New Pneumonia.
So the last few days my lungs have been kind of hurting. At first it was like "oh that's irritating", which not so slowly progressed into "oh shit I can't breathe". So I did what I always do. I went to my all knowing font of knowledge. My big sister, Hope. She's an A&E Doctor and by far the smartest one in the family, so if she tells me to do something, I do it. She told me to go to A&E, so I did, because even if she's miles away I feel she'd still slap me if I didn't.
As anyone who regularly visits hospital will know, you never go to an A&E without packing at least an overnight bag and something to do in the waiting room, that's just silly. Conveniently, my brand new backpack arrived that morning, so that was cool. My Mom seemed less impressed with how excited I was to use it than I was. Something about it being more important that I breathe.
Now I know I wasn't well, because I kept coming kinda close to passing out on the way there, but obviously I didn't reaaaaally want to stress anyone out so I tried not to make that too obvious (sorry Mom). The only upside to chest pains is being rushed straight through when you get there. But maybe that's not such a good thing. They did an ECG, which is short for Electrocardiogram. Basically it's where they stick lots of little electrodes on your skin (they're just like stickers) and attach wires to them. This then traces your hearts activity, which can be very useful in showing them if you have any abnormalities with your heart. In this case, I didn't. So they took some blood from me and ran what they referred to as 'general tests'. This included checking my kidney function and CRP (which I've mentioned before).
This was followed up with a big wait, because A&E is a very busy place. Nothing annoys me more than when people get annoyed with the staff for being busy. They're saving lives, please leave them to it. But then I saw a Doctor, he listened to my chest and sent me for an X-ray. The X-ray confirmed that I have pneumonia. Not just in one side of my lungs, but in both. I'm so lucky, aren't I?
Pneumonia is an inflammation problem within your lungs, it causes the air sacs (alveoli) to fill with fluid or pus, which makes it difficult to breathe. There are varying degrees of severity with pneumonia, last year I was very seriously ill with it whilst in hospital, and whilst this isn't nice, it's definitely not that bad. So for now I'm on bed rest and antibiotics. Which means I've been banned from playing my bands gig tonight, so I'm quite sad about that. I'll sit at home and play my synth alone instead to an audience of dogs. It won't at all be depressing. Promise.
In the last few years, problems with my lungs have become increasingly regular, as my immune system is ... shit. The amount of steroids and other immunosuppressants that I have taken makes it very difficult for me to fight off illness, and often results in rapidly worsening cases. It's something that isn't always realised with autoimmune diseases, that the symptoms aren't just those of the illness, but also of all the illnesses it invites to join it during it's wild party in your body.
Also, this now means that I'm on four different antibiotics, my pee smells weird, it's bright orange (not like, dehydration orange, but like, an orange, orange) and my stoma output is probably the same consistency, which is great. Although I think it means that it's okay for me to order pizza today, right? I'm going to pretend you agreed with me.
Love and shit x
As anyone who regularly visits hospital will know, you never go to an A&E without packing at least an overnight bag and something to do in the waiting room, that's just silly. Conveniently, my brand new backpack arrived that morning, so that was cool. My Mom seemed less impressed with how excited I was to use it than I was. Something about it being more important that I breathe.
Now I know I wasn't well, because I kept coming kinda close to passing out on the way there, but obviously I didn't reaaaaally want to stress anyone out so I tried not to make that too obvious (sorry Mom). The only upside to chest pains is being rushed straight through when you get there. But maybe that's not such a good thing. They did an ECG, which is short for Electrocardiogram. Basically it's where they stick lots of little electrodes on your skin (they're just like stickers) and attach wires to them. This then traces your hearts activity, which can be very useful in showing them if you have any abnormalities with your heart. In this case, I didn't. So they took some blood from me and ran what they referred to as 'general tests'. This included checking my kidney function and CRP (which I've mentioned before).
This was followed up with a big wait, because A&E is a very busy place. Nothing annoys me more than when people get annoyed with the staff for being busy. They're saving lives, please leave them to it. But then I saw a Doctor, he listened to my chest and sent me for an X-ray. The X-ray confirmed that I have pneumonia. Not just in one side of my lungs, but in both. I'm so lucky, aren't I?
Pneumonia is an inflammation problem within your lungs, it causes the air sacs (alveoli) to fill with fluid or pus, which makes it difficult to breathe. There are varying degrees of severity with pneumonia, last year I was very seriously ill with it whilst in hospital, and whilst this isn't nice, it's definitely not that bad. So for now I'm on bed rest and antibiotics. Which means I've been banned from playing my bands gig tonight, so I'm quite sad about that. I'll sit at home and play my synth alone instead to an audience of dogs. It won't at all be depressing. Promise.
In the last few years, problems with my lungs have become increasingly regular, as my immune system is ... shit. The amount of steroids and other immunosuppressants that I have taken makes it very difficult for me to fight off illness, and often results in rapidly worsening cases. It's something that isn't always realised with autoimmune diseases, that the symptoms aren't just those of the illness, but also of all the illnesses it invites to join it during it's wild party in your body.
Also, this now means that I'm on four different antibiotics, my pee smells weird, it's bright orange (not like, dehydration orange, but like, an orange, orange) and my stoma output is probably the same consistency, which is great. Although I think it means that it's okay for me to order pizza today, right? I'm going to pretend you agreed with me.
Love and shit x
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