Well, that was fun

This week I may have become the only pregnant woman praying to go to/past her due date, although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd like the record to show that I officially retract my previous blog post about natural remedies for illness, and am 150% back on the REAL MEDICINE THE KIND DOCTORS DISPENSE train. Local honey, you are BS.

Warning - I'm really whiny when I'm sick, so this will be a really whiny post.

So I left off Wednesday just at the brink of coming down with something and trying to avoid medication. Well, after a night where I could only "sleep" sitting up, I was ready to see what marvels modern medicine would allow me. I was pretty sure I had a sinus infection, and the fun part about that is the infection generally teams up with my asthma to pretty much prevent me from breathing.

I called both my regular doctor as they opened on Thursday. Since my regular doctor has always been the one to deal with my asthma, I thought she could maybe continue to do so. I mean, I get that I'm pregnant, but it's not like that's some obscure medical marvel that no doctor has ever dealt with - in fact, she herself was pregnant, quite recently in fact.

I explained the situation (about to pop out a baby any minute now, sinus infection, asthma, can't breathe) and was told they could see me for an appointment on October 30th. Clearly they weren't quite picking up what I was laying down. Why would that even be given as an option - it's a sinus infection, I'll either be healed or dead by that point. I told the secretary my doctor usually gets me in for anything respiratory and they promised to call back.

In the meantime, on the other end of the spectrum, my OB had already called in a prescription for antibiotics, and I wanted to kiss her. Unfortunately, I was at work and had a good ten more hours before I could leave and go pick them up.

From there, things just continued to decline and I felt worse by the hour. My boss took one look at me and told me not to come in the next day. Thank god for that because I'd been considering it, but I woke up Friday gasping like I was at the 3 mile mark of a 5k. One that I was attempting to PR, not like one I was running with friends for charity. My inhaler did nothing (turns out, it was expired) so I took a hot shower, which still didn't really help.

My doctor was still ignoring me, even though I called back again when they opened. Obviously the antibiotics were awesome, but those take awhile to work and I needed something to help me breathe like, immediately. I started getting really freaked out because the baby was barely moving, and usually he's active 24/7. I was afraid that I wasn't getting enough oxygen and therefore he wasn't, or the meds were affecting him, or something terrible was happening.

Once again my OB came through and sent me to the hospital for a non-stress test. They hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor for about 40 minutes, then did a sonogram to check the amniotic fluid levels. Everything was fine, which was a huge relief, clearly. Now I just had to worry about going in to labor in this pathetic state.

My doctor's office finally called me back around 2pm (remember, I originally called at 9am the previous day) to tell me they were prescribing a medicine that I had been on before, which helped manage asthma in the long term. They had just called my name for the sonogram, so I was just like "ok fine whatever, refill my regular inhaler too while you're at it". I went to the pharmacy to pick it up, but it had never been called in. I had 25 minutes on hold with the doctor's office to check (during which they told me prescriptions sometimes take 24-48 hours to get to the pharmacy? Um, no, not how prescriptions work), so I started to think it through. When I finally got to talk to someone, I questioned them on why I would take a medicine only designed to manage long term problems when I was in "crisis" mode now. They agreed that wouldn't be helpful, and also that neither prescription had actually been called in (NO KIDDING I'm at the pharmacy right now and they've never heard of me).

I was kind of panicking at this point because it was past 3pm on a Friday, and I really needed at least my regular inhaler to manage my breathing for the weekend. The prospect of feeling like you are breathing through a coffee stirrer for the next 72+ hours while potentially delivering a baby in that time will do that to a person. I called the pharmacy back at 4, and they STILL hadn't received anything from the doctor. I finally got them to put in the prescription about 10 minutes before they closed and they were saved from plan B, which was Eric called and going "angry black man" on them.

Long story short: It took my doctor two full business days to call me back just to prescribe a useless medication that even I could figure out wouldn't work, except they didn't even bother to actually call in the prescription.

The inhaler was a big relief, because even on it, I spent Friday night coughing so hard that I was gagging and in extreme instances, vomiting. Sorry, gross, but without all the facts you won't properly appreciate my story and pity me. We had originally planned one "last" date night, but obviously I was disgusting and couldn't be in public. We tried to at least watch the Biggest Loser to somewhat salvage things. Unfortunately, we had to turn it off because my coughing was too loud. Good times.

Luckily on Saturday I downgraded my state from "pure unadulterated hell" to "regular sick". The baby was back to moving like normal. I spent most of the day sleeping (laying down sleeping!) and hoped the extreme exhaustion was due to my body fighting off the infection. 

Today, I'm feeling even more improved, so let's all hope the trend continues, or at least those of us who managed to read an entire whiny, tale of woe to the bottom. The only picture I have is from when I woke up Saturday morning to the trash can next to my bed completely filled with tissues, and the majority of the floor. If I were a real blogger, I probably should have had Eric take a picture of me looking pathetic on the couch, or maybe me checking in to the hospital. Sorry!

Share a time you were sick and pathetic. Especially if, like me, you aren't really one to man up and deal with it, and more of a "lay in bed and cry and complain" type.