My version as I remember it. Part I.

DISCLAIMER:  This is extremely long and probably very boring to most of you, but this blog is my journal and I feel like someday I may want to remember all of this so here it goes...

I started feeling kinda sick on Wednesday, December 9th. It felt like I was just coming down with a cold. Ya know, the body aches and a little sore throat. Nothing that was too bad though. By Friday night I was feeling much worse. I had had a fever off and on for two days and my throat was hurting a lot worse, plus I had the start of a cough. I knew strep was going around so I just figured that I should get to the Instacare and have it taken care of. I wasn't feeling well enough to drive myself, so Jimi and Gracie piled in the care and off we went. We all walked in, I checked in and put on a mask and we sat far away from everyone else. Luckily it was a Friday night at 7 PM, so there were not a lot of other sickies there. :)

Having said that, we waited and waited and waited! By 8 PM, we were taken back to a room and waited some more till about 8:30 when the doctor (whom I choose to leave anonymous for his protection) walked in all chipper and said, "So Sarah, it sounds like you have the crud!" To this I replied, "yep, I don't feel very well."  He did his thing and 90 seconds later walked out. In walked his medical assistant with two prescriptions, one for amoxicillin for an ear infection (which I don't think I even had, aren't they pretty painful?! My ear was a little sore, but NOTHING compared to my throat and the annoying cough...) and the other Rx was for a cough syrup that he never even told me he was giving me. He did ask me if I had been coughing a lot and then he asked Jimi if he was getting any sleep laying next to me all night.  So I guess that was all the info he needed to prescribe the codeine.  I expected him to come back in and finish talking to me, he never did. So, after an hour and half wait, I got 90 seconds of his time. We knew H1N1 was going around and when we asked him if he thought I had it, he just said, "You could, it's hard to tell. Just get some rest and give it some time." Great, thanks doc. I am thankful that I did have the mind to ask him to look at Gracie's ears as well just to make sure she was ok. To this he replied, "yeah, ok, just don't tell IHC that I did it for free." To put it mildy, I was annoyed.

So anyway, we got into the car and headed to Walgreens to drop off the Rx and Jimi and I were talking about his very rushed bedside manner and that is when it dawned on both of us that Dr. Anonymous never listened to me breath!  He didn't use his stethoscope once during those 90 seconds. I  was never asked to take a deep breath, not once!  Jimi and I just chalked it up to him being tired and wanting to get out of there just as badly as we did.   But still, I remember talking specifically about how I wished he would have listened to my lungs and I couldn't believe that he didn't.  He was the doctor and that is his job!  Especially if someone comes in specifically for a sore throat and cough.  And besides, isn't it routine anyway....like ya know, you go in for a stubbed toe and they have you do the deep breathing and they whip out the stethoscope???  Right?  Stupid me, I didn't think about it till I was in the car and half way down the road!!!  Argh!  Oh, well. 

So we are at Walgreens and I decide that I am NOT going to have the cough syrup script filled.  I just had this uneasy feeling about it.  He never told me he was giving it to me and I was just annoyed enough to not really trust him.  Funny now, looking back I don't think it was cause I was annoyed, I know it was the Holy Ghost telling me not to fill it.  As it turns out, several of my doctors told me that if I would have taken that, it would have masked my symptoms to a point and by the time they were worse it could have been too late to get any help.  Tender mercies are everywhere! 

Fast forward two days.  I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed.  From what I remember that is.  Monday morning Jimi was scheduled to fly to Vegas for 3 days for work.  Monday morning came and I couldn't get out of bed.  I couldn't take care of Gracie.  I was sick.  We decided that I just needed more time to rest, that my "ear infection" was actually just a flu bug and as soon as my fever broke, I would feel better.  He missed his flight to stay home and take care of us but still really needed to get down to Vegas.  So Monday afternoon, I packed up some stuff for me, for Grace and for Roxy and the three of us Jar girls headed to mom's and dad's and Jimi headed to the airport.  My mom had taken the next day (Tuesday) off work to go to a doctor appointment for herself.  Originally she was just going to take off the afternoon but after talking to Jimi Monday, she decided to take the morning off too to help me with Grace....or so we all thought.  :)

I remember rocking Gracie to sleep that night feeling like I was going to die myself.  My fever would come and go, based on the Tylenol kicking in and then wearing off.  I bent down to lay her in the crib at my parents' and I started coughing.  I tried to stifle it because I didn't want to wake her.  I got her all tucked in and immediately left the room to engage in a huge coughing fit.  I was coughing and gasping and coughing some more.  My mom came out and turned on the fire place and we talked for several hours into the night because I simply couldn't breathe if I laid down.  Finally in the middle of the night I decided I was tired enough and if I propped myself up just right, I could breathe and sleep.  I slept in the bedroom across from Gracie for two reasons.  The first, I didn't want her to get this flu bug and the second being that I didn't want to cough and wake her up. 

