My Lovely Weekend.

Since this is a health blog I thought I'd write about my horrible health this weekend. I started feeling sick at the beginning of last week but Friday when I woke up I was just having a little difficulty breathing. I was diagnosed with asthma a few months after I started at USP (stressed induced much?), so I just figured it was nothing major and attempted to use my emergency inhaler which wasn't holding up so well. So I worked through all of Friday with an annoying slight lack of breathing. Saturday morning when I woke up my whole chest was struggling for air and I was making wheezing noises you could hear across a room. Me not being the pro at this asthma thing, got up as normal and went to work my 22 hour work weekend. As soon as I walked in my boss knew something was up. I worked for about an hour before she sent me to rest for a bit. After I still was not breathing better she thought it could be an allergic reaction to the antibiotic I started taking Thursday evening so she gave me some Benadryl and sat me down for about a half hour to see if I improved. I didn't. So we called one of my closest friends to come pick me up and take me to an urgent care clinic in Havertown.
I had to wait for him to get off work but once he did he took me right over and as soon as I walked in the door the physician waiting there dropped her lunch and asked me what was wrong. I explained to her with some difficulty that I was having trouble breathing and I wasn't sure if it was an allergic reaction. She told me to not fill any paperwork out and to just come straight back for a breathing treatment. This started to freak me out quite a bit considering I thought none of it was necessary and with some good sleep it would all go away. I went to a room where I was sat down and had to breath in a medication called DuoNeb through a nebulizer machine. After 30 seconds of the treatment the physician asked if I was breathing better, which of course I wasn't. She informed me if it was an allergic reaction I would have felt slightly better within that time then she apologized to me and said she had to call an ambulance. At this point I really started to get worried because I didn't think it was that big of a deal still.
So I was picked up by 3 EMT's who came in and assessed me. During that time I heard the physician whisper to the EMT that if I had waited 6 more hours (which would have been before my shift ended) my lungs would have completely sealed themselves off and I would have stopped breathing. That's the point where I really got scared and wanted to cry but I looked at my friend and he told me everything was going to be okay so I settled into the gurney and was taken to Delaware County Memorial Hospital.
In the ER I was given approximately 3 hours of straight Albuterol breathing treatments. I'm not sure if anyone knows about Albuterol but it has a side effect of making your heart race. After these treatments my heart rate had jumped into the 150 beats per minute range and my breathing rate was still about double what it should be. The ER physician said she was uncomfortable with letting me go home since I didn't make any major improvement and that she was admitting me to the hospital for the night. She informed my mom if I went home that it could get much worse and I may have to come back on a ventilator and possibly die (like that didn't make me feel any worse).
Around 9 PM saturday night I finally left the ER and was given a room where I was woken every 3 to 4 hours to get a breathing treatment and a dose of high steroids to reduce the inflammation in my lungs. Sunday when my mom and friends returned back to the hospital we sat down and talked to the doctor on my floor. He informed us that he wanted to keep me till Monday morning because he felt I still had some improving to do and I had to be tapered off my medicine. At that point I was breathing mostly on my own with just a little help of an oxygen tube in my nose and I informed the doctor I had way too much of a school workload to spend another day there and that it was stressing me out more being in a lonely hospital room. I had to work him a bit but eventually he said he'd release me that night if I was willing to take the risk I might end up back in the ER. I told him I was so I was released from the hospital Sunday evening around 6:30 PM.
I just have to say even though I never thought I would get to that point it was quite a frightening experience and if it wasn't for my boss who recognized the signs or my close friend who drove me to the urgent care clinic, this weekend may have turned out very differently and not for the better. The ER informed me next time I realize my emergency inhaler isn't working that's when I should look for help, not wait and try to brush it off thinking it will just pass.