Apparently my favorite place in the world is making me sick….

In one of my previous posts (I think, who knows with my sporadic posting), I mentioned that I had been sick SINCE MAY.

Yes, I had been sick for almost four months before I did anything about it….what can I say, I’m stubborn (that and I have terrible allergies, and I usually just deal with it until the season is over).  It seemed to be only when I was spending a lot of time in T-town, and I chalked it up to debris clean-up and just hoped either my body would get used to it, or it would stop once they got most of the stuff cleared.

Anyway, while I was in Montgomery, I developed a terrible wheezing cough.  I’ve had allergies since I was little, but I have never had a cough like this.  It was quite debilitating and often woke me up early in the morning, or stopped me from doing whatever I was doing for at least 30 minutes…not good.  I knew that there was NO way I could deal with the cough, especially coupled with all the other symptoms (sneezing, running nose, etc) and I finally broke down and scheduled an appointment with my allergy doctor.

Part of the reason why I had been avoiding the doctor is because I was pretty sure it was allergies.  Between all of the stuff in the air from the debris clean-up, along with some mold that has been growing in my apartment (more on that later) AND an influx of ragweed this season, I was pretty sure I knew why I was sick, but didn’t quite realize how sick I was.

If you have a long-bout of severe allergies like me, going to the “regular” doctor is a waste of time.  You explain your situation, they say “yep, it is allergies” and send you home with a prescription for something like Claritin or Zyrtec.  Unfortunately, I tried EVERY kind of allergy medicine available before beginning allergy shots five years ago, so your generic allergy pill does NOTHING.  Part of my reason for the wait is that I wanted to see my allergy doctor because he’s the one that tested me and knows that I’m allergic to, he knows the severity of my allergies, and he knows what works for me and what doesn’t.

Unfortunately, this said doctor is 2 hours away, in my home town, and of course only works 3 days a week.  Needless to say, I haven’t had time to visit…that is, until last week.

I went in, told him what all was going on (focus on the coughing) and what I felt like it was causing.  He asked me a few questions about when I was coughing and if it was anything that triggered it, listened to me breathe, looked in my throat, and sent me off into this little room with a nurse.  She made me do a breathing/lung capacity test and asked me fill out this asthma severity rating, which confused me because it was asking you things like “How often do you experience shortening of breath?” and “How often do you have an asthma attack?”.  She told me just look at it like it was asking me questions about coughing, so I filled it out while she stuck me on a nebulizer.

I filled out my asthma rating list, and noticed at the bottom it said that if your total points were 19 or less, you needed to speak with your doctor about asthma, and of course, I had a 19, ON THE NOSE.  I brushed it aside, realizing it was just a “symptom” checklist and waited to see what he said before I thought too much about it.

As soon as he came back in, his first words were “It looks like you’ve developed a mild case of asthma.  We’re going to get you on some meds and an inhaler and hopefully that will clear you up.”  I was floored.  When the word “asthma” was thrown out, I thought back to kids I went to school with or taught, that couldn’t get too hot and carried around their inhalers everywhere, but that wasn’t my problem.  Apparently, you can get asthma temporarily, which is what I have.  Who knew?

He also explained to me how bad it could get if I continuously keep the mold/junk in my body.  He even told me that increased exposure to mold can cause you MAJOR health problems including brain damage, memory loss, and even death.  Yikes!  He said I wasn’t exposed enough to it to do any long-term damage, but that if my apartment complex needed any validation to get my bathroom fixed sooner, he would help :).  (Again, a post is coming on my bathroom drama)

It does explain why I was just “off my game” for the last semester or so.  Not only did I not feel good, but my memory was off, I was irritable ALL the time, and I was just sluggish.  He said that it was just my body’s way of dealing with all the junk.  Yuck!

Anyway, he wrote me a prescription and told me the nurse would be in soon to give me a shot, explain the meds further, and show me how to use my inhaler. 

I was not excited about getting an inhaler, or any of the meds (except maybe the steriod pack.  If I got addicted to one type of medicine, it would be that…if it didn’t make you so fat.), but I was willing to deal with whatever to get rid of that nasty cough.

I tried to listen intently while the nurse was explaining everything, but at the same time, another nurse was giving me a huge steriod shot in my right arm.  Those puppies always hurt, and usually I ask them to give it to me in my other arm since I am right handed (and we all know how useless that arm is after one of those shots!)  Unfortunately, there was too much going on, so I walked out with an aching right arm, a failed attempt at my first inhaler “puff”, and my prescription.

The goods:  a “twice a day” pill for allergies and asthma (about a month’s worth), a ten-day, step-down steriod pack, and my awesome, twice a day inhaler (that just so happens to be red and gray…Roll Tide ;))

I’m not usually good with taking meds regularly, but he stressed the importance of taking these according to schedule.  Of course, these are worse than normal because 1 has to be taken, twice a day, either an hour before eating or 2 hours after, while the other has to be taken before breakfast, and after dinner with a light snack.  Right now, I’m on Day 7 of my steriod pack (technically Day 7 of all of them since I started them on the same day), and I’m finally down to some sort of appropriate schedule for taking them. 

I’m pretty proud of myself for not missing a single dose of anything, except the inhaler.  I’m seven days in and although I “use” it when I’m supposed to, still don’t know if I’m doing it right!  Props to those who have to use these to save their lives…I would probably die trying to figure out how to do it properly.

Anyway, they seem to be helping because I feel SO much better. Everyone that has spoken to me in the past week said that I sounded better (I had been rocking a nasally voice since May!), and I love that I don’t have to carry around tissues and cough drops.  While my allergy symptoms are better; I’m dealing with side effects from the medicine (anxiousness, trouble sleeping, itching, drowsiness (yep, it seems I have an “upper” and a “downer”), increase/decrease in appetite, and fever symptoms, now that I’m coming off the steriod pack.   They have all been pretty mild, especially compared to what I was dealing with, so I’ll take it. :)

So, now T-town and I are back on speaking terms, which is good because football season is around the corner, and Tuscaloosa and I are pretty serious in the fall ;)

Now, I get to wait on the maintenance folks who are supposed to be coming to fix my bathroom today, so I don’t have to breathe in mold anyway.  We’ll see how that goes…stay tuned! :)

Happy Friday! :)