What a Week!

So, when I last left all you intrepid followers, I was regretting having agreed to a Saturday shift. Well, it turns out that it was a good thing that I did.

I’ve been short of breath lately and it had been getting worse – bad enough that I had actually scheduled a doctor’s appointment to get checked out.

When I went into work Saturday morning, I was struggling to catch my breath from the walk into the building from my car and the off-going nurse wanted to call an ambulance for me. I refused, said I just needed to catch my breath, got report, assured her I’d be okay but would call if I couldn’t do it (she insisted) and she left, after giving the aide strict instructions on who to call if I collapsed.

I started rounding up stuff for the first person I had to give meds to and had to sit down. I had the aide call the nurse to come back, again refused paramedics and ambulance, and got away by promising I would go to the ER. They both insisted on walking me to my car, even though she didn’t think I should drive.

So, I came home, got some stuff ready for my roommate to bring to the hospital if they admitted me, and drove to the ER, where I was hooked up to all sorts of stuff, poked, prodded, stabbed (seriously, I’m horrible to get an IV into) and admitted.

I was there until late Tuesday night (finally got out around 10:00 pm) and have had more tests than I ever want to have again.

The good news is that it wasn’t a return of the fluid buildup around my lungs, as I had feared. The bad news is that it’s anemia which seems to take a lot longer to cure. (The anemia is apparently from some bleeding ulcers, which have started to heal. The “started to heal” is the good thing. The bad thing is that I can’t take ibuprofen anymore and acetaminophen just doesn’t do as good of a job. So… must find new ways to deal with pain.)

Back to work yesterday. Still weak and struggling to breathe and now pollen is starting so let’s add allergy-induced asthma to the list of fun things.

Speaking of fun things, for what I think is the first time ever, I’m not doing Camp NaNoWriMo. I just don’t have the energy. Hopefully I’ll be better by the July session.

I am, however, doing NaPoWriMo. For those not familiar with it, it is based on, but not affiliated with, NaNoWriMo, and is a challenge to write a poem a day for thirty days.

If you’re interested, my NaPo blog is Craptastic Poetry Lives Here.

Also, I’ve still managed to keep up with my 100 words a day, even though it’s really nearly impossible to get a hospital bed and the over the bed table to achieve a workable height.