(IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING, BUT IS STILL VERY TL;DR.)
I. HATE. IVs.
For those of you who don't know, I've been sick for the past week and a half. First I thought it was just allergies; then I thought it was a cold. It started out as heavy-duty nasal congestion and a headache, but eventually those symptoms went away and became coughing- I've been unable to take a deep breath without starting to cough- and pressure in the ears caused by sinuses. Also, I had practically NO appetite; all I had eaten over the past two days was some Pirate's Booty, two pieces of cinnamon-raisin toast, and a tiny bag of trail mix for dinner the previous night, and an even tinier bag of Goldfish for lunch that day. So yesterday, after much prodding from my parents, I decided to let my mom take me to Urgent Care, which is basically a rather frightening way of saying "a health care facility where you don't have to make an appointment to see somebody, blah blah blah."
What I expected to hear was, "Oh, you have a bad cold with a lot of congestion and sinus pressure etc., here's some antibiotics k. C:"
What I actually ended up hearing was, "OMG THIS IS SERIOUS ********' BUSINESS!"
...Well, not REALLY, but you get what I mean. D:
So I got to a room after some waiting and a Physician's Assistant (or PA- I never actually saw a doctor-doctor the entire time I was there, which is not to say the PAs don't know their s**t, and besides, they were actually really busy) came into the room to check me out a bit. Blood pressure, the whole deal. (No one weighed me the entire time, which I was happy about. >_> wink She took a listen to my lungs and noted that I had a lot of wheezing, so she decided that she was going to give me an oral treatment for that and then some IV STEROIDS! Which made me do a double take. I had never gotten an IV treatment before, and I HAAAATE needles. Also, my veins are small/hard-to-find/ROLLING, which means that they see the needle coming and dodge it. D: Definitely not fun.
For the bronchial dilator (the oral treatment,) they had a (cuuuute) nurse come in and hook some kind of little air pump up to a wall. Actually, before she did that she gave me a little breathing test to see what my current lung capacity was. It was pretty low. D: So then I got the dilator, which was basically a liquid inside a mouthpiece, that was being converted to a vapor by the air-pump. All in all, not too bad. I don't really like having to just sit in one place and take deep breaths over and over, but whatever. Then came the IV! OH IV. At least the nurse took heed of our warnings and did NOT go hunting in my arm for the vein; she went straight to the back of my hand, which is what had to be done to get my blood drawn a while ago.
Needles hurt. ;_; IVs are uncomfortable. That's what this experience has taught me. I got more and more jittery as time passed, because even though the pain faded after a while it still felt awful, and my hand was getting cold from just sitting there, but I couldn't DO anything about it because there was an IV IN MY HAND. Dx It was a small bag of fluid, at least, so it only took ten or fifteen minutes to empty.
Now, let me remind you that the UC was BUSY last night. I was lucky that I had been treated as fast as I had been up until that point. After the IV emptied, the nurse came back and unhooked me from the IV-- LEAVING THE NEEDLE IN MY HAND, of course. Which was a great touch. (I'm really not mad at her, 'cause she was very nice, but the whole experience did not make me very happy. D:~) She came back after a couple of minutes and removed the needle, then left again. So I waited. And waited.
And waited.
The PA came back. She listened to my lungs again and was surprised that I was still wheezing. So she gave me ANOTHER oral treatment, and announced that I was going to have a chest X-ray. OH BOY. Now, the first oral treatment hadn't been all THAT bad; it left me with a sort of nasty taste in my mouth, but aside from that, it was tolerable. This was just more of the same, but by this time my lungs were a bit more tired, and I was REALLY sick of this s**t. We had been sitting in that room for almost two hours and I wanted to go home. It was not good tiems. D: So I took the treatment; it tasted even worse this time, and no one came to take it away for a GOOD long while, so after about five minutes I began to suspect that I was just breathing in condensation from my own breath. Dx
Eventually the nurse came to take the air thing away, and after some MORE waiting I was summoned to get my chest X-rayed, which was awkward, but not the worst experience I'd ever had in my life. I was sent back to the room I was in before, and I waited. And waited. And waited. I swear, by the time the PA came back I was ready to fall asleep. I was SO tired, and I was hungry for the first time in days, which meant I was REALLY hungry, and I was shaky and jittery and felt generally awful. Anyway, the PA DID eventually come back-- AND GAVE ME ANOTHER ORAL TREATMENT. At that point I was about ready to take her gently by the throat and scream at her "THAT s**t IS NOT HELPING, b***h. LET ME GO HOME. Dx" (And I feel bad saying that now, because she really was nice and friendly and whatnot, but holy s**t, woman! @A@)
The third oral treatment was even worse than the second, and it seemed to take even longer for someone to come and remove it. Dx I've lost track of what exactly happened after that, but to make a long story slightly shorter, the PA came back, told us her diagnosis (which I don't remember except for the fact that it included bronchial pneumonia and was SERIOUS ********' BUSINESS), and said that in another case she would have had me admitted to the hospital, but since she knew I hated needles she was going to just prescribe a SHITLOAD of medications along a wonderful and delicious inhaler, and that I should see my doctor the day afterward as a follow-up. I was about to make some kind of feeble protest about how I had to be in school the next day to do a project- I feel SO bad about this, because my partner might not be able to finish on her own- but there was no arguing with the PA. Dx She faxed the paperwork to the nearest pharmacy and we FINALLY left.
It was around 8:30 by the time we got out of there, and we had to rush over to the pharmacy before they closed; my mom ended up getting locked into the drug store, but she got out with the drugs in the end. All in all, we spent over three and a half hours in the UC, and by the time we got finished with everything, almost all the pizza places in the area were closed. Which sucked, because I REALLY WANTED SOME ******** PIZZA. We DID find a place, eventually, that was both open and tasty, and we bought a pie as well as a slice each for myself and my mom, because we were hungry and didn't want to wait until we got home. (Did I mention that my mom was VERY AWESOME during this whole ordeal? D: I was very grateful for her patience.)
The rest of the night went by pretty quickly. We drove home, I was miserable. We got home, I was miserable. I ate some more foods and went to bed, I was VERY miserable, because it was hot in the house and I had a fever. So I tossed and turned and groaned and whimpered until I fell asleep. Dx Good times.
-THE NEXT DAY-
I woke up in the morning feeling much better than I had the previous night, comfort-wise. I was still congested and coughing, but I'd gotten some much-needed rest, and that was vary vary good indeed.
We went to the doctor at 1:00 PM. I was expecting to hear more of the same: "OMG, serious business. D: Take your meds."
What I ended up hearing was:
"Why did they prescribe this?"
"You don't need to take this."
"Bronchial pneumonia? You've got seasonal asthma. Take these two things and this other stuff for a few weeks and you'll be fine."
Well.
Um.
...
Okay.
o_o
Apparently this is still serious business, but not nearly as serious as we thought. The doctor prescribed me another delicious inhaler, told me I don't have to take the Antibiotics from Hell, and sent me on my merry way in a VERY timely manner.
So. It's sort of an anticlimactic ending... but I like this a lot better than what I went through yesterday. o0o;
THIS IS THE END OF THE MOST TL;DR ENTRY EVER WRITTEN.
(PS: I evolved my Shinx. ;_; He's funny-looking now. But when he evolves into a Luxray he'll be badass. He's still slowwwww as hell, expecially considering the fact that electric-types are usually really fast. But whatever~
Also, the Monthly Collectibles are badass. :B)
