it's my blog and i'll whine if i want to

how do i keep getting sick at the most inopportune times?
i've had a bad sore throat and a cough since thursday. it got progressively worse over the weekend. i really thought if i got lots of sleep on sunday and rested up, i'd be all good on monday morning.
yeah right
instead i wasn't able to sleep at all sunday night. i was just feeling too sick. i couldn't fall asleep, and when i finally would, my coughing would wake me back up. all in all, i think i had 1.5 hours of sleep the whole night. and then i finally did "wake up" in the morning to discover i was coughing up blood. so off the to the doctor's office i go.
my pulse ox and blood pressure were at a personal all time low (which is notable as i generally have low levels to start with). i was also running a fever. so ten minutes later i was sent off to the hospital and given a prescription for an inhaler.
let me explain that talking isn't my forte today. if i talk, i cough. and when i do talk, it is a horrible raspy sound, and is rather painful to speak, as well as listen to. and then i go into a horrible fit of coughing that makes everyone nervous.
so i get to virginia hospital center. they check me all over again- pulse ox, bp, etc. nothing has changed since i left the doctors office. so i go straight to radiology for chest xrays. and the radiology intern proceeds to try and flirt with me.
i'm a patient struggling with her "ties in the back" hospital gown, and he's trying to flirt!! what's he thinking. now keep in mind, i'm doing everything in my power to not speak. and if you know me, you know that is very difficult for me to do. so he keeps saying stuff, and i keep just looking at him. he finally says something direct and expects me to answer. i reach over, took my chart out of his hands, and pointed at "hemoptysis" (coughing up blood in medicalese) on the top of the page, and gave him a very sick and pathetic look. he finally figures out i can't talk. and then he moved my hair and tied my gown for me. it was kinda cute and kinda wierd at the same time.
anyway, i'm xrayed and sent home to "sleep," since they don't see a reason to admit me. for about two seconds i considered protesting being sent home, mostly because i was so weak at that point i wasn't sure i could drive home. instead i just went and sat in the waiting room for a little bit until i felt i could walk all the way to my car. and then i sat in my car and took another little rest before driving. and then went to the pharmacy where i did the same thing.
and then i got home where i was supposed to "sleep." let me define sleep for you. my blood pressure is so low that i can barely walk five steps without getting light headed and sick. this also means that when i do lay down i start to black out and get even weaker. so i have to stay in a little bit of motion to stop that from happening. i'm coughing nonstop. and because of the big singles activity on saturday, my cell phone is ringing off the hook. and did you know there is just nothing interesting to watch on daytime television? nothing. in other words, i can sleep for about 15 minutes and i wake up again, usually from the coughing or the phone. there was one beautiful span where i slept for aobut 40 minutes this afternoon. all my meds are kicking in now- inhaler, decongestant, etc. so i'm feeling a bit better, but coughing more. stupid cough expectorant. but the doctor forgot to give me an antibiotic and a throat culture, so i have to go back tomorrow.
so for now it's time to attempt sleeping, or at least cat-napping all night. but on the bright side, my chest xrays were clear. no lung cancer for me this week, or trips to houston. i can't handle flying with this cough. and only a very mean person would subject a plane full of people to my germs and cough right now.
in the meantime, thank goodness for netflix, hollywood video, and friends who blog a lot.