Dr. Appointment, Caroling, Dad's Birthday

On Tuesday morning I had an appointment with my surgeon. I walked in and the nurse said, "you're back again?" I just smiled and quietly laughed and said, "yes. Yes I am". I've been to see them 3 times in 3 weeks and of course they remember me because most teenagers don't have Lyme, okay pretty much none. They also don't have as many problems as I do, like internal bleeding, blood filled cysts the sizes of oranges, endometriosis, and their appendixes out all in one whack. 

The surgeon started me on antibiotics for this cough stuff I have going on. He also said that the pain I'm experiencing is still surgery pain, along with pain from coughing and sneezing. I pulled a muscle in my back from coughing. How embarrassing. But he said that it would all get better, it will just take some time. Praise God that he doesn't think anything else is wrong!

I've been feeling pretty cruddy to be honest. And grumpy. I'm blaming it on the meds, since I am on meds, so why not. For information purposes, the youth ministers send out mass texts reminding us of youth group things going on. So Tuesday morning while I was at my doctors appointment, I got a text from the youth ministers saying that they were going caroling that night. I was so disappointed that I couldn't go. I haven't gotten to do anything "Christmasy" this year because of being in the hospital and having surgery. So I tried to forgot that they were going caroling, which is impossible since I am the youth group nerd, so I wouldn't feel left out. Once I came home from the doctor, I layed down on the couch for the whole rest of the day because I felt terrible. I also spent a majority of the day hanging out in the bathroom, but I won't go into details. I think the pain medicine was what was making me sick.

Several of my friends were acting weird on Tuesday, asking if I would be home that night. I didn't know what was going on because they didn't ask if they could come over. Why would they care if I was home if they didn't even want to come over? Then that night, one of my youth ministers texted and asked for my neighborhood gate code. I knew something was up. I fell asleep on the couch and was woken up by my brother yelling, "they're here, I have to get my gun!". Of course it's just a fake gun, don't worry. Thank goodness my brother protects us from everything. The door bell rang, and we were flooded with the sound of Christmas carols. I slowly made my way to the door, overwhelmed with what was happening. Good overwhelmed of course. There were probably over 20 people from the youth group on my front porch singing to us. Tears fell from my face as I listened to them sing. They probably wondered what was wrong with me and why I was crying. Blame it on the meds again. Seriously, pain medicine even makes you cry during commercials that aren't really sad. It's kind of humorous. Not at the time, but a few days later. I was so touched that they came to sing to ME! I love them all so much!! I haven't been to church in over 3 weeks, so it was so wonderful to see them all again! They sang 3 or 4 songs and stayed and chatted for a few minutes before moving onto their next destination. I hope they know how much they blessed us.
"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Today is my dad's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!! Thanks for being the best dad EVER!!! It's kind of funny where we spend a lot of our time together; in the hospital. When I go to the ER late at night, he is usually the one who takes me. We've spent at least over 25 nights in the hospital together since I've been sick. For several months, we were going once a week. We find things to make it as fun as can be. Like my last ER visit this past Sunday night. We jumped in the car, okay not literally because that would be extremely painful for me, and drove the familiar route to the hospital. The ER was full because it was Sunday night, and a full moon. At least that's what the nurse said as to why it was so full. As you can imagine, there were many interesting people there. People watching is the best at the ER. Our best entertainment was watching a drunk lady and how she interacted with people. We watch people and make up stories about them and why they're there. When the triage nurse was starting my IV she asked, "have you had an IV before"? We quietly laughed. If only she knew. On Sunday night, we were in the ER waiting room for 2 hours. That is a lot of people watching and ease dropping. We saw at least 3 pregnant women come to the ER in labor in a span of an hour and a half. Then we were taken upstairs to the CT scan room. Of course we knew the way to the CT rooms, but the hallways were dark and abandoned at midnight. A person would pass through the halls every once in a while and we came up with pretty good stories as to what they were doing! After we were up in CT for 20 or 30 minutes, I was taken to my room back in the ER. We stayed there from about midnight until 3am. We ask the ER nurses a million questions about life in the ER and get them to tell us crazy stories. My dad tries to convince me that I just told him all my secrets after I am given each dose of pain medicine. I tell him that I have no secrets because I'm always home with them, which is true. When they call different codes over the speakers, we make up stories for those too. We got to spend about 6 hours in the ER on Sunday night. I think we've had our ER fix for a while. We have to make the most of each night in the hospital, or it would be much worse than it already is! It's always an adventure!!

Tonight we are actually going out to eat for his birthday! My first real time to get out!! I'm so excited. This afternoon I think my brother and I are making ginger bread houses!

Merry Christmas to you all!!!!
"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor,Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" Isaiah 9:6

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.