On Being Sick

Oh, look, I have followers!!!  I'm impressed that anyone would want to see where this mess goes.  Thank you all.  I hope to be able to deliver.

So today I am at the tail end of a cold.  I've been avoiding people and keeping my germs to myself. 

I don't know if non-nursing people do this, but when I get sick, I compare it to other illnesses that I have had.  2 come quickly to mind.  The first was when I got a Norwalk-like gastro upset.  2 days before Christmas, I was working 12 hour nights.  It was 3rd in a row and I was so tired.  I crawled into bed.  A couple of hours later, I woke up.  I tried to sit up and my whole system just groaned in protest.  I couldn't stand up straight.  So, hunched over like a little old lady, I made it to the bathroom.  I though I was going to toss my cookies for sure.  But then my stomach did a flip flop and I had to sit on the throne.  Without further ado, I lost 20 lbs in 20 seconds.  I crawled back to bed.  I lived in an apartment building with a little store in it.  I called down for some juice, gravol (dramamine), ranitidine and tylenol.  He left it at my door saying I could pay him when I was feeling better.  I spent the next 3 days in bed.  When I got back to work, it turned out that 8 people were sick on Christmas day that year.  I also learned that it is transmitted by the oral-fecal route.  Needless to say, I no longer eat anything at work if I haven't witnessed it being opened.  Gak!!!

Memorable illness #2-  I was working with ventilated patients.  One poor patient was very sick and required a lot of suctioning.  It was summertime, I was stressed and I just wans't feeling well.  I'd been coughing so much that I didn't notice it anymore.  One night I was in bed by 8 pm.  I woke up at 10pm coughing so hard that I couldn't breathe.  I thought about calling 911.  I resorted to buckley's mixture (it's all I had left in the house that came close to being a cough remedy) and funny enough, it is still as gross as I remembered it to be.  The next day, I got myself in to my doctor's.  This had been going on for 3 weeks.  Doctor took a look at me and sent me off to have an x-ray.  By the time I got home again, there was a message that I was to "GO TO YOUR PHARMACY NOW".  I got to the pharmacy and they called my doctor to tell her that I had picked up 2 antibiotics, codeine syrup and a ventolin puffer.

I got home and called her myself.  Turns out that I had a very severe form of pneumonia only seen in vented people.  Pseudomona-pneumonia, and I only had 10% left of my left lung still working.  I wonder what she would have done if I didn't pick it up?

http://www.checkpneumoniasymptoms.com/pseudomonas-pneumonia.html

And I was on sick leave for 2 weeks.  When I got back to work, the powers that be had decided that they would insist that we all wore masks when doing trach care.  No need to twist my arm on that one!!

So this cold that I have now has been around for a couple of days causing some discomfort, but nothing like the above.  I have taken 4 days off.  I was really tired and achy for a couple of days and then it was a full-out cold for 2 days and now I am just resting.  Tomorrow is my regularily scheduled day off so I should be OK to go back on Tuesday.  Unless this one tries to pull a fast one, making me think that I am getting better, but in fact reeking havoc in my system.  Time will tell.

And nurses do make the worst patients.  

Cats are driving me nuts, but that is a whole other story.

So back to watching M*A*S*H.