Docs work 3 days a week now?

Geez, what a mess the past few days have been. A week ago I was noticing that my allergies were  active. Certainly expected at this time of the year. I popped some allergy pills and went on with life. That's what we are supposed to do, right?

Last weekend it seemed to intensify. I was trying to get my house ready for my daughter's visit. I had been using the guest room for a sorting room. I was going slowly through boxes of odds and ends that I boxed when I switched the office and the guest room a while back. Things like surplus office supplies left over from my days of having my professional office in the home. The guest room is larger and has room for me to set up a table to work on. With no time to finish sorting them before she arrived, I decided to move them to my office space.

While I was moving these things, I found I was becoming winded or tired rather quickly. But by taking time, resting between lifting, I got it done.

Then I found that pushing the vacuum was wearing me out! Good grief, what was wrong? To cut this short, let me just say that I got the "cleaning" parts done, but not much "straightening." After washing a load of clothes, I had no energy to fold, or when I did, I stacked them without putting them away. In other words, I had lots of things just sitting around, and the stacks were growing.

By Monday, I was almost unable to put one foot in front of the other. So I rested as much as I could throughout the weekend and Monday.

Tuesday, Terri arrived shortly after noon. I was beginning to cough from the allergies, again, not unusual for me. I had really bad bronchitis years ago, and every time I get the smallest thing in my lungs, there is a reaction from the scars. So I still didn't think about it much.

By the time we went to dinner with some friends Tuesday, I was coughing quite a lot. Still not worrying. I woke a couple times with heavy coughing.

Wednesday, we had lunch with more friends, ran a couple errands and came home. I could barely put one foot in front of the other. And about 7:00, I felt hot. I checked my temperature, and I was running a low grade fever. I'd been checking all along, just to be sure I wasn't contagious. Through the night I continued to cough. And cough. And cough.

By this morning, I was still running an elevated temperature, and my whole body was hurting from the coughing. My lungs were rattling. My eyes hurt, pressure and sensitive to light. My nose hurt, feeling like pressure. I had a headache. My throat hurt, not like a sore throat, but from the incessant coughing. And my Eustachian tubes (inner ear) were itching and hurting like crazy.

As soon as 8:30 came around I called my doctor. His office closes on Friday, so I wanted to get in today. Well, hell's bells! The office was closed today through Monday. I called a clinic that I've been to before, and learned that the PA was not in until Monday! Called another clinic and got the same message! WHAT???

I have no idea what is going on. I asked if there is a seminar or something. Nope. Just one of those things. March is a very slow month here, so many docs take off on vacation and long(er weekends).

Terri drove me to the ER. I hate ERs. You always sit f.o.r.e.v.e.r. It was about 2 hours before I was seen. gah.  The doctor was very nice, and he obviously thought my daughter was very nice, too!  LOL!

Anyway. here's the scoop. I had allergies which led to sinusitis which led to bronchitis which led to coughing which led to pharyngitis! Got that? I'm probably not contagious. OK.

We then went to the drug store to get the scripts filled, and were told it would be 45 minutes! Lawdy, I could hardly sit up and we had to wait 45 minutes???? We went to Sonic to get something to eat. I was starving, but couldn't taste much. The Dr. Pepper tasted and felt good, though.

When we picked up the meds, I took the antibiotic right away and used the lung spray, too. After driving home, Terri put the last few things in her bag and left to go back to Albuquerque to spend a couple days with her dad. We were worried about her carrying this crud to her daddy, because he has severe emphysema and COPD, but the doctor seemed to think there was little chance of that. I'm waiting to hear from her that she has arrived safely.

I really hate that I felt so crummy while she was here. Yes, we had nice meals with friends, but I felt so bad otherwise that we just kinda sat the rest of the time. I wasn't even a good conversationalist this visit! Not a quality time.  :( The good thing is that she slept a lot, and she needed it. And I'm never gonna gripe about a time spent with my sweet daughter.

I've napped on and off the last three hours. I'll bet I sleep like a rock tonight. Well, If the cough stays reduced. And I hope that by Monday I will feel like a new woman. OK, at least like a slightly rejuvenated old, er, woman of my age!