![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
That was scary.
Nov. 14th, 2010 10:56 pmSo: that breathing issue I was having.
The inhaler I got last week worked really well for a while. It's not a "heavens open, choirs sing" experience like a nebulizer breathing treatment is. But I'd find that when the slow-strangulation feeling began to creep up on me, it was inevitably six hours after the last dose and time to use the inhaler again.
This morning I felt pretty well. We walked to church, although I then did a fair bit of coughing. We walked home from church, and afterward even though it had only been three hours since the last treatment I felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I decided it would be okay to take the dose at four hours instead of six.
I went and picked up the visiting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oursin and had a lovely time chatting with her and showing her a bit of Baltimore. As time wore on I had more and more coughing, though, and had to keep my breathing very carefully shallow. When I came home at 3:45 it had only been two hours and a bit since the last dose, and I couldn't catch my breath and couldn't catch my breath.
I started noticing that it was quite an effort to take those careful shallow breaths: pull-push, pull-push. My head hurt. I felt lightheaded.
Michael and I spent some time debating our options. In the end, the whole family piled in the car and Michael drove me to Patient First, an urgent-care clinic. My breathing continued to be shallower and more labored and more uncomfortable. At Patient First, I got to jump the line and be taken straight back.
Hosanna! They gave me another breathing treatment, almost right away, and it was fantastically wonderful. It did turn out that all the incredibly hard work I was doing was paying off: my pulse ox was 97%. So I wasn't as oxygen-starved as I felt. I had the breathing treatment and a chest X-ray. I came home with steroids and antibiotics. The doctor swears that the steroids will make me instantly better. Here's hoping.
I was mightily impressed with the care experience. Everyone at Patient First was kind and seemed to take me seriously. The best part of their model: prescriptions are fully integrated into their service. It's not that the Patient First doctor writes a prescription and then you walk down the hall to the Patient First pharmacy to have it filled; the doctor talked to me, walked out of the room for a minute or two, and came back with my medications himself. Not samples, either, but regular medication packs labeled with my name and bearing full pharmacy education sheets. Not having that extra step makes a huge difference when you're really sick.
The breathing treatment lasted me from then until now. Those things really are awesome. It was so scary to just not be able to breathe like that, and to have it worsen so quickly from a previously managable level.
The inhaler I got last week worked really well for a while. It's not a "heavens open, choirs sing" experience like a nebulizer breathing treatment is. But I'd find that when the slow-strangulation feeling began to creep up on me, it was inevitably six hours after the last dose and time to use the inhaler again.
This morning I felt pretty well. We walked to church, although I then did a fair bit of coughing. We walked home from church, and afterward even though it had only been three hours since the last treatment I felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I decided it would be okay to take the dose at four hours instead of six.
I went and picked up the visiting
oursin and had a lovely time chatting with her and showing her a bit of Baltimore. As time wore on I had more and more coughing, though, and had to keep my breathing very carefully shallow. When I came home at 3:45 it had only been two hours and a bit since the last dose, and I couldn't catch my breath and couldn't catch my breath.I started noticing that it was quite an effort to take those careful shallow breaths: pull-push, pull-push. My head hurt. I felt lightheaded.
Michael and I spent some time debating our options. In the end, the whole family piled in the car and Michael drove me to Patient First, an urgent-care clinic. My breathing continued to be shallower and more labored and more uncomfortable. At Patient First, I got to jump the line and be taken straight back.
Hosanna! They gave me another breathing treatment, almost right away, and it was fantastically wonderful. It did turn out that all the incredibly hard work I was doing was paying off: my pulse ox was 97%. So I wasn't as oxygen-starved as I felt. I had the breathing treatment and a chest X-ray. I came home with steroids and antibiotics. The doctor swears that the steroids will make me instantly better. Here's hoping.
I was mightily impressed with the care experience. Everyone at Patient First was kind and seemed to take me seriously. The best part of their model: prescriptions are fully integrated into their service. It's not that the Patient First doctor writes a prescription and then you walk down the hall to the Patient First pharmacy to have it filled; the doctor talked to me, walked out of the room for a minute or two, and came back with my medications himself. Not samples, either, but regular medication packs labeled with my name and bearing full pharmacy education sheets. Not having that extra step makes a huge difference when you're really sick.
The breathing treatment lasted me from then until now. Those things really are awesome. It was so scary to just not be able to breathe like that, and to have it worsen so quickly from a previously managable level.
