I drove myself to the E.R. Sunday morning when it was apparent I was getting worse, not better. After aspirating some food the night Navy came to town, I had felt ok, but I could still feel a little piece of something in my lung. Two days after that I developed a nasty cough, and my lungs started producing fluid. When I was coughing the mucus was forming bubbles in my throat and suffocating me, so I picked myself up out of bed, and drove. The hospital isn't far from where I live, and I struggled to check in because speaking was so difficult and the poor receptionist couldn't understand a word I was saying. My voice was weak and thick, and so the process was slow. I came prepared, knew the names of my medications, and had a mental list of the answers I knew I'd need. I got a room quickly and didn't have to wait long for the doctor to come in to see me. The frustrating part is that right before I cough, I can feel my breath start to rattle because fluid has dislodged itself. But when I'm not coughing, my breathing sounds fine, so it took them a minute to hear what they needed to hear, and I was sitting there with that stupid stethoscope on me for ages. I was then scheduled for a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia, which also didn't take long. The E.R. was pretty quiet, and so I was speeding through what normally was a five hour process for me. Back in my room I lay watching TV, hacking up a lung every other minute or two. Probably 45 minutes or so later they came back and said that I was probably developing pneumonia, but I didn't have it yet. Joy. But it was hard to tell if it was viral or because of the food I breathed in, so they called a pulmonologist for me to go see. What I don't understand is, its a freaking hospital, how do they not have the ability to check my lungs themselves? Why do I have to go somewhere else days later??? Whatever. So I was given a prescription that would tell my brain I didn't need to cough and went and got it filled. It works for about maybe an hour tops before wearing off, and I can only take it three times a day. So for about three hours a day, I get relief. I can't even sleep because the coughing won't let me get to OR stay asleep. The EDS makes it worse, every cough tears at my chest and throat, and I'm already stressing the muscles in my abdomen. The last time I had pneumonia I ripped my abdominal muscles from all the coughing. Oh, the best part? Still choking on mucus. Yep. Every 20 minutes or so I'm fighting to breathe. This is just SO much fun.
Odds are I'm going to lose my job over this, which is the LAST thing I need... so when I get better I'll need to make a few phone calls...
Oh, funny story, I was told that I could work part time and get supplemental income for being disabled. SO not true. You have to be unemployed to get assistance. What kind of bullshit is that? What if I wanna work, but I can't work full time and make enough money to get by? I'm so frustrated I don't even know how to describe it. All I see is medical debt mounting and no end or help in sight...
