The "I have bronchitis" edition

So I realized that in all of the freakishly prompt blog entries that I've written in the past two weeks, I failed to mention that I have been pretty much dying. I got a bad cold the last Friday of Spring Break, which was March 11, and it basically just kept getting worse for about a week. Then just when I thought I was getting over it, my awesome asthma kicked in and decided that I didn't really need to be able to breathe. So after about a week of wheezing, I start doing my nebulizer on Tuesday. Finally last Friday the 25th, after having a hacking, barking cough for a few days, I cave and go to the doctor to get prednisone. The doctor tells me that it's just asthma, gives me the prednisone and that's the end of that. Until it keeps getting worse. And the cough gets worse. And the breathing gets worse. Tuesday I leave work after 2 hours because I sound terrible. Luckily I have a great boss and work with people who are flexible and understanding. I call off from clinical on Wednesday since I knew I would feel awful, then I cave again and go to the Emergency Room because NOTHING that I am doing is helping me breathe and I'm starting to get worried. So I go to the ER and get 2 nebulizers with Atrovent, which helps a LOT, and a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. When all was said and done, they diagnosed me with viral bronchitis, which sucks because there is basically nothing that they can do. I got Tylenol 3 with codeine to help with my cough and let me get some sleep, and they told me to keep doing the breathing treatments and my Symbicort inhaler, and taking the prednisone and that it may take a while to resolve. Four hours for a whole lot of nothing. I guess the bright side was that there was nothing seriously wrong with me. I didn't go to clinical Wednesday or Thursday because A) I sound awful, B) I feel awful, C) I'm contagious, D) We are on a floor with people over 65 who are already sick. My clinical instructor was AMAZING about the whole thing (she heard my cough on Monday so she knew I wasn't lying), plus I have a note and my paperwork from the ER. She let me stay home and told me not to stress about missing the days because I was doing fine. That made me feel a million times better. So today is Friday, I still don't feel great, but I'm definitely on the mend. Still doing breathing treatments at least 3-4 times a day, which I gotta tell ya, I'm really ready to be done with since this is day ELEVEN of treatments. UGH. But my cough is improving and hopefully I'll be able to stop the treatments soon. I can't wait.

This definitely wasn't in the plans, but I'm thankful for a great clinical instructor, friends, family, and co-workers for getting me through this past week and a half-ish. Hoping to be back to (almost) 100% by Monday! :)

If you don't know what bronchitis does to your lungs, the pictures will give you a pretty good idea! Basically you feel like your lungs are full of crap and your chest rattles when you breathe. And you have a deep barking cough. It's really glamorous.