Lupus and Lungs

Life here with LuAnne and Lupus has been very eventful.  For the past four weeks I have been very ill.

I picked something up when Gary and I went to visit my great nieces and nephews.  I can't resist spending time with those little folks.  Three great nieces and two great nephews.  Included in this are a set of twin girls.  And, being so adorable I cannot say no to hugging and cuddling them.  This comes with a great price on my part. 

If you are a "normal" person and you catch a cold, maybe you are sick for two or three days.  But when you are like me and have a chronic illness colds do not only last three days.   Oh yes, it started out as a little cases of the sniffles but that was short lived.  Within two days I was running a fever and hacking my lungs up.

A call to the doctor was all I thought I needed to do.  Antibiotics were prescribed with me promising to stop in and get a chest X-Ray.

Anyway, I could keep rambling here.  But the way things turned out is that I developed a raging case of pneumonia.  Three weeks into this (and three different antibiotics, steroids and various codene cough syrups) I was not getting any better.  I really did think that I would be able to shake this off but to my dismay I couldn't.  Last Saturday morning I got worse.  The coughing was out of control.  Plus I had developed a temp of 103 and the most horrid headache. 

Then I could not catch my breath.  Pretty scary really.  But I tried to wait to wake Gary up because I knew he was so tired and his back was hurting him.  At around 8ish I woke him up and gasped "Call 911!"  Everything after that happened so quickly.  I don't remember much of the ambulance trip nor do I recall the ER.  

I eventually found out that the little thingie they put on your finger said that I was breathing in 87% on 3 liters of oxygen.  Off the oxygen I could not catch my breath.  I was admitted.

I spent 5 nights there.  Breathing O2, getting breathing treatments and IV meds.   I don't know if any of you have been on high dose IV steroids and albuteral ever but it doesn't make for a nice emotional wellbeing feeling.   I was crawling out of my skin.

Well, I am home now and still not great.  But much better than I was.  I'm still taking steroids and antibiotics.  The doctor said this is going to take a while for me to recuperate from.  I was in a bad state. 

Welcome to lungs and lupus.

Throughout all of this my hubby has been there for me.  He has conforted me.  Consoled me.  Put up with my moods.  Played go between with doctors and nurses.  There are no words to thank him.  But as he says, "In sickness and in health".