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Pneumonia – Round Two

Posted on April 17, 2016 by under Health, Life.    

You may or may not have known this but I spent last Sunday at the ER because of pneumonia. This is my second brush with it. The first time was in December 2014. I was so glad when I managed to get through this last holiday season without pneumonia because I’d heard that after you get it you become predisposed to it. Now that I’ve had pneumonia a second time, I see what they mean.

I hadn’t been feeling well for a while but I didn’t realize how sick I really was. The problem with me is I’m such a workaholic that I tend to overestimate my health and underestimate how sick I am because I hate missing work. I’d been traveling a lot for work the last few weeks and so I thought I was just exhausted from all of the traveling but I did think it was really weird that I was running out of breath really quickly.

For instance, just getting on and off the plane was making me out of breath. And, when we were at Laclede in St. Louis and we had to walk across the street to their other building, I also felt out of breath. It seemed really strange to me that I was constantly running out of breath.

Because I’m a crazy person who doesn’t like missing work, I pretty much continued on like normal. We arrived back from St. Louis late on Wednesday night, and then I worked for about an hour before bed, and I got up early the next morning to be in Topeka by 8:30 AM the next day. I could have taken the meetings via video conference but (a) it’s better to attend in person and (b) the customer relations and key accounts group had a very important quarterly meeting (it was a celebration of Coleen’s retirement and Terry’s final one). I wanted to pop in for that even for just a few minutes.

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Here’s a selfie of Coleen and me. Don’t mind the raccoon eyes. It was kind of an emotional meeting. I don’t think I was the only teary-eyed person there.

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Anyway, I wanted to be back in Wichita by 5:30 PM to make the PowerGEN mixer but I didn’t end up leaving Topeka until after 3:30 PM. We still had to take care of the dogs and return the company car back to the office so Brian and I didn’t make the mixer until 6:30 PM or so. I’m so glad we went though because it was a great turnout.

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I went to work on Friday but it was a blur, probably because I was so out of it. Fast forward to Saturday… After teaching my Zumba Fitness class on Saturday morning, Brian and I had lunch at Asian Bistro because I felt like pho would make me feel better. The broth usually helps to open up my chest and soothe the congestion.

I really didn’t feel well so I went to bed in the “sick room” immediately after we got home from lunch. Slept in the “sick room” instead of our bedroom because Brian had stripped the bed to wash the sheets.

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BTW, the “sick room” is the guest bedroom next to our office which is the room that grandma stays in whenever she’s with us. Jenni also stays in this room on occasion. It’s the room with the most comfortable bed in the house. I’m calling it the “sick room” because it’s usually the room I end up in whenever I’m sick. The last time I had pneumonia, I stayed in the “sick room” for a few days. Brian put one of our cameras in the room and just kept a watchful eye over me.

But I digress… We had it on the calendar to clean the living room, dining room, and kitchen this weekend because our neighbors Jim and Karen would be staying with us on Monday night. Since I was sick, I was completely worthless and of no help to Brian. Brian did all the cleaning himself. He even did the laundry, which is my job. He did all of this while I slept in the “sick room.”

He did check on me a few times and determined that I wasn’t running a fever. After doing housework, he spent the rest of the evening playing video games downstairs (I can’t complain; he earned his video game time that weekend) until I got up to move to our bedroom and was finally ready for bed.

I pretty much spent the entire day on Sunday in bed while Brian did errands and mowed the lawn. I did get up briefly to eat lunch (Brian made us ham sandwiches) but then wen’t back to bed. Later in the afternoon Brian took a shower and was getting ready for bowling. I really wasn’t feeling well and so I just slept the entire time without showering even after my Zumba class on Saturday. That’s gross, I know. I smelled bad and was feeling gross so I decided to get up and shower also. I ended coughing violently while in the shower and vomitted my lunch (in addition to the ham sandwich, I had BBQ flavored potato chips, chocolate cake, and ice cream) so you can imagine how putrid and brown the shower floor was. It kind of looked like I pooped a diarrhea poop in the shower. But I was grateful it was just in the shower because I was able to wash all of that gross stuff down the drain. The violent puking shook me so much that my head hurt. I really didn’t want to go to the ER but I didn’t want to miss work this week so I finally caved and asked Brian to take me.

When we got to the ER, they found I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and gave me a breathing treatment which helped tremendously. They also checked my temperature and got 100.4 which was a surprise to me because Brian told me that I didn’t have a fever.

When the nurse left, Brian was like, “You should ask them to take your temperature again because you could be hot from just getting out of the shower.”

They got 100.7 the second time around. I had a fever after all. I guess no one is perfect. LOL. As wonderful as Brian is, he isn’t a doctor.

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Anyway, I got the same ER doc this time that I had the last time when I had pneumonia but he didn’t remember me. I suppose enough time has passed and he does see a lot of people (or I’m simply not that memorable). The crappiest part about the whole ER visit was that they had to stick me seven times to draw blood and attach my IV.

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The whole getting blood drawn bit is always so traumatic because my veins never want to cooperate. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been through it, I will never get used to its unpleasantness.

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Brian figured that I would have some massive bruising as a result. He was right. These are what my arms looked like after five days. Even today the bruises are still there. I know that the bruises will eventually go away but it’s taking a while.

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The crappiest part about getting pneumonia over the weekend is that we missed Rune’s birthday celebration on Saturday and Jay’s birthday celebration on Sunday. I didn’t get to teach my Sunday Zumba class (huge thanks to Charis for subbing) and we missed Tulip Time at Bartlett Arboretum and the season opening of Old Cowtown Museum. We obviously missed bowling because we were at the ER instead. And, I also missed spending time with my little sister. I hate being sick because I always end up missing out on so much stuff.

The ER doctor prescribed some good stuff. Besides the breathing treatment, they gave me some steroids through my IV. I also got some strong antibiotics. It sucked that I’ve been on medication all week (just finished my last one yesterday) but I think it really did help because I’m feeling tons better. I could tell I was feeling better because I actually managed to have a great time while I was away on business this past week.

Check back in a few days for a recap of my most recent work trip, which I consider to be my best work trip ever.

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