Month: February 2017

Monday (tomorrow) will be two weeks since my symptoms popped up.

I wrote the last post because I did (and do) indeed feel better.  But I’m not well by any stretch.

I made it through a full day of work Thursday.  And then I came home and crashed.  I won’t say I slept for 24hrs straight, cause I didn’t, but I did a whole lot more sleeping in that span than I should have.  And had no energy at all when I was awake.

Tried to go into work Saturday, made it through an hour, came home and slept for 4hrs.

I still have massive amounts of post nasal drip going on, though almost no sinus pain.  Still coughing some, though a large portion of that may just be the post nasal drip.  My ears are still fucked all to hell though.  I’m having trouble hearing some quieter things.  And I noticed Saturday at work that I was having to concentrate on walking in a straight line.  Its not vertigo as such, but my balance is definitely off.

A couple folks at work who had the same thing told me that they spent 3 weeks from beginning to end before they really felt well.  Which isn’t comforting.  I guess I need to call my doctor again…..

Right, so last week, Tuesday, the Urgent care told me I had viral bronchitis.

Wednesday evening I added sinus infection symptoms to my list, and Thursday my doctors office was still backed up, so back to urgent care.  Still viral.  No drugs!  Well, here, have a Flonase nasal spray.  Don’t come back till its been a week or you have a fever!  On the good side of things apparently  my lungs still sounded good.

Yay.

Monday, yesterday, the large majority of the sinus infection symptoms had faded, though weren’t completely gone.  But my cough was worse, and my lungs were acting screwy, and I’d not gotten a single solid nights sleep since this started thanks to the coughing, which was only helped some by the cough suppressants.  I did however manage to score an appointment with my regular doctor.

She REALLY didn’t like the amount of fluid still in my ears (remnant of the sinus infection), but since my ears aren’t really bothering me right now decided to let it slide for now.  She didn’t like the way everything was lingering, looked disapproving when I told her no as an answer to whether they’d done a flu swab or a chest xray at urgent care.  Flu swab and chest xrays were done (both came back normal).  Since most of the symptoms were fading, and my lungs were still clear she didn’t prescribe an antibiotic, but she did give me a course of steroids and an asthma inhaler (and instructions to use it at least once a day for a couple days).

Cross fingers!

When I get really stressed my immune system gets a workout.  I know this, so I started popping Vit C and Zinc supplements to the max recommended dose a couple days after my MIL died.

Either I wasn’t fast enough, or it wasn’t enough this time.

Several of the folks who came for the funeral (including my mother) were coughing.

And of course I work retail, so if its in the community I’m exposed to it, and I specifically work a department where I’m going in and out of the cold several times a day.  I try to be sure to grab jacket and hat and gloves, but I’ll admit it doesn’t always happen.

Monday I woke up with a cough, a nice deep chesty sort of thing that feels like it’s bringing up crud (though if it was it was clear).

Tuesday morning I woke up seriously dragging ass, and headed into Urgent Care since my Doctor’s office was backed up.

Sure enough.  Viral bronchitis.  Its apparently making the rounds in the community.  And of course, unless I get a fever, or start coughing up nasty looking crud, they aren’t inclined to put me on an antibiotic.

Just what I needed.

I still need to do our taxes.  And I need to figure out what seeds I’m going to start when.  And I need to finish this woodworking project thats 90% done.  And…….

I’m going back to bed now……

Saturday morning I got a phone call from my Sister-in-law.  I’d barely sat down with my coffee, my husband was still sound asleep.  And she knows our normal schedules.

But it was indeed urgent.  Her mother, my Mother-in-law, had collapsed in the middle of my Inlaws living room.  Apparently a massive heart attack.  The EMTs were working on her.  But when I asked what hospital they were transporting to the response was “I don’t think they’re going to”.  I went to wake up my Husband, and sure enough, less than 5 minutes later we had another phone call.  They had not transported.  She had likely been gone when she hit the floor, though the EMTs did their best.

She was due to retire in June.  Age 65.  No known heart conditions other than a murmur she’d had since childhood.  She had been diagnosed with a colitis or Crohn’s or something (the doctors couldn’t make up their minds), and the doctors had been trying different drugs to try to get things under control.  Maybe she’d had an undiagnosed condition and the drugs aggravated it?  No way to know now, and no point to an autopsy.  If that had been the case the doctors had been doing their best with the information they had.

Saturday afternoon spent at the funeral home figuring out arrangements.  My Husband and his brother pretty well non-functioning, and my FIL not far behind them for all he put a good face on it.  Thankfully my SIL had picked herself up and was able to help us answer questions, cause I sure didn’t know the answer to most of the questions.

Sunday was spent sorting through her accounts and financial paperwork to figure out what had to be paid right now to keep things functioning, who had to be called right now to keep things from going bad, and who could be put off a week two.

The funeral was Tuesday.  Her family and her husband’s family are both very large (she was the youngest of 8 children), and so things were packed with cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and so on.  The family resemblance is strong, it was surprisingly easy to pick out who was from her side of the family.

Dear 2017, this really wasn’t how I wanted to start out my new year!