From the Emergency room to the ICU...I almost didnt make it!

[kahala]

Thurs august 30th in the morning i drove myself to the ER my fever, shakes, chills, bad cough, they wouldnt go away, they started 4 days earlier. They'd go away then come back. When i got to the ER my temp was 97.5, 2 hrs later it was 101.4. And of course i had a urinary tract infection as well so I couldnt get any strong antibotics. I got an iv, blood drawn 4 times & an xray that cam out clean...but when it came to my whiteblood cell count which was 37,000 the ER doctor was baffled cause the normal count is 12,000! He admitted me overnight to the oncology dept.  

So i get to encology, im shievering, have the chills, im having difficulty brething, my fevers 99.8, take a 20 min nap, I wake up my fevers 103! That stupid ass nurse, i coulda shot him, heated my bed & gave me a warm blanket cause my fever was going down. All my vital signs are failing the doctor studies me and does everything but alert the hospital of a code red. Rushes me to the ICU, of course not w/out sticking me with some more needles. They had done whats called a blood gas where its looks like a shot but they actually drawblood out from u via shot, i f*cking got six times with that godamn needle (and the middle of my left arm had had it there was no more blood so from then on the bloodsuckers go to the veins in my hands). Friday morning the xrays reveiled pnemomia in 2 areas of my left lung and 1 area in my right lung and later bloodtests reveal i have ecoli bacteria in my bloodstream! Ive had so much help and support, 1/2 of the time my boyfriend and his mom watched my son. That fri night i wake up in the icu to see my sister and brother from hawaii their who helped the other 1/2 of the time. Morning noon or night, i was never alone. My mom, sister slept beside me, my crazy aunts visited me, my uncle drove up from LA. The icu wasnt a fun place 2 be in, although the nurses did respond alot faster to ur calls. Catheder, wonderful ivs (i had so many needles poked in2 this 1 vein that when they tried to put an iv in their it might have well have been vinegar, it hurt so much), the whole time i was in the hospital i think i got 10 shots in my stomach to prevent bloodcots & to losen up my lungs. Doctors, nurses, family telling me to cough, spit it out, breath deep got a little frustrating. My lungs, muscles, throat were already in so much pain. The main thing i was concentrating on was breathing they way i wanted to breath, wether they were deep long breaths or not i didnt care. But i tried really hard cause i didnt want to be hooked up to a vitals machine where they stick a tube into ur lungs and the mucus gets sucked out for u. I spent 4 days in the ICU and another 2 days back in encology. Thru out icu & encology my fever would spike. 99.0 to 102.8, would go back to 100, then to 99, then it would shot up to 103. The highest it got was 104.

Seeing my little boy while in the hospital was very difficult. My mom told me not to cry it would only upset him and I. When i returned back 2 encology His words to me were, hi mommy, u feel better mommy? I miss u mommy. Tears started streaming down my face and of course i started coughing, my brother and sister took him my son to the waiting room my boyfrind & talked. Told me how scared he was, how much he loves me. My son came back to say goodbye w/ his little wave and poutty mouth, i started 2 cry again.

I finally made it home yesterday. I look like a fricken heroin addict, not quite their, I dont feel quite their yet either. I have these needles track all over my arms, stomach. I had ivs in 4 different places, the most i had going at once were 2, one 1 hurt like hell, and one gradually became painful. I still hate needles. I feel alot better but am still pretty weak. My legs arent as strong and pretty dizzy. Three different doctors decided what was best to make me better: an infectious disease specialist, lung specialist and a doc that deals with internal meds. 1 doctor told my mom how close we came to losing her and how 30% of the people who got the kind of pnemonia i had dont make it. I dodged so many bullets: the vitals machine & having to get a blood transfusion! If my white blood cell count hadnt have gone down i would have had 2. My immune system is shot now, im so scared of getting a cold or anything, back to the er 4 me! And lastly of course since ive taken soooo many antibotics i have a yeast infection in that area. I also had it on my bottom & tongue so for awhile it hurt 2 eat, but all better now. Now im just waiting for the sky to fall on me! 

**After 1 gets really sick u find out who ur real friends are - my family. I sent out texts messages to cafemomers in my area whose # i had, who i had met b4 and know, whom i was supposedly "close 2", journals, cafemom messages to all my cafemom friends to tell them what had happened 2 me...nothing!!!!! No 1 has come to visit me, since i got back from the hospital. Ive gotton the same message over and over again 'so sorry to hear', 'hope u feel better'. Of course the few cafemomer friends ive gotten really close to live no where near me. That always seems to happen. I have fully recovered, I just feel so hurt.