I know it’s been months since my first post. I originally had intentions of putting out one post a week. Seemed easy enough, and then I consistently had a friend asking me when the next one was coming and I kept telling him soon, soon. It never came. I had ideas come and go and never put “pen to paper” but I had a co-worker last week tell me they read my first post and they really enjoyed it. It got my wheels turning again and here I am “pen to paper” or in this instance typing in the notes app on my phone.
I wanted to share with everyone my fully detailed account of my month of December 2022. I have two jobs, between them I didn’t work a single day that month other than a few emails and very basic things that took no time at all. I spent 7 days in bed incapable of even the simplest activity, 13 days in two different hospitals and 2 surgeries. I’ve come away with 0 answers of what happened. This is my story “beat drop from Law and Order”
The last few days of November I started to feel crappy. The first day I really felt anything was November 27th, the Eagles played the Packers on Sunday Night Football. The weather was pretty crappy but not bad for the end of November overall and I had a deep cough and felt like there was mucus to cough up but I couldn’t produce anything. Oh well, it’s game day, we’ve got tickets. Go birds.
Tailgate was pretty normal, pounding Busch lights, eating like we’re going to the electric chair, you know the usual. Get to the game and I spent half the second quarter and most of the second half inside the concourse. We had club level tickets that game so luckily I was able to actually sit inside out of the cold or I honestly would have went back to the car. Game ends, eagles win, me and my brother meet my aunt at the car and I asked her if she could drive bc I wasn’t feeling well. She said she didn’t think she was driving or she wouldn’t have drank as much as she did and driving was back on me.
I fully believe that a large part of being sick/healthy being happy/sad is your mindset. So I just told myself easy peasy you feel fine let’s drive home. Mission accomplished everything was fine.
Woke up the next day half assed my way through my day job. Got sent home early from my second as they could tell I clearly wasn’t myself. Half assed my way through my day job Tuesday and Wednesday also. Then Thursday I woke up feeling even worse. High fever, chills, body aches, and still the same cough. I was out sick from then on at both jobs.
Monday I went to my primary care Dr. and I’m not a “let’s go to the Dr.” guy as I once had kidney stones and due to being covered by insurance in part of a hospital and not another part of the same building I owe 38k in medical debt. My meager attempt to get back at them is by only paying $50 a month (that’ll show them).
But I go to the Dr. tell him all the things right, he thinks it’s bronchitis and gives me a couple drugs and sends me on my way. By this time I also had absolutely no appetite. I was either not eating anything or maybe a handful of grapes per day. When I took the meds I felt better, not better to the point where I could normally function, better as in I can sit up and watch tv and maybe even walk to the kitchen open the fridge, stare at the food before deciding I don’t want any of it and going to lay back down.
By the time the supply of drugs the Dr. had given me had run out (5 day supply) things had gotten worse. Any time I wasn’t on some type of painkiller/anti inflammatory whatever it was I was taking was bad I was in bad shape. I’d wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, like I just crushed a Nikki Adkins hot yoga class wearing a sweatsuit kinda drenched. I’d wake up take meds, go take a shower, sit down in the hot water, not wash a single part of my body. Get out go put a towel down over my drenched bed and go back to sleep. I’m sure myself and my bedroom smelled tremendous during this time of my life. (No free ads but Sumits Hot Yoga in Springfield MO on Glenstone right across from the Battlefield Mall use Promo Code “Hot Nap” for probably a 0% discount)
Like I said the Dr. only gave me a 5 day supply of drugs and also like I said I believe a big part of not being sick is not admitting you’re sick. So when I called the Dr. to try to get refills I probably undersold just how bad I was feeling and they told me they couldn’t refill the drugs bc they were steroids yadi yada whatever. On day 10 of this pattern my mom finally talked me into going to urgent care. It was Wednesday, December 7th we were going to go in the morning. And I woke up in my sweat filled bed of filth and figured I should probably take a shower and clean my body before going into the public. As I went to take a shower I remember putting the body wash in my hand and immediately realizing “this is not going to work” and I was super lightheaded and slowly worked myself down to what had become my usual seated pose in the tub.
When I gathered the strength to get out I told my mom we should probably go to the hospital not urgent care. Due to my previously mentioned insurance issue with hospitals my mom was calling my insurance company to make certain where we could go. We went to Jefferson hospital it Cherry Hill NJ. And let me tell you what an experience that was..
I have been in a decent amount of ER’s not a lot but a handful and this was both the smallest and busiest I’d been in. And there were ambulances rolling up at least every 30 minutes. It was so crowed they were asking people who weren’t there to be treated to wait in the car. Me and my mom were sitting in a small room between the bathrooms and the lobby where the vending machines were. I remember there was one older lady there who was waiting to be seen in high heels talking to everyone, had her hair done and everything. I’m thinking lady wtf are you doing here like is this your usual Wednesday go to the ER for no reason or what?
We wait for hours, I’m not even sure how long truthfully. But I go back talk to the Nurse Practitioner whatever. Get called back to do an X-Ray/CT scan I can’t remember which then wait a few hours more. I get called back for the results of the scan. The NP asks me if there’s someone here with me and I said my mom and she said to go get her. I immediately knew…”well this probably isn’t ideal”. I go get my mom and they say that they’re going to get me admitted as soon as possible because there’s a large mass in my throat.