Hack, cough, cough.

This is apparently the year where I start to treat my respiratory symptoms with the seriousness they deserve. It turns out that wheezing should probably get medical attention, and having lungs that wheeze loudly enough to wake me up when I'm horizontal and starting to drift off is Not Good. As well as the uncontrollable coughing fits.

The nurse triage line suggested I present myself in front of a doctor in the next 4 hours, or call 911 if I got less able to breathe. Naturally, all the appointments with my own GP were full. As were her entire office. And the other office the scheduler tried.

So were the house call service. (Even before we got to the billing coverage question.)

The urgent care is not actually covered under my financial aid.

Emergency room was.

alexseanchai is of the firm opinion that when you are sufficiently badly off that the ER is your best bet, getting there under your own power is inadvisable. (And with more motion, I discovered that yes, I was in fact short of breath and dizzy. Welcome to the majority of my schoolday winters.) I put a pair of shorts and underwear in my tote bag, plus two chocolate marzipan bars, preparing me in the event of a hospital stay. So Belovedest came home on their lunch break (which had been delayed by the sort of workplace fire drill that involved taking all the public computers out of service for an urgent update) and we were ER ho.

Masked, I said that I had not been out of the country. I'd started feeling bad when Belovedest brought a cold home from work three weeks ago, then I injured my lungs last week by trying to do a 20 minute walk in 15, and by the time I was starting to feel better from that I had caught Belovedest's cold properly. And now my lungs were involved.

I shooed Belovedest out of the room so I could proactively get the no domestic violence question out of the way, then we went over to a second little front room for some treatment of the nasty bronchitis. I had a delightful chat with an energetic doctor with a grey beard and got to use a nebulizer for the first time. I was reminded of a bong, which amused me in my reduced state of mind.

I was nearly done with that when the radiology team came to whisk me away to make sure it wasn't pneumonia. I was already breathing better. It felt softer, with less harsh popping. I pulled my bra out my sleeve. At this point Belovedest was quite loaded down with my various things. I bundled my braid up into a bun to get it out of x-ray range. (Nobody wants to have a cancer scare that's actually a hair elastic interfering with the picture.)

I saw the "tell us if you could be pregnant" sign and proactively said that it was impossible. They were pleasantly surprised that I had read the sign.

The chest X-ray was somewhat hard on my bad shoulder (which I am treating as if I have repeatedly subluxed and torn it) but otherwise okay. There was a Spider-Man sticker on the wall I faced to do the side x-ray. I did not get nipple stickers.

By the time they wheeled me back into the front room, I was cheerfully recommending Mira Grant to the woman tech who loves horror games. (Conversation went from the hoverboard transfer pads to White Wolf to horror in general.)

I finished my nebulizer, got a Tylenol 3, and discussed things. I get to see my GP. The ER doc would have given me a prescription for a rescue inhaler, but I have one and it wasn't enough. He would have given me a prescription for more nebulizer treatments, but I don't have a home machine. (CPAPs are generally not high pressure enough to do the thing.) I got a paper prescription for five-ish days of T3 for the pain and we were off.

(The pain didn't actually start to register until we were halfway home. My abs have had an involuntary workout. They're annoyed.)

I was actually hungry, so Belovedest found me a burger on the way home before zipping back to work (and from there to band). I finished the food and basically faceplanted. The T3 and lack of sleep had me out until around the point when Belovedest got back home.

I still coughed all night, but not as badly. I told Belovedest that of the things they gave me that made me feel a pull to get more of it, the breathing treatment was the one. Because, I said, I am addicted to breathing.

I'm also feeling the anger and betrayal of a miracle cure. How was it that I have suffered all my life when this exists. How.