in a REALLY thick Scottish accent)? "Why han' sha bin in befer thish?" Oops. "Because they needed me" was not a good answer all of a sudden. I got such a look and then a lecture when she found out I had asthma. Because of my grand performance (or that there were no line-ups) they took me in right away. Out comes the ventilator mask and I sit there breathing in this magnificent, yet noisy vapour that opened my closed airways. Then I was sent to X-ray. The doctor said if I had taken my inhalers properly from the beginning, I wouldn't have had so bad a time. I still felt pretty rough so I went along with him, but I knew what an asthma attack felt like, and this wasn't it. He sent me home with new puffers and a prescription for an antibiotic for my "extreme bronchitis". That night I was so sore on my left side of my back and under my arm. And I still had no strength in my voice. Mom was finally able to come and take care of me the next day, and while we were out grocery shopping, the hospital called and said after looking at the X-rays again, you have what looks like pneumonia in your left lung. As mom cheers, "I knew it!" and pumps the air, I have a sense of satisfaction that I have something serious and worthy of being cared for. And I instantly felt better (in my mind).

A few days earlier, I sat up in bed and spoke to God. "I know you've never come through the way I want you to when it comes to my health, EVER, but I am going to ask anyway. Could you please end this? I am worn out, the family's worn out, and I need to feel better." I guess He answered my prayer this time - the way I wanted Him to. I was still really stupid to push myself that far, and I can't say I won't do it again, but I sure am glad that in a week it will all be over. Tonight I had enough energy to make a big pot of spaghetti sauce, listen to my son read through his homework, and clean the kitchen afterward. No hot dogs for a long time...