The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

Ella woke up five times last night, screaming “Mama sick, mama hurts!” Tonight has been quieter, but it is only 10:30, there is a whole lot of night still to go. My sweet girl - she has nightmares about Swiper the Fox on a regular basis, so I feel horrible that she was in the room when I went into full “I can’t breath” panic mode. In the midst of the ordeal, I was more upset that she was sitting alone on the Dr’s office exam table, wide eyed and scared, than I was that I was about to black out. Thank goodness we were there and not at home though.

It’s been weeks that I have been coughing, and in the last 4 or 5 days I had gotten to the point where I would cough until I was so out of breath that i would have to put down the baby out of fear of dropping her because my arms were tingling. But still, I blamed it on ‘just allergies’. Tom finally convinced me to call my doctor yesterday morning, because I had kept everyone in the house awake with my constant choking cough, but of course they could not get me in until Friday.  They recommended I call the nurse hotline for my insurance, where they asked me “How impacted is your breathing, from 1-10?” and I had to honestly answer a 6 or 7. The nurse, who had been rather bored with me until then, told me to go to the ER right away, which I rolled my eyes about. Pshaw, I just can’t breathe, no biggie. Tom was shocked that I wasn’t taking it seriously, and bargained with me to go to an Urgent Care place down the road instead.

Have you been to an Urgent Care center? I don’t know that I had ever seen one until the last few years, but now there are at least three within a five minute drive from my house. There was no way I could drive, so Tom packed a diaper bag and away we all went. The one we went to was next to a restaurant, and was a clean, quiet lobby with only a few people waiting to see the doctor. I was by far the sickest person there, and I felt bad coughing and choking over in the corner, while my baby yelled and my husband tried his best to keep the toddler from licking all the magazines.

In the waiting room I felt my chest constrict more, and could only get one or two breaths in between the coughing fits, which lasted around half a minute. I mentioned to Tom at one point that I didn’t know if I could walk, which scared him into asking when we could see the doctor. A minute later they had me in a patient room, and I sat in a chair on one side of the room while Tom and the girls were sitting on the exam table, playing with stickers. I started coughing, and then I just could not get air into my lungs - it felt like someone had their hands wrapped around my neck, and I felt my body go into fight or flight mode (which was ridiculous since either of those choices require working lungs). I was crying, but just these squeaking sobs could come out, and I closed my eyes and felt my face going numb.

The doctor walked into the room at that moment and, looking at his clipboard, started asking me routine questions until he actually looked at me and yelled for a nurse. They propped me up and started a breathing treatment right away, but it wasn’t for another couple minutes before I stopped shaking and could look over at Ella. Tom was holding Alice in one arm and holding my hand with the other, so Ella was alone, across the room, watching two nurses and a doctor holding a mask up to my face, telling me to take deep breaths (which felt like a cruel joke). I couldn’t really talk, but I shooed Tom towards her and tried to stop crying because I knew that was the part that was upsetting her the most. The doctor mentioned needing to give me a steroid shot if I didn’t improve soon,  but about half way through the first breathing treatment I was able to take a full breath, so he recommended I stay and have two more treatments (with different medications) and then follow up with an inhaler at home every two hours for 24 hours, and then every four hours after that. Ella crawled up on my lap towards the end, and gave me kisses to “Help mama feel better? Kisses help?”

Today has been a lot better - I am still coughing, but it isn’t a “punch in the chest” kind of cough, and I am am not wheezing. Alice is starting to act sick, so we took her to her pediatrician who we love, and he assured us that right now she is okay. He also listened to my lungs for me again, and told me he thinks I will live, so that is a plus. I got a 5 hour nap in this afternoon while Tom cleaned the entire house, despite the fact that he is working an insane shift lately and should have been sleeping himself.

So, that is the long drawn out story about how I need to not be such a putz and take care of myself. I am much too tired to proofread, so let’s put this in the “posted in haste” category, aye?