Long Night

What a trooper.

I've been suffering from shortness of breath lately and have been feeling a generalized sense of sickness even though nothing in particular seemed wrong. So when last night I started breathing hard out of nowhere, Jay decided to take me to the hospital. Now, I've mentioned before somewhere that Cook County is where you go to die. But that's where I ended up going because that's the place for people who don't have insurance.

When we first got there they sent me to a special room for asthmatics since I had the shortness of breath. But the doctor became slightly stumped when he found out I was short of breath but that all my vitals were fine and I wasn't wheezing or congested. So he decided to take a urinalysis. And we found out I have an infection (goddammit). They pulled some blood samples and when they did I had a FIT and started hyperventilating and shaking. I probably scared the crap out of that poor nurse. Then they moved me onto a random bed in a hallway and hooked me up to an IV with saline solution to try to stop the shortness of breath. I kept asking for Jay so my nurse personally went out into the waiting room and got him, which was around 3:00 am. He stayed by my side until after 11:00 this morning, even through the continous IV treatments, blood sugar tests, and chest x-rays.

That's why I said what a trooper. Poor guy had been up early yesterday, up all day, didn't get any sleep last night due to my tossing and turning and lack of air, stayed up in the hospital til this morning fully awake refusing to leave my side even though I kept telling him to go take a nap AND even though he almost got kicked out for not having a visitor pass. And even after we finally left the hospital he refused to go home but instead took me to IHOP just because I mentioned having a taste for pancakes.

I'm doing a little better now but I've still got this generalized laziness and fatigue that lasted since yesterday morning, plus a nagging consistent headache. I gotta go back tomorrow to get my medicine (vitamins, antibiotics, and albuterol for the asthma) and luckily I don't work again until Saturday so hopefully by then I'll be feeling a little better.

I just found it so odd that I came into the hospital expecting to get a puff or two of an inhaler and being able to go right back home and ended up finding out I have an infection that's causing me to feel bad and would have only gotten worse had they not found it.

Modern medicine is amazing.