Tuesday, October 13, 2009

It's good to feel good.

So usually things are fairly uneventful here, but unfortunately this past weekend I got sick. I hate being sick, but it seems like my poor immune system coupled with working at the hospital causes me to be sick far more often than I would like.

I started feeling kind of off on Friday evening. My temperature was a little high, but nothing to really be concerned about. I was scheduled to work Saturday, and since my temperature was still well below "fever" range, I went to work anyway. I got a few hours into my shift, feeling worse all the time. I mentioned it to the nursing house supervisor who freaked out a little (although in his defense, they were flu-like symptoms and everyone's H1N1 crazy). I ended up going home a few hours early. After getting home, my temp shot up and I started feeling really miserable, so I called work back and told them. The supervisor, Dave, called me (which is saying something, since he's in charge of the entire hospital). He filled out a 'possible flu' form and faxed it to corporate health, which meant that I had to be checked out by them before I could return to work.

Needless to say, since I was feeling awful (and at Mom's advice) we decided to go see a doctor. Ha. Great timing, seeing as by then it was after 5pm on a Saturday! Eventually we found an urgent care center that was still open, since we didn't see the necessity of paying $100 for an ER visit. They did a quick flu culture that came back negative (although the doctor at corporate informed me that since H1N1 is so weak, most of the time those cultures DON'T detect it). The Dr. decided I must have an upper respiratory infection even though I didn't have a cough, had just a touch of a sore throat, and my lungs sounds were clear....hmmm..... Whatever. I haven't really been impressed with the urgent care centers lately. At any rate, she gave me a scrip and sent me on my unhappy way.

I was really miserable Saturday and Sunday. The worst thing was the body aches. Everything hurt, especially my hip joints, which made it really painful to walk. I felt kind of bad for asking Brett to get me everything, but he was such a huge help. He really is a sweet man. I don't know what I would do without him. My fever broke sometime during the night Sunday, so Monday I felt way better. I actually never got the scrip filled, since the pharmacy I go to wouldn't have opened until Monday morning (and if I'd gone elsewhere, it would've cost over $40). I was afebrile and asymptomatic all day except for one little spell in the afternoon when I got dizzy, but other than that, it was a huge difference. Today we ran over to corporate health and got me cleared to go back to work, so I'll be headed back to business as usual tomorrow.

I'm hoping Brett will stay healthy. He has an incredible immune system and seems to NEVER get sick, so hopefully that'll still be the case! I certainly wouldn't mind taking care of him, but...men tend to be such bad patients, and he admits he would probably be a terrible patient. Still, it's no fun being sick, especially when you're miserable. I'm just glad that I'm up and running again!

1 comment:

  1. Gee, the least you could do is use your sick time to catch up on reruns and relax. Sounds like you spent the whole time running around trying to see docs/pharmacists. You're making the rest of us look bad here. If I even think about fevers I call in sick. :-)

    Hope you're feeling well.

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