Back From The Dead

Last night I was released from St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver to continue the healing process at home. I won’t make this a long entry becuase frankly, I find it physically rather hard to type and concentate for writing emails and things right now.

The whole episode that led me to head to the hospital is as follows. On Saturday night I was finding myself really short of breath at home. Plus, no matter what medication I took, I just couldn’t seem to get my fever to come down. I hit a point when it hit 39C and my heart rate wouldn’t settle down and I thought to myself that something was very, very wrong.

I called St. Paul’s Hospital and asked them if I should come in, and they said yes. So I grabbed a taxi and went over there. When I walked up to the ER desk and handed the girl my care card, she could see I was very sick. She started filing out forms, but I think she realized I was about to pass out so she led me over to a chair and immediately put me on oxygen. They did my vitals, which at the time, if I remember, by heart rate as 150 beats per minute, temperature around 38C, my blood was low in oxygen, and my BP was something like 140/100.

The whole process to get me into the actually ER took probably an hour or more, but they had me on a stetcher with oxygen and I had managed to relax a bit. The next few hours were a bit of a blur, but I had bloods tests, urine tests, x-rays, and physical exams by many doctors and nurses.

I didn’t learn it until they discharged me yesterday, but apparently 50% of my right lung basically wasn’t functioning at the time I was admitted due to the pneumonia.

I spent the rest of that night on an IV drip trying to rehydrate me. In fact, I was on a IV drip nearly 100% of the time while in the hospital. The next few days are a blur, but I was put on anti-biotics, rehydrated slowly and brought back up to working condition.

When the doctor released me yesterday a team of five of them came to talk to me. They said that pneumonia is pretty rough to deal with, and that I’ll notice my energy level will be pretty small for the next little while. Simple things they said would be hard, like walking down the street or doing a flight of stairs.

Now that I’m home, walking around the apartment is even a bit tiring for me, so I’m just taking it easy. I have seven days of anti-biotics to go, and am expecting to sleep most of this week and just take it easy.