Today is Friday.

One week ago I came in. One week ago I felt crappy. One week later, I still feel crappy.

I can't seem to understand. I am doing all of my meds and treatments like an amazingly compliant patient. The only thing I'd rather not comply with is the Asian intern who is too soft spoken. It irritates me to no end. Irritation reminds me of my lungs. They are refusing to take deep breaths because they are so irritated. Last night at around 11 pm I realized I wasn't breathing too well. It felt like my lungs were full of mucus and it was all dried on, therefore incapable of moving. So I asked for a treatment. At nearly 12 am my treatment came.

By this time I was feeling worse than I did when I had first asked. I took the treatment, which the respiratory therapist took about 50 hours to hook up. I had been coughing before the treatment came and I could not stop. Every time I coughed, my machine would beep because the pressure made my port and setup for my pump occlude. So that was frustrating me to no end. So while I am struggling to breath, I have to keep making my pump stop alarming. Anyway, the treatment came, and I coughed and coughed and coughed. Essentially it did nothing. I sparked myself into what felt like an asthma attack and I couldn't breathe. I swear the nurses were oblivious to my loud gasping for air. No one heard me. I rang my call bell and they finally came in.

This is when I finally saw some hustle. I was breathing a million miles a minute, I couldn't calm down. In a matter of ten minutes I had both nurses working the floor in my room, two doctors I had never seen before, the aide hooking up my pulsox and heart monitor, and the X-ray technician. It took nearly half an hour for me to be able to breathe better again, but I didn't end up sleeping until nearly 2 in the morning due to all of this. I'm glad they could finally catch a glimpse of what I was dealing with before I came in here.

I was peeved when they noted in my chart that I had a "panic attack". What? They did not mention the difficulty breathing in the beginning. They did not mention the asthma like symptoms. They contributed my fast breathing and sweating due to my naturally high body temperature, to a panic attack. *Smacks self in the head* I somehow knew they would do that when the doctor asked me while I was hyperventilating if I was stressed out or if school was stressing me out. School's over. I have nothing to be stressed about now. Why would I be having these attacks if I had no stress. I wasn't anxious. I'm not a mental case here. Let's look at the physiology, doc.

Anyway, that was my eventful night. I feel the most tired and irritated that I have in a while. The ENT doctors came in today to talk to me. They said that with people with chronic lung conditions, often times they avoid doing sinus surgery at all costs. They said my maxillary sinuses, basically under the eyes, were completely full. They said my ethmoid sinuses near the front were full on the left side. But after talking they decided to put me on some other nasal spray to flush them out. We'll see how that works. I'll do it every four hours and apparently all the snot in there will magically disappear. One can only hope.

My respiratory doctor came in the morning. He didn't have much to say, but when I told him what occurred last night, he looked like he was doubting everything I was saying. I don't know what's going on here, but I feel like no one believes me. I told them my lungs were irritated, almost like breathing in cold air in the winter when I tried to take a deep breath. He looked at me weird. I told him I was doing my vest, but I didn't feel like it was doing any good. He suggested chest pt. I told him I have really sensitive skin every time I start on IV's. He looked at me weird. I told him the treatment made me cough and it didn't really help my breathing. He looked at me weird. I mentioned that the hypertonic saline treatments spark my asthma attacks. He looked at me weird. I'm sorry if I'm not what you are used to, but it's no good to lie about how and what I feel. What good would that do me here?

If they were experiencing what I feel, they would understand far better.

I did PFT's today earlier. They did not go up, but rather declined a tiny bit. Not really enough to say so though. I have to do them again after my treatment so that my doctor can see how much treatments help. If they make my numbers increase, then there is a lot of asthma going on. I hope they increase so I can shove it in his face. These are not panic attacks I have been having. They are asthma attacks. We'll see how it goes.

I also thought I would mention a little bit about my old friend Luis. He suffered from Asthma and I met him in the hospital. We became really good friends and would always play cards together. When I left, we wrote to each other and always talked about possibly visiting each other. I saw him about one more time when I was in. He came to visit me when Leslie, a woman who works in the playroom, called him and told him I was in. He lived about 5 minutes away from the hospital. His family was always great to me. He was honestly the first friend I had met and kept from the hospital. As some of you may or may not know, back in January he was involved in a car accident and died at the scene. I believe he was only 17 years old. There were 6 people in the car. Three kids died. The other three were injured. It wasn't their fault. A driver sped through an intersection without stopping.

I was talking to Leslie the other day in the playroom and we got talking about Luis. He was like a son to her because her boys and him were the same age. He was always at her house and he wasn't even considered a friend of the family. She was basically his second mom. Anyways, Leslie was telling me about him. The time that I was in back in December I sent him a little note online through her phone because I had lost touch with him. That was about one to two weeks before he passed. Leslie said that when he got that note from me, he called her and was so excited. Leslie said that Luis just loved me, and every time I was in he was always excited to know that I was close by if he was able to make the visit. He didn't get a chance to come when I was in over Christmas, but Leslie said he was thinking about me. It just made me really happy to know that I was on his mind even when I was not physically there. It's nice to have had a friend like that.

Well, it's time to do PFTs again and get washed up. I hope this made up for not writing yesterday. :o) I miss everyone.