Tuesday morning I felt like death.  Literally.  I decided a hot shower would help so I got into my parents' giant shower and I could hardly stand.  I just leaned up against the wall.  A bath.  A bath sounded even better.  I was so cold and knew I could just lay there, I wouldn't have to stand.  So I got out of the shower and shivered over to their giant jetted tub and filled it up with as hot of water as I could stand.  I laid there long enough to get warm.  Then I got too warm and I started coughing again.  I remember wrapping up in a towel and heading back to my bed.  I told my mom that I felt awful and I think I even said the words, "I just can't breath, I feel like I am dying."  I laid there naked in the bed and grabbed my cell phone and called my doctor's office but it was too early, they weren't open yet.  So I waited for about an hour and a half until they did open.  They couldn't get me in to my normal doctor but had an opening with another one in about 2 hours.  I took it. 

Not being able to drive myself, my mom packed up Gracie and I and drove me out to Roy to my doctor's office.  We just figured that I would go to the doctor, get something to help me breathe, go to my house, rest for a few hours and then go with my mom to her doctor's appointment and just wait in the car.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  So I walked in to my appointment and mom and Grace stayed in the car.  She was asleep and that is no place for a healthy baby.  So I get right back and they do my weight and then my PulseOx.  The cute little tech messes around with the gizmo and mutters something like, "that can't be right, let's try it again, it should be working..."  so she puts it back on my finger.  Again, "this one isn't working.  Let's try another one."  We walk across the hall and she uses a different PulseOx.  Then she says, "Are you dizzy?  Your oxygen is reading at 82%?  It should be like 98%.  I am going to get the doctor.  Just sit tight."

No less than two minutes later Dr. Ferrin comes over and whips out her stethoscope.  She seems a little alarmed and sends me right down to radiology for a chest x-ray.  I remember having a little trouble changing out of my clothes and into the robe without feeling like I was going to just fall over.  Finally, I am in the x-ray room hugging this cold metal machine so they can get a look at my lungs.  The rad tech does one, checks it, does it again, checks it, does it again and checks it, then has me reposition and does two more.  Yup 5 hits in like 5 minutes.  Then she says to me, "I just couldn't get a great shot of your lungs..."  That was it.  Nothing else. 

Back to my room and I can get dressed again.  Dr. Ferrin comes right in and asks if I am married.  I tell her yes.  She asks if my husband is here with me.  I tell her nope, he is in Vegas for work but my mom and three month old baby are in the car waiting for me.  She got this really concerned look on her face and asks me to call my mom and have her come in.  So my mom and little Miss Gracie, who is sound asleep, and completely covered with her cute little carseat cover that I had just made about a week earlier, come in and they send them right back to the room.  Dr. Ferrin gives me a breathing treatment in the meantime.  We are all gathered in the exam room and she starts explaining my condition.  Double Pneumonia. Extremely reduced lung capacity.  Probable H1N1.  Hospital.  Emergency Room.  Then I hear this, "Sarah has your baby been sick?"   "No.  I mean, she was like two weeks ago but not really since."  She checked out Gracie and thankfully, the little pink bundle of love was a.o.k.  By the way, Dr. Ferrin was amazing.  Pretty much a rockstar! 

So off to McKay-Dee we go.  I remember calling Jimi and leaving a voicemail that went something like this..."Hey Jimi, I just went to the doctor and they are sending me to the hospital to be admitted.  I have double pneumonia and probably swine flu.  Just wanted to let you know.  Call my mom when you can."  I could have been in shock, I don't know, it was all pretty casual.  I never did ask him what he thought when he heard that.  Funny.  I would really like to hear that voice message right now. 

Anyway, prior to this I had a brief 2 hour stint when I was in a car accident in high school, I had never been a patient in any hospital.  Because it was a gross ER, I didn't want Gracie going in, so my mom (who called my sister in the meantime to meet us up there as soon as she could) stayed in the car with Gracie and I walked in by myself and checked myself in, just like an adult.  Looking back.  I cannot believe how freakishly calm I was.  I was such a big girl!  :) 

So they knew I was coming and had all my x-rays and stuff already pulled up.  They lay me down on the hospital bed and hand me the paperwork.  I try to fill it out but I cannot think.  Everything just seemed to be gone!  I knew I was there and I knew why but computing my birthday and social security number and then being able to write it down seemed next to impossible!  A nurse comes in to start an IV and she cannot get a vein.  She tries another spot and blows the vein.  Someone else comes in to do it, goes to the other arm.  Blows that vein too.  Finally about the seventh try and an hour later I am getting some IV fluids.  I have hard veins anyway, but because I was so sick and so dehydrated it was next to impossible.  My mom and sister come in and I am covered in these awesome bruises.  They pretty much happened instantly.  My brother-in-law took Gracie home with him and his two youngsters.  Jimi had been finally contacted and was trying to get on the soonest plane home.  Tracy finished my paperwork for me.  The nurses were happy to have those papers. 

About an hour later I was transferred out of the ER and up to the 5th floor.  The cute little tech guy who pushed me and my bed up to the 5th floor was the same tech who pushed my Grandpa to his room about seven months earlier.  I told him I remember him from then and he was so cute and apologized that he didn't remember us.