Sunday, December 02, 2007
| I can only sit upright or stand tall. I mean it. My body is ailing. We returned from Santa Cruz and our exciting Thanksgiving weekend last Sunday night. Upon arriving home I felt a tightness and burning in my chest. By noon on Monday I was in the middle of an insane bronchial asmtha attack. I don't have asmtha. I was shocked and clueless. I have had one other similar attack in my life. It was shortly after Sylvan was born. We were living happily in a tiny cottage in Eugene, OR. We called it the "Hobbit House." Q had to duck to walk through the door. We moved in during spring. We loved the huge fenced yard, fish pond, apple tree, the garden potential (this is where I had my loveliest herb spiral), it was walkable/bikable to everything, and yet was totally secluded. We loved it through the summer and fall and then by the time Sylvan was two months old, it started to rain. Obviously, no great surprise as Eugene averages 50 inches of rain a year. We were not ready for the obscene amounts of mold that a house built directly on a slab of concrete in a rainy and damp climate could foster. We could almost watch the mold grow before our very eyes. So we attacked it with bleach and more bleach. We tried to keep the house warm and dry. (This is the same house where one morning I woke up and stood up out of bed. I was barefoot. I stepped on something strange. It turned out to be a live baby mouse that I had crushed to its death. Yes, I shrieked. I almost vomited. I definitely dry heaved.) One day Q and Sylvan went out and about and I decided to vacuum. After a few minutes of running the vacuum I felt my lungs seize up. I ran outside and put my arms towards the heavens and gulped for air. A tiny amount wheezed in and out of my poor mold spore plagued lungs. Had I had insurance during this part of my life I would have gone to the emergency room. But I did not and instead my midwife brought me an inhaler. It helped. I could breathe again. Which brings me back to the attack I experienced Monday. Q brought me a primatene mist inhaler that you can buy over the counter. It relieved my immediate problem of not being able to breathe. But all last week I was sicky sick sick. I thought I had bronchitis. I had tried all kinds of remedies to no avail. An old German woman suggested I try taking whole mustard seeds and grind them up with water to form a paste. She instructed me to then put the mustard seed paste into a series of dish towels and then place the towels on my chest. I did this last night while we watched a movie. She had told me it would burn and that it did. My chest is still red today. After the movie was over I stood up to go to bed when an intense pain hit me in the middle of my right lung and stopped me in my tracks. This pain was sharp and it started to travel up towards the right part of my neck and ear and all the way through my right arm to the tips of my fingers. Did this have something to do with the mustard seeds? What the hell is going on? I tried to to go to bed and I could not lie my body down without incredible pain. Q wanted me to go to the ER. Had all this pain been on my left side I probably would have, but visiting the ER on a Saturday night when I already feel like total shit is not my idea of any kind of fun. I figured it would just make it worse anyways. So no sleep for me last night...well I kind of dozed sitting up in an awkward and uncomfortable position. I was even worse today and Q made me go to the doctor. I spent three hours shivering my ass off in a gown. I had a nebulizer treatment, chest X-rays and an EKG. My heart is great. I do not have pneumonia. He said my lungs look fine. They have no idea why I am having this pain in my right lung that is shooting through my neck and arm. And he thinks I have intermittent asmtha. I now have two new inhalers. Ones that don't make the underside of my chin itch when I take a puff (thank you very much primatene mist you helpd me out and all, but you are weak.) I also will take the steroid predisone for the next five days to help with any inflammation in my lungs. This is why I can only sit upright or stand tall. Any other position makes the right lung pain agitated. The computer chair is the most comfortable to me right now. I do hope these words find everyone well in this last month of 2007. luv gk |
No comments:
Post a Comment