Thursday, September 18, 2008

Pneumonia Can Be a Scary Thing


My husband, Doug, has been sick now for a little over 2 weeks straight. He managed to keep going to work up through Monday - Wednesday last week, but by Wednesday night, he was much worse. So, last Thursday I made him stay home from work and took him in to see our doctor, who put him on an antibiotic right away. He seemed to be doing a little better, until Sunday afternoon. I really thought he should go to the ER Sunday afternoon, but he begged me not to since we don't have any insurance to speak of, and what there is, has such a huge deductible. So I told him we would wait until Monday morning and then take him back in to see the doctor. She sent him immediately to the hospital for tests. At first they were afraid of a blood clot on his lung. It wasn't that, PTL!! After a chest X-ray, EKG, CAT scans, and blood work, they found that he had Bronchial Pneumonia and a spot of infection on his right lung. Needless to say, they checked him in to the hospital. He has been there all week since Monday morning and is now back home today. He has been so sick, couldn't breathe, chills and then hot flashes, fevers, etc. He has been on IV antibiotic medicines and breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock. He has been so dehydrated, so finding veins that they could put IVs in for him was nearly impossible. Finally they found one that would work. He convinced the doctor to let him come home (because of the lack of insurance), but he is still on two kinds of breathing treatments here at home, and two antibiotics as well. We have to go back tomorrow (Friday) morning to see the doctor again, and he is waiting to see when he can go back to work.

*The cake is a "Get Well" cake that one of our older daughters made for her daddy.

2 comments:

MARGARETE said...

Glad your husband is home. Have you heard anything from your son?

lindalu202 said...

Tell Doug to take it easy.