Well I’ve had an interesting week so far.

It started on Saturday, with some slight pain on my right side each time I took a breath. I tried to ignore it as my parents were coming over for lunch on Sunday and I was cleaning and cooking in preparation for their arrival.

Fell into bed exhausted on Saturday night and found that when I lay down, the pain was much worse, each breath hurting ALOT. So, I sat down in an armchair in the TV room and attempted to sleep sitting up. Managed to catch about 2 hours sleep on and off.

Sunday came, pain was still there. I thought “Shit, I really did pull a muscle badly there”, so dosed myself up on anti-inflammatories and struggled through the day. Told my parents I thought I had pulled a muscle the day before, did what I had to do, fed them and sent them on their way. After they left, I had a mountain of dishes and cleaning up to do, but didn’t attempt it, just dosed myself up on some more anti-inflammatories, and sat on the couch with a heat pack hoping the pain would subside soon. It didn’t.

I attempted to lie down that night to sleep, but it was a definite no-go, as the pain was bad and I couldn’t breathe when lying down, so to the armchair again it was for maybe another 2 hours sleep.

Monday morning came, and I knew it was time to go to the Doctor, if not the hospital. Rang my boss to tell her I wasn’t going to be in (well blubbered down the phone actually) and she told me to get to the hospital right away. Of course, going to hospital is SCARY, and my Doctor is nearby, so I went to the Doctor. It was hard to drive with the pain and breathing was difficult.

Of course the Doctor said that I needed to go to the hospital, as I needed an xray to rule out pneumonia or a blood clot in the lung (eek!), so I deposited my car at home, packed an overnight bag (just incase) and off to the hospital I went.

I arrived at the emergency room at 11:30am, saw a triage nurse straight away. She took my blood pressure (which was fine), took my temperature (also fine), asked me about my medical history and medications etc. I told her I was having severe pain on breathing, and that breathing was also difficult.

She told me to sit down in the waiting room and wait to be called by a Doctor.

FOUR HOURS LATER, I saw a Doctor. She took some blood (and I swear, I didn’t even FEEL the needle go in, she was that good), organised a chest xray, gave me some pain killers (woohoo) and sat me outside in the waiting room AGAIN.

Another 2 HOURS later, (although it didn’t matter to me, as I was dozing on the pain killers), the results were in. I had a very severe chest infection (right lung), so I was given 2 types of very strong antibiotics to take, and some drug-addict heaven-type pain killers.

I ended up getting home that night at around 8:30pm. A very long day.

I slept in the armchair again, as I still couldn’t lie down, but the next day (yesterday, Tuesday), the shortness of breath had improved alot, and so had the pain. I was able to get through about half the dishes from Sunday (there were a LOT of dishes to wash!) The improvement lasted until last night. Now the left side, just below my armpit and slightly to the front, same pain on breathing. Dosed myself up again on painkillers and managed to sleep LYING DOWN, and on the side that was painful (which actually helped). Pain is still there this morning, so I’m going to take a shower and head off to the hospital again today to get checked out.

Of course, it could just be muscular from coughing, but I’ve been down that misinformed road only 2 days ago, but now I’m on heavy duty antibiotics and it shouldn’t be the same problem. I’m worried about a blood clot, as I haven’t exactly been running around the for past few days and have been basically sitting up the whole time. So, I need to be sure I am not gonna fall off the perch in the next 24 hours.

Will let you know how I go.

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