Let's spend the afternoon in the Emergency Dept.

 Yep, in my ongoing health saga...isn't it sooo very interesting??

So my pains in my left side kept recurring, and I called 911 to get a ride with professionals to the hospital. By the time I got there I'd achieved 2 new things, beyond the reasons I wanted to go. New was the nausea as I looked out the back window of the ambulance, which they gave me some med for in my i.v. And new was another fever. I hadn't had one when I woke up.

I gave my stats to the EMT, and arrived at the hospital...was given a nice room, and met the nurse and doc who would call for lots of tests...which showed I didn't have pneumonia (more on that later). I wasn't given anything to eat or drink, and had only had coffee in the morning. By 3 pm I was not a very nice person. No, that's not true...I made friends with just about everyone who treated me. The last procedure was a CT scan based on a blood test which indicated a clot. Nope...but first we had to find a vein to put the dye in, and I needed an ultra-sound machine to find the vein. Bill did that, not me.

The CT scan showed pneumonia, according to the doc. So I was told my current antibiotic I was already on would be the best to continue (though I'd not brought it with me). I'd had 3 doses already out of 7 days. Now here's the limits of being 78 years old. They asked what it was, and I said starts with Leve--- and they assumed it was Levequin. But when I just took my 4th pill, I looked at the bottle. Oops.

I hope Levofloxacin will do the trick. If not, I'll be calling another doc within a couple of days. Pneumonia mainly wants rest, if I remember the last case. And that time I didn't get help until I needed hospitalization. So I may be doing things ok.

The other thing, nobody listened to my chest. Strange. The EMT on the way had, and he said he heard something in my lungs, right where I felt the pain.

Oh, and though my pulmonology office and my cardiologist office are now connected to the same hospital, apparently they didn't share any of my stats...like having Bronchiectasis. The discharge doc just put down that I had COPD. Most definitely...chronic lung problems. And I had to tell them I'd been in rehab for both cardio and pulmonary conditions last fall. Where went those records, I wonder...

But the other interesting and missing item was the clot. My test showed that I had one. But then I got the confirmation on pneumonia which only showed on a C T scan...and no more talk about clots!

The good news was  the box lunch that was brought after all the tests and my discharge papers were done. A simple turkey sandwich and chips, 2% milk and a pudding. I ate like a starving woman and never mentioned I was vegetarian. Starving women aren't picky! So my friend picked me up around 6:30 and took me home.

It was  nice to have a private room, and I snoozed a little between tests. Never turned on the TV.