Hotel Hospital

OK! Let me just fill you all in. On Friday I felt kind of crappy. Coughing more, the stuff I coughed up was thick and sludgey. So I called the CF clinic and they called in oral antibiotics (abx) for me. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go get them that day. I had an appointment in the morning and then worked late, so the pharmacy was closed when I got off work. The plan was to pick them when I got off work on Saturday.

About an hour before my shift was over I started having some pretty bad pain in my left lung. It got worse and worse so I called the on call pulmonary doc. He said to come to the ER so they could make sure that I didn't have a blood clot or a collapse. So I came in, got some pain meds, a chest xray, and a CT. The imaging showed a big blob of infection in my lung that they said was plugging up my airways. Pneumonia in a nut shell. So they gave me a dose of the abx I had been perscribed, and strict orders to go pic up my scrips the next day. I also got some percocet to take home.

On Sunday morning I woke up early still in pain. So I got up, took half a percocet to start with, updated everyone on the CF forums on what happened, and when the perc kicked in I went back to bed. I slept for a few more hours and when I woke up I was in more pain than ever. I seriously considered calling 911 it hurt so bad. But they would have taken me to Providence hospital and then I would have had to fight with them to get transfered to the UW. So I called the on call doc again who said he was going to look at my CT and call me back. In the mean time I started calling around to find someone to take me in. I wanted to be admitted since they could keep my pain under control and get me my meds. I knew there was no way I could deal with it at home. The doc called me back and said that I could be admitted.

So I got some stuff packed and came back to the ER. I was dehydrated because I really didn't drink anything all morning because I felt so bad. So they had a hard time getting an IV going, but finally got one on the 4th try. It was in a weird spot though and was hurting me so I asked for them to start a new one once I got some fluid into me. They gave me some meds and got the fluids running as fast as they could to get me hydrated. I hung out for a while and then some students from the medical team came to start the admission process. Which mostly consisted of a bunch of questions.

After a couple hours they had a bed ready for me and moved me up stairs. I was feeling pretty crappy by this time and asked for more pain meds and something for nausea. I eventually got both and started to feel better. I ordered some fruit and it tasted really good. I always want cold and wet stuff when I'm not feeling well, and the fruit hit the spot. Nothing eventful happened for the rest of the night.

Yesterday I still felt pretty bad. The docs came in to check me over, I had CPT, and walked around as much as I felt like. They pumped me full of every antibiotic known to man it seems like. I'm on IV vanco, cipro, and ceftaz. I'm taking oral zithro, and inhaling tobi. So that is 5 antibiotics in all. They really wanted to cover everything I guess. Last night after my CPT session I started coughing and I spit up a huge glob of crap. They wanted a sputum sample so I gave them a mother of one.

Today I fell quite a bit better, and I think a lot of is from coughing up that glob last night. I think it was part of the plugging. My pain is over a much smaller area, not the whole lobe. They talked about sending me home today but I said I think another day. I don't want to push my luck. I would hate to end up back here. Here I can rest and let someone else deal with my meds and bring me my food. I don't have to cook, I can fall asleep whenever I want without having to worry about starting an IV on time. So I think I should go home tomorrow. YAY!!! My kitty misses me and I miss her.