The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Pneumonia

Scratch that – there is NOTHING good about pneumonia….I was diagnosed early Sunday morning at the ER with pneumonia….but it started way before that.

Three weeks ago I was diagnosed with a sinus infection – I took my antibiotics and the day after I stopped I was congested again and now it was in my chest. I went back to the doctor and was diagnosed with bronchitis, but they did not think I needed an antibiotic so they sent me home with steroids and an inhaler. Four days later was Friday – soccer night – and I was feeling so badly there was no way I could play, so I had to cancel. Saturday morning I got up, thinking I was feeling better and headed to the James McLean Memorial Golf Tournament to help with the golf tournament that was benefiting HomeTown Heroes.

By the time all the players had signed up and were on their way, I was beat, so I took a seat until Stacy arrived.

After the tournament was over I really felt bad and went home and napped for 2.5 hours. I never do that! When I woke up, I was coughing, hard…it was ugly really. Seriously. I was contemplating going to the ER, but kept putting it off. By 1:00 am I felt like I had a weight on my chest and headed to the ER.

Once there, they got me comfortable, but the first thing they want to do is hook you up to an IV and take blood. Well….they couldn’t find my vein, and this is the lovely ouchy they sent me home with.

After looking at the xray the doc was concerned I might have some sort of clot near my heart or lungs because my heart rate was so high. Maybe it was so high because I was coughing my head off? At any rate, they called for a CT scan, which I really didn’t want to do, but I didn’t really have a choice in order to figure out what was wrong with me. I have never had one…and really don’t want to have another. Ever.

The doctor comes in, “You have pneumonia.” Great. Just Great. They filled me up on IV fluids and an IV antibiotic, sent me home with an antibiotic and told me if I didn’t get any better come back. I still didn’t feel well and I still felt like I had someone sitting on my chest, but I made it out to my car and home again. At this point, I had now been up over 24 hours.

For the next 4 days I hardly slept I was coughing so hard. In 4 days I had a total of 7 hours sleep. I was miserable from coughing, from being tired, from feeling like someone had run over me, then backed over me for good measure.

But, during that time, my husband and kids took great care of me. My Dad and sister were constantly checking on me, my friends were sending me well wishes, and one of my neighbors even sent food over!

Betsy even spent her own money on me to get me this:

Today I think I am feeling better, but I never want to have pneumonia again. It has made me take a look at my lifestyle, what I eat, what I should be eating, and more. Not that changing any of that can guarantee I won’t get pneumonia again, but it puts me in a better position immunity wise.

So, I guess there was good that came out of it after all!