Hospitalized

I’m so very tired of being hospitalized every couple weeks.

This is ridiculous.

I was just released late yesterday from my fifth ER visit in less than three years.

All related to this ridiculous hypertension that does not respond to treatment.

I had a coworker drive me from work on Tuesday because I was having chest pain and my BP was 204/167.  The ER admitted immediately and did a good job to quickly rule out a heart attack or stroke.

From there, they played with the idea of a clot for awhile (blood screening showed that possibility).  But when my contrast CT scan showed nada, they sort of gave up. 

Technically they admitted me onto the floor for overnight observation, but that was only to give me a couple doses of IV blood pressure meds to bring down my points.  It did help.  The IV meds always do.  But I can’t take those at home.  The doctors ran a bunch of tests.  I was prodded, poked, pricked, etc.  I was very very disassociated pretty much the whole time.

A flicker happened when Army actually came and visited me.  We’d actually been a bit in contact via text because I just instinctively contacted him when I didn’t know how to respond to strange chest pain (I’m an idiot, I acknowledge that).

He’s never visited me in the hospital.  He stayed for a couple hours and despite sassing the nurse, it was nice.  He tried to take over for a guy who was running an EKG because he saw me immediately withdraw and disassociate when the EKG guy lifted up my hospital gown to attach the leads.  If I’d spoken up, they would have let him (he was wearing his EMT uniform), but I was too far gone by that time.

I don’t remember a lot of it.  There was a lot of pain, nausea, and dizziness. 

My father didn’t even bother visiting me.  Then he was offended when I didn’t call him first when I got my discharge paperwork.

But the doctors are still stymied.  Well.  Not stymied.  Apathetic.

Doctors: We think you perhaps just have crazy high blood pressure.

To which I (well, Charlotte) responded with annoyance:  So you’ve seen other similar cases of a female in her mid-twenties who does not smoke, take birth control, regularly exercises, has a normal BMI index, no family history of high blood pressure or heart disease, doesn’t eat fast food, is relatively good about taking her medications, be hospitalize multiple times a year for extreme hypertension crisis or related matters?

Doctors:  Uhh…well…no.  But sometimes there just isn’t an underlying cause.

Fucking doctors.

Anyway.

That’s why I’ve been quiet.  I’m discharged as of yesterday.  Feeling shitty still.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I just wasn’t meant to live.  My body seems to be telling me that.

Pneumonia

My lack of involvement in the blog world is due to the fact that my cold turned into bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia over this past week.  So I’ve been basically trying not to curl into a ball and die.

It meant another trip to the ER, dragged by my mother.
(Ya’ll remember how much I love hospitals, right? I’ll just skip on down there all on my own)
It was awful.  My pulse was crazy high, my BP crazy high, my x-ray showed a compromised section of lung that has me at reduced breathing capacity (i.e. the pneumonia).  The woman who did the IV prick sucked at it.

Today is first day back and at work. Technically I’m not fully recovered yet (still not at full lung capacity).  It’s sucking a lot.  This level of exhaustion is puzzling to me.  I tend to be someone who can pull energy outta my butt if necessary and that ability has completely deserted me.  It’s frustrating and disheartening and I hate it.

I hate having auto-immune condition.  Basically every little tiny illness I get turns into something ginormous.

I’ve never had pneumonia before and my only memory of it is when I was young and my dad got double pneumonia (it’s a real thing) and almost died in the hospital.  And I was terrified and sad and begging the universe to just let him live and I’d be a good girl just like he wanted. 
It was that first moment where I knew that despite his distance and our issues, I love him no matter what and it will break my heart if he ever goes anywhere.

Good news is the man has been like an ox since then and has waaaaaay better health than me, so he’ll probably outlive me.

Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well.

I’ll have a much more interesting post once I’m able to breath without wheezing and bubbling.

Much love to all ❤

Doctors again are completely dumb

Well.

Things have gone down shit creek again.  Wait.  Or is it up?  I can never remember which.  Anyway, they suck.  A lot.

I’ve been feeling like complete trash again.  And this time the nausea, dizziness, vertigo, and exhaustion is so bad that my mother had to drive me to work today because I wasn’t sure I could drive a car…
She wanted me to call in (and take me to the ER), but I can’t miss any work this week because my co-worker is on vacation and there’s no one else in the office who can do our jobs.  So she’s grumpy with me.

My reading was 197/154 on Monday evening.  It’s crept down slightly to 181/136 this morning.  I have many of the stupid symptoms I had before I landed in the ER the last two times:
1. Nausea (and vomiting occasionally)
2. Dizziness and vertigo when I stand up or walk too fast.  Or turn my head too fast.  Or think about spoons.  Jk on the spoons.  Probably.
3. Body feels like I’ve been beaten up.  Inside and out.  Very very sore for no reason.
4. Food and drink all tastes weird. Including water.
5. I’m exhausted. All the time.

So I called my GP and went over a couple blood test results I snagged from my (former) kidney doctor and from when I was hospitalized.

We’re thinking it’s an auto immune disorder, due to my positive ANA results on both tests.

Guess what one of the possibilities is?

Obviously we aren’t saying it’s Lupus right now.  There are some other possibilities.  But it means having to go see a goddamn specialist again.

Hopefully they won’t be as dumb as that kidney doctor….

From nataliedee.com