Hello, all listmates.
I had an exascerbation of my COPD perhaps from a few cold nights or perhaps just from simultaneous slow onset of pneumonia, unknown where exposed, perhaps on airplanes.
Tuesday Aug 30 I was sleeping most of the time and Wednesday morning it was clear I needed help. Got a quick appointment and a diagnosis of pheneumonia indeed, daughter Allie taking care of phoning, driving, going home to pick up clothes etc, giving information and relentlessly getting more back 2 for 1, signing admission papers where I didn't have to do them -- everything I couldn't get together enough to do. Admitted to Exempla Hospital Wednesday night enjoying some hallucinations, and when the lab work came back was pumped immediately full of antibiotics by Dr. Christian Arvinte (simultaneous choruses of "the best" from any worker there who heard an enquiry) and was put on an oxygen respirator.
This ad is being brought to you by the long-ago makers of a number of totally harmless, nicotine-and-tar-free (practically) cigarettes, the most harmless being Carltons, that as even PCT beginners could have predicted, I smoked many more of to get the same effect as before they were made so harmless.
The rest has consisted of my starting to wake up, our giving more information (still mostly Allie) and getting organized to combat the pneu. Finally discharged to home on Saturday, Sept 4 around mid-day, six hours ago or so. I'm exhausted from doing nothing and Allie is back in the car getting the new prescriptions I need. Fortunately I live about 5 minutes from the hospital where she's going to get them.
Dr. Arvinte finally sat down in one long literate session to write the prescriptions and directions for taking the doses with separate sheets for me, Allie, the pharmacist, my primary doctor. Crystal clear, quite amazing. I have a role model, though I'm not sure how to go about being like that.
The upshot is that I am probably damaged and will not live quite so long as otherwise, and that a lot of tedium is coming up. But I think of my children and my friends and I think we are probably smart enough to figure out how to handle everything except how to prevent it all from ending one day. I don't mean PCT, I mean us. That's one reason to work fast -- we'll be too tired to care.
I happily turn plans for any US meeting of the control system group in 2011 over to those who have offered jointly to help with the organizing. I suggest we get cracking. I think "get cracking" has to do with the whips of wagon-train drivers.
I can type again! the hands have calmed down, or I have. Tomorrow I'll start start seeing if I can still write. Time to get cracking on tutorials.
Love to all,
Bill