Saturday, October 29, 2011

A lesson on listening to your body...

We've all heard it before. Listen to your body. You know your body best. Blah, blah, blah. However, the story I'm about to tell is a classic example of listening to your body the most.

I started getting a cold about 3.5,almost 4 weeks ago. It started with a cough and headache and turned into more coughing. I figured it was just a cold and kept presuming my day to day activities. I did stop working out as it was becoming difficult to do a workout without coughing up my insides!I knew I should really get to the doctor, after all, even though a cold is usually not a big deal to most people, a cold for me can be life threatening and sometimes put me in the hospital. Well, after about 3 weeks, the cough started to get better and I knew I was on the right track. Why go to the doctor now when I am starting to feel better, right?

Well, then a few days later, Thursday of this week, I woke up with a terrible what felt like a full blown sinus infection. My face and head hurt so bad. I went to work and throughout the day it was just getting worse. It got to the point where I couldn't concentrate anymore so at 3:30, I left to go to the clinic. As I was driving from work to Nolan's daycare I noticed I was getting really weak and almost noticed it was harder to breathe. I chalked it up to all the coughing I've been doing over the last 3 weeks and now I'm clogged up in the nose. By the time I got to Nolan's daycare, I knew something was more seriously wrong. I decided maybe it wasn't safe to drive to the clinic and instead I should go home and wait for Ross to get home. So I called him, but he didn't answer. I was in so much pain at this point I decided I was just going to drive myself to the clinic, it was only 15 min. away after all.

The 15 min. drive easily turned into 30 with the road construction and detours that I should have known about and I found myself getting very anxious about just getting there. When Nolan would ask questions, I would tell him that I couldn't talk. As I noticed it was getting harder and harder to talk, almost as if my throat was swelling up? We made it to the clinic and I was starting to check in when all of a sudden I couldn't stand anymore. Everything was fuzzy and that was it. I told the receptionist that I was going to faint and fell to the ground. Details were pretty fuzzy but I just know everything was fuzzy and I was gasping for air. I looked around and my little boy was laying right on the floor next to me with a very confused and scared look on his face. I didn't even have enough air to talk so I just grabbed him and held him. They put me in a wheel chair and wheeled me to the ER. (Luckily the hospital was joined with the clinic!!!!)

When I got to ER, I was given a breathing treatment and what I believe was a medicine to relax me as I was freaking out pretty much. Not being able to breathe very well or talk is extremely scary, especially with my 3 year old next to me not knowing what was going on. Tears were welded up in his eyes as he saw me struggling for air and crying, but trying not to cry because it was too hard. Luckily, after the breathing treatment and the relaxer I was finally able to have enough air to talk relatively normal, hold my son, and text my husband to come to the ER. I was then given a chest x-ray, bunch of blood work, and an EKG.

My biggest fear was something wrong with my lungs or heart and thank God they found nothing except a sinus infection and bronchitis. I had pretty high counts of white blood cells which shows an infection and that my body was working very hard. The doctor assumes that because my body has been working so hard for almost 4 weeks trying to get me healthy, it was becoming extremely week. By the time I got to the clinic, it just gave out and when I realized I gave out, started to hyperventilate. I'm hopeful that is what happened as I never want to experience something like it again. However, I was sent home with an emergency breathing kit just in case it does.

So....I should have really just gone to the doctor a few weeks ago as I probably had bronchitis from the start. The doctor said that if a cold lasts more than a week, it's not a cold anymore. So that's a good thing to remember! After friday and today of literally sleeping all day, I'm starting to feel a little better and hope to be back 100% or close to on Monday for Halloween. I don't want to miss my little hero dressed up as a dinosaur:)

Nolan and I did have some good talks today about what happened to mom and that it shouldn't ever happen again. Today when I was trying to take a nap he asked me if I was still breathing:) He was so strong and so brave throughout it, I'm so proud of him!

Praying we both can heal from this experience and never experience anything like it again!!!




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