Slept about 4:15-6:35 when Chelsea showed up with Blake. Mom and I were watching him today because she had to work (she usually only works Monday-Friday, but they asked her to come in for this shift).
Blake was...Blake. My favorite person in the whole wide world, but absolutely exhausting.
Finally fell asleep again about 1 pm. Thankfully, Blake took a long nap about this time, too, so Mom didn't even know I was sleeping because she didn't need me. Slept until 4:30 when Chelsea arrived to pick him back up.
Fell back asleep once they left and the screaming subsided until about 6:30.
Got up, watched the rest of the USA vs Nigeria soccer game, ate pizza.
After the game, went for a walk. This is where things got kind of scary. I was towards the end of my first lap and suddenly I collapsed. I didn't pass out, but my body gave out on me as if I had. I was overcome with the worst chest pain I've had since that staph pneumonia in November 2009. I hadn't been wheezing, but my chest was so tight I couldn't get air in very far. I always bring my inhaler with me on walks, so I tried to use it but it didn't do a thing. I laid there on the side of the road about 10 minutes, first waiting to see if it would subside (instead it only got worse), then trying to flag help down but the few cars that drove by didn't see me because the sun had just set about 20 minutes before so it was pretty dark, and for the first time that I've taken a walk, no one else walked by. Finally, about 8:40, Mom called me back because I had called to ask her a question before I left, and when I told her what was up, she rushed back from Jim's house.
I was seriously afraid something was wrong (and it takes a lot to scare me medically) so a few minutes later I called 911...still on the side of the road. Mom and her boyfriend showed up just as the ambulance got to me. They did usual EMS tests and once the EKG came back normal and they figured it wasn't my heart, after learning about my history, they thought it was pneumonia and everyone but Mom agreed I should go get checked out.
I got to the ER about 9:30, and spent the next six hours getting a plethora of tests and bloodwork done. Ruled out heart problems via the cardiac markers in the bloodwork. Chest X-ray. Chest CT with contrast (contrast is awful). And a whole load of nebulizers. They refused to give me pain meds, too, which was awful because as miserable as I was, with my extremely high pain tolerance after 20 surgeries, it was bad.
Long story short: I spent 6 hours at the ER for them to tell me that this is my pleurisy, just instead of my usual pleurisy affecting the lining of my lung tissue and shooting pain down my right ribs and up to my arms, it's just severely severely inflamed my entire chest wall. So Mom was pretty pissed that we went there "for nothing" since she wanted to just put me in bed and go see my family doctor on Monday, but with our luck and my medical history, if we hadn't gone, Monday something would be horribly wrong (they did the CT with contrast because they were very concerned I might have a blood clot in my lungs) and she wouldn't let herself have her surgery on Tuesday. And at least we know what this is and why I've been wanting to do nothing but lay in bed and sleep as much as my body will allow the past few days.
So yeah, they gave me some anti-inflammatory meds, and just said keep taking nebulizer treatments, rest a lot, and don't do any strenuous activity until this eases up so as to not aggravate the inflammation and make it worse than it already is. That means I won't be able to go walking for a while.
This is what I get for exercising. ;) (Kidding!)
But yeah, this is what I managed to get done tonight before all hell broke loose.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's past 4:30 am and I am beat. I'm going to go try to rest...if the massive amounts of albuterol coursing through my system will let me.
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