So, in this update I should be talking about the fun week that I had with Danny, and Snakes on a Plane, and Beer floats, and how awesome the weather has been.
But instead, this update will be to tell you about how I almost died.
So, my asthma's been really bad for a while, because my health insurance lapsed and i'd been under-dosing or not-dosing on my meds. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for tuesday, which was the soonest I could do it because my stupid Student Health people at UNC needed 10 business days to fax my charts. But I was feeling really bad two weeks ago, and walked in to the ER.
They gave me quite a few rounds of treatment then, and told me to come back if i didn't feel any better. For the next week (when Danny was here), I felt awful in the mornings but improved during the day. I figured I was "getting better," and used my emergency medicine like it was candy.
On Saturday, the medicine stopped being quite so effective.
On Sunday, it stopped helping all together. I called Kristen and asked her to drive me to the ER, and by the time she showed up 5 minutes later I was so far gone that she called an ambulance. I blacked out shortly after the paramedics showed up, and came to consciousness 18 hours later, on a ventilator.
In the meantime, I had passed out in my kitchen and turned blue, been forced oxygen in the ambulance with a hand pump after they cut my clothes off, been put on the ventilator and in to a chemically induced coma while they got my blood pH above 7.22 (normally 7.4). And put on a ton of steroids, and continuous albuterol treatment through my ventilator.
Being on a ventilator is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced, second only to them taking the ventilator out. The thing was the width of a soda bottle, I swear. But as soon as I came out of that coma, I was so effing happy, because I was alive. And then I proceeded to vomit all over myself.
Are things supposed to change after a near-death experience? Meh, it's too soon to tell. I feel great, except for all the track marks all over my arms, and the inability to talk at length until my vocal cords heal. Oh, and the medicines make me exhausted and hopped-up all at once, which I hope will pass soon.
Maybe in a few days, I'll do the danny-update, and we'll forget which order these things actually happened in.
But instead, this update will be to tell you about how I almost died.
So, my asthma's been really bad for a while, because my health insurance lapsed and i'd been under-dosing or not-dosing on my meds. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for tuesday, which was the soonest I could do it because my stupid Student Health people at UNC needed 10 business days to fax my charts. But I was feeling really bad two weeks ago, and walked in to the ER.
They gave me quite a few rounds of treatment then, and told me to come back if i didn't feel any better. For the next week (when Danny was here), I felt awful in the mornings but improved during the day. I figured I was "getting better," and used my emergency medicine like it was candy.
On Saturday, the medicine stopped being quite so effective.
On Sunday, it stopped helping all together. I called Kristen and asked her to drive me to the ER, and by the time she showed up 5 minutes later I was so far gone that she called an ambulance. I blacked out shortly after the paramedics showed up, and came to consciousness 18 hours later, on a ventilator.
In the meantime, I had passed out in my kitchen and turned blue, been forced oxygen in the ambulance with a hand pump after they cut my clothes off, been put on the ventilator and in to a chemically induced coma while they got my blood pH above 7.22 (normally 7.4). And put on a ton of steroids, and continuous albuterol treatment through my ventilator.
Being on a ventilator is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced, second only to them taking the ventilator out. The thing was the width of a soda bottle, I swear. But as soon as I came out of that coma, I was so effing happy, because I was alive. And then I proceeded to vomit all over myself.
Are things supposed to change after a near-death experience? Meh, it's too soon to tell. I feel great, except for all the track marks all over my arms, and the inability to talk at length until my vocal cords heal. Oh, and the medicines make me exhausted and hopped-up all at once, which I hope will pass soon.
Maybe in a few days, I'll do the danny-update, and we'll forget which order these things actually happened in.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
Please don't go so long without meds again! Just storm the damn health Center! Those bastages!
Don't leave untill you get what you've came for.
Any chance of getting a hungry attorney and going after the bastards that put you in that predicament to begin with?
Stay healthy.