Feeling better... you know... after a trip to the hospital. And lemme tell you, it was more fun that I could have ever imagined. Next time, I'm calling an ambulance. I'm NOT letting my dad drive me to the hospital EVER again. Long story short, he shouldn't be driving anymore at all. On the way back from the hospital, he turned the wrong way down a one way street and didn't realize it until we almost hit another car (making for a total of FOUR near misses on the trip to and from the hospital). I thought I was going to relapse.
My blood pressure was normal, but my breaths were SUPER shallow and my heart rate was 150 by the time I got to the hospital. I was crying for various reasons, I couldn't talk and I was shaking like a leaf. I probably looked like crap, too. Oh I got my medicine alright, but I was in no condition to hold the breathey-thingie, so I had to get it through a face mask ("Wear... mask!"). That was fun. Different. Didn't make me freak out at all (I honestly don't think I could have freaked out anymore). After breathing in the medicine for a few minutes, I started to calm down and take deeper breaths and not have a white-knuckle grip on everything. My pulse was still horribly high, though. I kept trying to tell my heart to slow down once I regained the ability to speak and think clearly, heh heh.
I had to go through three doses of medicine. Through it all, I tried to watch my pulse rate on the monitor behind me. It never dropped blow a hundred; I think the lowest it went was 103 or 104. The medicine generally makes pulse speed up, though, so by the time I was discharged (about two hours after I got triaged), it was up/down -- however you want to look at it -- to 125. I got a dose of prednisone in the hospital and have to take it for the next four days, as I predicted. I also got 600mg of ibuprofen for the pain. All that coughing and my heart beating so fast and -- oh yeah -- the airway constriction and stuff made my chest hurt. It felt like a baby elephant, but an elephant was sitting on my chest nonetheless. I wasn't feeling great when I got home, but I ate a little bit and went to sleep.
Maybe it was the prednisone, maybe it was the sleep (three solid hours, and I dreamt), maybe it was both, but I feel considerably better now. It's still a little hard to breathe, and I've become softspoken so I don't over exert myself with breathing or trigger coughs. I wonder if I should bother going to Canal St. tomorrow. I might, if I feel better in the morning. My pulse is still a bit high; 104 about a minute or two after I woke up.
But you know what? My tooth feels better! ^_^ Posted a new Facebook pic. Less white boxes, more me. Normal pictures of me (that is, no costumes, no funny faces) exist, wow!
