Pneumonia

The week after I announced my Pregnancy on this blog, I started to cough. Deep Mucus laden coughs.

It didn't hurt my throat and although I felt pretty shitty on Monday morning, I assumed it was just a pregnancy thing. I drove in to work and I am sickly proud of the fact that I did not get into an accident while simultaneously driving and throwing up into a giant sized McDonald's cup of water that had been in the driver's side cup holder.

Once at work, I could not remain vertical. My boss's first glimpse of me that day was splayed out across my desk surface, face down. At this point she knew I was pregnant so I think she just assumed I was doing my best to deal in that moment and continued with her business. Ten minutes later when she walked by me again and witnessed me leaning as far back in my chair as physically possible with my eyes rolled towards the ceiling, she cleared her throat and gently suggested I go home.

I took her up on that offer and (probably stupidly) declined her offer to drive me there herself.

I made it home, collapsed on the couch, and remained there for a week.

I am not exaggerating. With the sole exception of the the hour+ that it would take Greg to coax me up the stairs to get in bed for the night and then coax me back down to the couch in the morning - I did not move for a week.

I did not eat for 7 days.
I did not pee more than once in the morning and once directly before stumbling into bed.

I maintained a fever of 101-102.

I coughed, constantly.

Greg, consequently got much much better at reading the sign language alphabet - Although I think I'm doing S, R, and X wrong.

On Thursday it got so bad I called my mom and told her that if it was at all possible, I needed her.

All this time we had been occasionally calling the phone number for my OBGYN group of doctors and speaking with someone about my condition. As yet, they had only recommended fluids and certain over the counter medications.

Thursday night my father-in-law and brother-in-law arrived to begin a weekend of work on the nursery. While I lay motionless and pathetic on the couch, they tore apart the room that will be the nursery. They ran all the wires, ripped up half the floor, and generally were a big help.

Unfortunately, by the time they left on Saturday evening I felt bad enough to swallow my fear and announce - in sign language - that I thought Greg should take me to the hospital.

We called the doctor one last time to describe my symptoms again and they told us to go to the ER immediately.

Our friends drove us there and parked our car for us so Greg could go straight in with me.

I was immediately hit up for all kinds of liquid samples and did my best to oblige. They hooked me up with an IV immediately because I was dangerously dehydrated. They gave me something for the excruciating pain of the cough - which was still not in my throat but rather in my stomach. I had sprained a stomach muscle from coughing so hard. I had also burst a blood vessel in my eye from the strain of coughing and throwing up the liquids I'd tried to drink.

They took me in for x-rays of my chest. I remember a very nice man pushing me down the hall in a wheel chair as my vision got longer and longer and more tunnel-like. He was talking to me and asking me questions, and I wanted to answer him and felt I was being unforgivably rude for being silent - but I just could not make my voice work. I remember stepping up the x-ray machine and pressing my front against a cold metal plate.

The next thing I remember is looking up at the x-ray technician from the floor.

The poor woman hoisted me back into my wheel chair and did the rest of the x-rays with me sitting in it.

After delivering me back to my emergency room bed, the doctor announced that he and the radiologist had reviewed the x-rays and they would be admitting me immediately for Pneumonia. There was fluid in my lungs.

The rest is a sort of wide-eyed, sleepless, animal-planet re-run fueled blur. They took me to a private room where Greg slept on a very uncomfortable looking chair. I peed every 3 hours or so which was unusual for me. I learned that Potassium as an IV drip is PAINFUL and to be avoided at all costs. I kept the TV on the entire night long. I watched the same episode of "It's Me or the Dog" three times.

Every time I was asked if I'd like to extend my stay for a day or so longer, or if I'd prefer to go home I answered "Go Home" emphatically - wheezing and coughing the whole while.

They prescribed antibiotics and cough syrup with codeine. They listened to the baby's heartbeat - which was fast, but okay.

The doctors were nice, the nurses were fantastic (even including the one who constantly talked to herself while insisting on taking blood samples at 3 a.m.), and when they finally took out the IV, I contorted myself wildly in bed and fell asleep almost immediately. I stayed in the hospital for a total of 24 hours. I got to go home at around 6:00 p.m.

My mom announced she'd be there the next day.

Greg went back to work on Tuesday, staying home on Monday to care for me. I stayed in bed all day and we wrote down every instance a liquid or solid passed my lips, and every time I peed.

My mom took a great burden off of Greg's shoulders by being with me when he went back to work. She cleaned the entire house (that had been neglected for over a month because of my pregnancy sickness before this debacle). She cooked all the meals. She made me start sitting up, and she helped motivate me to shower.

After two weeks of debilitating illness and pain, I'm back at work this week. It's completely exhausting to be sitting up, walking around and WORKING for 8 hours a day, but I'm doing better every day.

The doctor wants me to come back in tomorrow because when they okayed me to go back to work, she still heard something in my lungs that worried her. And I still haven't stopped coughing.

I have started eating (I ate almost the whole half of a wrap for dinner the other night). And bathing regularly. I haven't thrown up since Monday.

I'm thankful to be home. I started knitting again, but mostly when I get home from work I collapse and rest.

I will never forget this pregnancy.