My illness
I've been meaning to update for a long time now. Because all kinds of interesting things have been happening and I just kept putting off talking about them. But now something's happened that trumps whatever else it was. Probably just talking about how the holidays were fun. But anyway... heres the story of the last few week.
So it all started on Tuesday, the day after Christmas. On that day I just felt my throat feel a little funny. I thought to myself, I bet I'm getting sick.
Then on Wednesday I wake up and I feel like I had been punched in the throat. I couldn't barely turn my head without it hurting a lot. Unfortunately I had to work like 6 hours that day at Blockbuster. The first half of the day was alright I think I remember but the few hours were terrible and I couldn't wait to leave. It was getting painful to swallow. Now Chuan was in town and if you don't know who that is just know I haven't seen him in months. And tonight was the only night he would be able to hang out so I definitely had to do that despite how bad I felt. We picked up dmitri went out to eat and watched a movie. I could barely chew my food and swallow it and I kept falling asleep during the movie. When I finally came home I just came in and told my mom about my throat and that I was going to bed.
Thursday I wake up and tell my mom that its even worse so we go over to the walk-in clinic. My throat has started to swell some at this point but not really a lot. I get looked at there and get a strep test done, which came back positive. I was actually kind of relieved because we knew what it was and that I could just get on some antibiotics and get better real fast, hopefully before new years cuz I was gonna have a party. They put me on Avelox cuz I'm allergic to Amoxicillian and they send me on my way.
Friday and Saturday sucked balls. I'm taking my antibiotic and everything but I'm not getting better. My throat is getting ridiculously huge and its starting to freak me and my mom out. I can't eat anything remotely solid. I'm coughing up stuff all the time, and I can't open my mouth more than like half an inch. I'm having hot and cold flashes and this just isn't seeming normal. It got to the point where when everytime I would drink even water I would cough violently and a lot would come back up and it'd be like I was fighting for my breath. Nights where the worst. I didn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time during all this and I would wake up in a lot of pain and try and take some advil but would cough some of them up too. My mom got some popsicles cuz she figured they would be easy to eat, but it turned out I couldn't open my mouth wide enough to get it in so she had to slice them up into ice chips that I could suck on. How bad is that.
Saturday night my mom calls the the on-call doctor at the clinic we went to and asked her what she thought we should do. She said that she would call in a prescription for a different anti-biotic and we could see if that might make a difference. So that's what we do, but I can't start taking them til the next day.
New year's eve day sucked too, I took the new antibiotic but ya know it wasn't enough time to tell if it was working or not. So as time progressed we decided that we should probably do something because my throat was just ridiculous. So we decide to go to the emergency room. Got there at about 8:30 on new years eve at unc hospital.
I didn't have to spend any time in the waiting room because they saw my throat and they were worried about my not being able to breath so they took me straight into the back. They got an i.v. in me and gave me some fluid since I was dehydrated from not being able to drink, they also gave me some steroids for the swelling and some i.v. antibiotic. Then they ordered up a cat scan to look at my throat. When those results finally came back on of the resident doctors came to tell us what the deal was.
I had an abscess in my throat of pus and dead cells and shit. And what they needed to do was take me to surgery and suck all of it out of there. They just said that the chief resident needed to talk to us and the attending doctor which would all be involved. And they weren't sure if the surgery would be that night or the next day. One thing the doctor warned us about is that because of post-op swelling and because of how far back the abscess went, that the swelling may cause my tongue to raise up and back and cut off my airflow so that they may have to do a tracheotomy. The thought of that was terrifying to say that least. They said that we shouldn't be worried and that it may just be a preventive measure... but I still didn't like that.
Anyway, the hours and minutes were counting down to New Years and it came and went as me and my mom were sitting there in the ER waiting to find out when my surgery would be. Finally we did find out that they would be doing that night and the first thing I used the new 2007 date on was a surgery consent form. How bout that, huh. So they took me up there and we met my attending physician that would be in charge of the surgery, Dr. Couch. They told us the final things before the surgery and then that was it... they took me in there and put me under the gas and next I knew I was in the post-op room. The first thing I asked upon waking was if they had to do a trach and the answer was no. Thank god.
So then they took me to this inbetween kind of room that wasn't really like a normal hospital room but it did have a phone and tv and stuff so that was good. I lied in there for a long time just recovering. They got me on percocet along with the i.v. antibiotics and steroids. I don't really remember a lot of what happened in that room. We were just there from like 3am on new years morning until about 2pm. Then they moved me to my room.
From then until earlier today, the 3rd I just sat there in my hospital bed. Getting antibiotics, watching tv, getting visitors, trying to sleep, getting painkiller, trying to eat and so on. The thing we were concentrating on now was being sure my mom knew how to change this gause in my throat. Cuz you see, they left a hole in my throat so that shit could like drain out of it, because if they didn't then the abscess would come back. So now what we're gonna have to do for week is pull all this gause out of my throat and have her repack it a lil at a time with some tweezers into the hole in my throat. It's disgusting and its painful, but it has to be done. And I can't go back to school as long as I have an open wound on my throat like that, so its no telling how long I'll be out.
I think I covered about everything. It was really cool how many people came to see me. Let's see we had Thom twice, Sharon twice, Katie twice, then lora, david, curt, hopper, tim, and grandmother. And of course my mom who was there the entire time with me except a couple trips back home when I had other people with me.
Normally I might read over this post cuz even as I was writing I found a bunch of errors so if I check it I bet I'd find a bunch more but I just don't think I'm up to that so oh well. Hopefully it all made sense. That's the overview of everythings thats happened to me so far in the new year, exciting eh.
I dunno what's gonna happen now, just stay at home getting my work from school, getting my neck stuff change twice a day, and taking painkiller. It's gonna be horrible, but maybe it won't be that bad. We'll see.