Monday, May 23, 2011

Compromised immune system...

Last Friday I began to feel like maybe I was catching something and Saturday morning I knew I had.
Headache, low grade fever (100ish), achy joints ...not achy breaky heart..., nagging cough and no energy.
I had planned on walking both Saturday and Sunday for exercise, but all the exercise I got was gettin' up and goin' to the "powder room".
Today, Monday, came and I found myself being wheelchaired over to the hospital...like one block away. That terrified me because it seems like everytime I go there, be it for x-rays or whatever I get captured and wind up inpatient for a month or so.
Wellst, I had a chest x-ray and blood work...and then they wouldn't let me go until everything had been reviewed by some Doctors.
It was determined that I probably just had acquired the crud that's going around.
But I was sweatin' it waiting for those Docs to look over the x-rays and the blood work.
And speaking of blood work, implanted in my upper left chest is something that's been called a Hickman, but I refer to it as a Tri-fecta because it has three lines sticking out which have been variously usedd for chemo, blood draws, transfusions, and administration of a lot of other "stuff". Then implanted in my upper right chest is a Super Port which is used for much of the same things as the Tri-fecta but not nearly as often. I've had both of them for over a year, yet sometimes, like today, "they" decide "they" need to poke me with needles for blood draws.
Today they had to poke around both arms to draw blood and like a good trooper I just grinned and beared it.
They, different than "they", just came in and took my vitals...blood pressure 85/56 (Wow, for a guy with hugh blood pressure that's really low!), Oxygen saturation 91% (It's only been recently that I have cosistentl been over the 90% mark which is the benchmark, I've got COPD on top of everything else and for years my Oxygen saturation hung around the mid-80s, pulse 60 and respirations 16.
So, other than an upside down spike in BP, I'm doing ok vitals wise.

I'm still thinkin' I'll be outa here within the next couple of weeks, and the only thing that cocerns me is that de to the drugs and steroids I've been made a temporary diabetic and get my blood sugar level checked about 5 times a day followed by an insulin shot.
I haven't asked about that, i.e. what I'm gonna do about that when I leave here because that might be construed as my beginning to request leaving when I've committed to staying until I'm told by some powers who know more than I do what's best for me.

I titled this post "Compromised immune system" because that's what I have. Will I always be compromised?
Dunno.
Wonderin' though if I oughta by stock in "Wellbourne" and use one every time I go out and am around people.
Does that stuff work?

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