My tooth is still bothering me some, but the tooth is not my worst illness right now, The flu like symptoms I was griping about was pneumonia in both lungs (to be exact Walking Pnuemonia also known as Community Associated Pneumonia.).
Fun.
Last Thursday I went to the hospital ER and they kept me. Before they even put me in a room they worked me over, took my blood twice (and both times the lab techs had trouble finding a vein), blood from my artery once (the Respiratory tech who attempted to take it I was kinda either still in training or just out of training. And my Arteries were like, "They sent a trainee to me..." She stuck me multiple times and still couldn't get my blood, a more experienced tech had to step in and take it) and put in an IV and gave me two different Antibiotics intravenously, gave me a Lorcet for the tooth, some type of cough syrup, a shot of Lasics intravenously, a shot of blood thinner in the side of my stomach, 2 unknown pills, they taped a finger clip thing (it tests for oxygen or something) on my finger, and put me on Oxygen (2 litres I think).
I remember the elevator ride up to my hospital room, but I don't remember getting in bed or putting on a hospital gown or almost anything else about that night. I slept alot for the next day or two, or maybe just that night I don't remember, alot of it is blurry and fuzzy. I do remember sometime maybe on Friday a nurse giving me the antibiotic Rosepherin intravenously at like 300 mL per hour, then once it was finished another nurse started to give me the antibiotic Zithromax intravenously and when she flushed out the IV it hurt and I let her know it hurt and she changed my IV before giving me the antibiotic. I also remember waking up to see a very nice looking male nurse, and thinking about how I really didn't mind staying there if he was going to be the first thing I saw when I woke up, and then I realized I had actually said it. I also remember waking up and a good looking male respiratory therapist giving me a breathing treatment and doing percussion on me.
My Oxygen tubing wasn't long enough to reach the bathroom or any where else in the room, so I was taking off the nasal cannula to go to the bathroom, to look out the window, to leave the room etc...
Sunday or Monday morning (I guess) around 7 AM (I guess, it was before breakfast), I wanted a lemonade instead of the orange juice that they would bring me (their orange juice tastes really awful, worse than orange juice normally tastes). So I got out of bed, put on my house shoes, and a second gown and I laid the oxygen down and I left the room. Walked to the end of the hall to the nurses station, snuck past it (they would have told me to get my ass back in bed and went and got the lemonade for me), went out into the med-surg lobby and called a elevator, I laid low until it arrived, I got on and then I went to the ground floor. Once there I walked to the vending area and got me the lemonade. Then I got back on the elevator. I was getting out of breath and feeling awful but I didn't want to go back to my room (hey I don't know exactly how long I had been in the room, but I had tried to sneak out a couple times before and made it like 1 time out 10. I had also had my Oxygen turned up to 3 litres once because of my only previous escape. Anyway I needed to get out for a while.) so I headed up to the fourth floor where there is nothing but several vacant rooms and every now and then a security guard to evade. Once to the 4th floor I looked around a bit and drank my lemonade and then I started feeling alot worse than I had been. I was lightheaded, struggling to breathe, I felt flushed, the right side hurt like hell (hurt like a broke rib) and the left side hurt some, and I don't know what else. So I went back to my room.
I considered stopping at the nurses station and telling them what was going on so they could help me, I mean after all thats what they are there for. But, I also dreaded their wrath. I mean they had been telling me to keep the Oxygen on and not to leave the room and all that good stuff, and they were getting very annoyed at me for trying to escape before, so is it really a good idea to piss someone off, someone who may be sticking a needle in you soon? Thats mostly what I ended up considering. I ended up sneaking past the nurses station (not that I had to or could sneak I mean the nurses station was empty and my breathing (If you can call it that) was loud). Anyway I made it back to my room and got my Oxygen on. About 10 seconds after I got the Oxygen on the Respiratory therapist came in to give me my breathing treatment. She saw me standing there clutching my side, heard me breathing like I was, and she ran to where I was and helped me sit down. She pulled her finger clip out and stuck it on my middle finger really quick, after a few seconds it showed up 61... (that is really NOT GOOD). She (the respiratory therapist) then turned the Oxygen up from the outlet thing it was plugged into on the wall. And she ran and got a mask (a simple face mask). It delivers like 50%-70% (maybe 80%) Oxygen and she placed it on me. Then she gave me like a minute or so before she put the finger clip back on me, it built some, and continued to build until it got to like 95 then it stopped. Well she sit in there and talked to me a while then brought in a machine that had its on finger clip and hooked me up to it. It steadily read out my oxygen level.
Once I was breathing good enough, I told her (the respiratory therapist), about my adventure. My side was still hurting like it had been but I never said anything. She reprimanded me, warned me that it could have killed me, and that if I kept trying to leave my room the nurses ould end up restraining me. She gave me my breathing treatment then and doing without the Oxygen for that long caused my Oxygen level to drop down to 79. I put the mask back on as soon as Oxygen was going to it again, and it built back up. The pain in my side kept getting worse and worse and the other side was hurting worse also. After a while I sorta feinted. I woke up and the respiratory therapist and a nurse was over me one giving me a shot and the other placing a Non-rebeather mask on me (this type of mask delivers between like 90% and 100% Oxygen at usually around 15 litres.)
Anyway that got it back up, but the hospital I was at is not equipped to handle alot of stuff like that, the NRB mask is about all they can do, if my oxygen had of dropped with that on, then i WOULD have been SCREWED. My doctor had me sent to another hospital, to the ICU there where they could handle it if anything happened.
I spent like 36 hours in ICU. I was hooked up to all the machines in my ICU cubicle. My new doctor ordered them the take me off the 100% Oxygen and put it down to 2 litres. So they did, and when they did, my oxygen level dropped like a hot potato. So the therapist knocked it up to 3 litres, that didn't build it up very much, they then knocked it up to a simple mask again, and then to the NRB mask I had been brought in on and it went back up to 95. They had me x-rayed, and my lungs were collapsed (well almost fully collapsed, like maybe 1/4 of them wasn't.). So they put me on a catheter (if I had of had the energy I would have fought the nurse over that), then they did every type of test I can think of. They also warned me that if my oxygen level dropped again they would be putting me on a mechanical ventilator... that scared me alot.
Anyway, things got a little worse before they got better. I slept for some time, and when I woke up my machines were beeping like crazy. I turned my head so that I could see them and my Oxygen level had dropped to 80, my pulse was like 50. I grabbed the NRB mask and pressed it to my face as tight as I could, squeezed the flap valve shut with my thumb, and started squeezing the bag that was filled with Oxygen. I had forced like 2 breaths in when several people came running into my cubicle fast. They allowed me to squeeze my bag, and my oxygen went back up. They gave me another shot, and a pill then they left my cubicle.
I laid awake that night watching the machine if it went below 90 I would just squeeze the bag until it went back up. By the time it was daybreak I was really tired and my Oxygen had stayed above 95 for a while so I went to sleep. The next time I woke up, it was time to eat dinner. Then they gave me some pills, some IVs, some shots, and I slept more. The next time I woke up they were getting ready to move me out, since my oxygen was stable and they had lowered it to 2 litres. They did still keep monitoring my Oxygen level, and although I didn't get to move too far from the ICU I did get to move to a regular room.
It wasn't long then until they let me come home (today), although I did have to bring some Oxygen with me. I also have one of those oxygen sensor things to check the level with (my insurance covers all but like 5% of the costs). I haven't actually been wearing the oxygen except when I start feeling it, and the sensor thing says my level has dropped below 90%. I am still taking alot of meds, and I do feel better than I did, but overall I still feel like crap.