I’m in the hospital.

(I’m copying and posting a bunch of stuff here because this is the first time I’ve been able to open my laptop since Monday (3/25/24).

Long story short, I’m in the hospital, pneumonia that went undiagnosed since January (likely due to a dental procedure I had back in January, because the cough first started 4 days later). I did post a video on my Facebook page you can watch if you want to see me looking like crap and wearing an oxygen cannula. LOL (Also, I’m typing with an O2 lead on one finger so please forgive typos.

I’m a never-smoker, NO history of asthma or copd or serious allergies, etc. Had covid in January, 2021, even then my O2 sat never dropped below 95 and it didn’t impact my lungs.

Been dealing with this since January, several rounds of steroids and antibiotics and would improve a little and then get worse. Last Tuesday CT scan (no contrast) at my doctor office showed pneumonia, got started on oral antibiotics and cough meds to help in addition to albuterol inhaler.

Last weekend: O2 levels not coming up even though coughing got better, but wheezing and shortness of breath was worse. Pulse elevated.

Monday: Talked to my doctor about low O2 issue, got guidance, decided to hold off and not drive down there.

Monday Evening: O2 sats dropped to 87/86 range, pulse spiked to 147, had Spouse drive me to ER. Got started on O2 and IV meds, admitted. CT with contrast and chest xray showed pneumonia in right middle lobe. RT did breathing treatment on me in ER before I was moved upstairs to a room. Lots of blood taken. Ribs and muscles hurting from coughing.

Tuesday: Only 3 hours sleep or less. Respiratory therapist came in afternoon (orders got botched and they didn’t get there sooner). More bloodwork. Echocardiogram done. Lots of wheezing/coughing.

Early Wednesday morning: only 1 hour sleep total. Horrible wheezing triggering coughing overnight and several breathing treatments done and rotating cough meds. Really bad night.

Wednesday late morning update: I guess I didn’t add in the original info that yes, I’m in the ICU unit. Really bad night, lots of wheezing that triggered coughing. Have only had about 1 hour sleep in the last 24 because of that. Pulmonary doctor just came in. Wait-and-see continue steroids. Continue IV meds continue breathing treatments until my O2 levels are up and my pulse is down. Possibly bronchoscopy if that doesn’t improve in the next few days. If I improve without any setbacks, then I might be discharged in a couple of days without the bronchoscopy. So they’re ordering more tests to cover more bases. Echocardiogram looked fine. OT/PT saw me signed off that, said I’m fine. Bottom line is I will be in here for at least another day or two. Unless I have drastic improvement and O2 levels come up and stay up, and pulse rate goes down and stays down, and they still have to get my wheezing and coughing under control, I’m probably looking at least Friday discharge at earliest depending on my condition. If bronchoscopy is needed, they will wait until my O2 is up and pulse is down to do that and could be going on Monday at that point. Definitely will be on meds at discharge regardless because of wheezing, etc. Pulmonary doc said the pneumonia didn’t look really bad on the CT scan to be causing my severity of symptoms, but when he heard about the dental procedure he agreed that could have been a cause. If don’t drastically improve, I’ll need the bronchoscopy to find out what’s going on, but still need my O2 levels up and my pulse rate down before they’ll do that.

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So…yeah. Needless to say, Bleacke Shifters 9&10 is delayed again. I have insurance but it’s not great and I’m trying not to stress but this is financially devastating, not gonna lie. Spouse has degenerative disk disease and is having to shoulder the burden of all the chores at home I’d taken over from her, taking care of our pets (Buffett’s doing great), etc.

Please buy my books, feel free to purchase from my Etsy store, or if you want to drop spare change in my Ko-fi jar, that’s greatly appreciated, too. (Note: Etsy stuff will ship after I return home, because I doubt they’ll let me have my stuff moved here to my hospital room to ship. LOL) I’ve also been adding my Lesli Richardson books to Radish if you use that (if you have them already, then there is no new content so don’t worry about that).

Thanks! (And if you have a health issue and feel like you’re not being listened to, PUSH HARDER. I’m kicking myself in the butt I didn’t ask for the CT scan sooner and didn’t push my gut instinct about this being pneumonia and not bronchitis like they said.)

https://tymberdalton.com
https://ko-fi.com/tymberdalton
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