After hours clinic

Monday I was so tired and was having trouble breathing so I layed on the couch all day. I went to bed Monday night and woke up at 4am and got sick. My esophagus was hurting and burning and it wasn't good. I'll spare you the details but it was not fun. That went on the rest of the night. I finally got to sleep at 8am and slept a couple hours.

Ever since I went to the hospital a month ago for esophagus spasms, I've been taking medicine to help it. If I miss a dose, It is very painful and I can't eat.

When this happened Monday night we knew we had to do something because I had been taking my medicine.

So yesterday I didn't want to eat or drink because it hurt a lot and would come back up. I doubled up on my medicine and also took this other liquid medicine they gave me at the ER. I didn't help at all.

We really didn't want to go to the hospital again or be sent to another specialist so we went an after hours clinic. Of course they know me there too. The doctor there is the doctor who ordered my PICC line and IVs at home. His nephew I think has Lyme. He was a guy in the army and then all the sudden got extremely sick and had to quit. So this doctor has seen what it does to people. He doesn't know how to treat it, he just will help in any way.

We went through everything that has happened the past month and he said I probably have a hiatal hernia. Yeah I didn't know what that was either. He even had a nice picture of it...

A hiatal hernia is when the top of your stomach comes up into your esophagus for whatever reason. There is a muscle that keeps your stomach from your esophagus but if that muscle is weak, your stomach will come up through it, causing a hiatal hernia. This also means that the acid that is in your stomach no longer has a muscle to keep it in your stomach. That is why I couldn't eat or anything because my stomach is just open so acid continues to come up.

I know that is more than you want to know! He said that since this has been going on for so long he is worried that the acid has done damage to my esophagus. Obviously stomach acid is supposed to stay in the stomach and will erode the esophagus.

He is switching me to a prescription medicine (I was just taking an over the counter medicine) that will hopefully help. He also gave me a prescription for the drink they gave me in the hospital. We didn't know you could actually have that at home!

It's a real tasty green mixture of lidocaine and a few pain medicines. It might be the weirdest thing I've ever taken. Your mouth and throat and esophagus stay numb for a while until the pain medicines kick in. And wow they hit fast! I was laying on the couch and all the sudden got so hot and tried to lift my head and bam! I realized I wouldn't be lifting my head for a while. It made me so loopy and tired. Finally after a while I could get up and I went to bed early!

I'm really hoping that the new medicine helps!

very sick...

Saturday night I started my new heart medicine. Sunday morning I woke up with no voice and bad chest pains. More things kept going wrong as the day went on. My throat and ears starting hurting so badly. It felt like there was fluid in my lungs and it hurt to breathe. Because of the snow, church was held at 3pm. So we just hung out at home until then. Since I couldn't talk, I used my itouch to communicate. I spelled out words on it and then passed it to my parents. I also used a lot of pointing and hand motions. I wasn't doing well at all. I asked if I could go to church so they agreed to let me go and then planned on taking me to the after hours clinic. When we got to church I realized how sick I was. This happens a lot. I think I am feeling okay at home because I'm not around people or doing anything that takes much energy. Then when I actually leave my house I realize how tired I am.

I was sitting with my friends at church and I knew I couldn't make it much longer. I texted my parents (yes I texted them during church...don't tell.) and told them I needed to leave. So I watched for them to get up and leave the auditorium and then I left too. We got to the after hours clinic and filled out the paper work. They give you a couple papers of symptoms to check off. Most people take like 10 minutes to fill this out. I take less then 2 minutes because I have it memorized. That saves us a lot of time!

They took me back to check my vitals. My blood pressure was a little high for me, which means in the normal range for normal people. My pulse was 144 bpm. I could have told them that because when your heart rate is that high, you definitely feel it. My oxygen was 100%!

The nurse took us to my room and started asking me lots of routine questions. It's a little hard to communicate when you can't talk. By then I could whisper but it hurt so bad and took so much energy.

The doctor came in and listened to my lungs and looked in my ears. He said my ears were fine! He definitely heard something in my chest. He explained that with young people, their lungs can work well and their oxygen level can be 100% but they could still have pneumonia or fluid in their lungs so I had some chest xrays. After he saw it he said that my lungs looked okay. There was a little fluid but not much. He also said that my colon is swollen or something and it is pressing against my lungs which is causing a lot of pain. But he didn't say anything else about that so we guess it's fine.

This was his advice. "lets watch this very closely because this could be the beginning of pneumonia so call me if you get worse." uhh thank you? I was really upset from all that. Really really upset. He did nothing for me.

I feel horrible. I'm weak, I have fever, my chest hurts, my throat hurts to the point that I really can't eat, and I still can't talk. I can whisper but it hurts a lot.

He said it could be caused by the new heart medicine and that my body might just take a while to get used to it. So we don't really know anything. We don't think it's the heart medicine though.

Last night I was up a lot because of my throat. Today I have done nothing but lay down and catch up on some tv shows. But it's not even fun to the watch tv because I feel terrible. My grandparents brought me a shake so I had that and it was really good!

The past 24 hours, I have sucked on cinnamon candy non stop to help my throat. I am probably getting addicted and I don't even care. I need it to survive.

Hopefully the next few days will be better and not worse.