Breathe!

On Tuesday, I stayed home with what I thought was a fever/flu-like symptoms. I slept almost the whole day and expected to feel better by Wednesday. However, when I checked into the doctor's office on Wednesday afternoon because of chest pains, the nurses put me in a wheelchair and rushed me into Urgent Care immediately. One nurse started pressing on my ribs and suggesting that I could have a heart problem. Of course, after they took my blood pressure and pulse, which were normal, they changed their tune. Then they put me on a nebulizer and I did several breathing tests.

After my chest x-ray, the doctor told me that I have calcified lymph nodes in my lungs. These appear as little white spots and are the result of growing up on a farm. Apparently there are fungi in the soil and when it is plowed, they are stirred up into the air and you inhale them. This causes the lymph nodes to calcify and is completely normal for anyone who lives in the midwest. Also, these are not the source of my chest pain or cough. Besides the little white spots, my chest x-ray was clean, so the doctor called it viral bronchitis and I was sent home with cough medication and an inhaler. He told me to make another appointment if I didn't see improvement in 3 days.

Well, today is day 3 and my symptoms are worse than ever. I can't say two sentences without a cough. My inhaler is a God-send because I would probably suffocate during a cough-attack without it. Normally my job as a museum docent doesn't require a lot of talking. People generally keep to themselves and don't ask many questions. Of course, today would be the day that I have to talk in front of a group of 26 boyscouts and every guest in the hotel visits the museum. I am only supposed to use my inhaler every 4-6 hours, but it has been really difficult trying to stick to that today. This afternoon, I was coughing so frequently that one of the boyscout leaders took a waterbottle out of his bag, gave it to me, and said, "Here, you need it more than I do."

Then I did the worst thing one could possibly do at this point - I consulted WebMD. It gave me a variety of choices as to my condition. Bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma were all at the top of the list. I have already been diagnosed with bronchitis, but it could have turned into something else. There is a good chance that I have another chest x-ray and more breathing tests coming my way on Monday. Wish me luck!