Last night around 9pm, I was sitting around listening to music and I had a coughing fit, at which point I spit up mucus, that had some fresh blood in it. After checking it wasn't bleeding nose, or bleeding gums, and it happened a few more times, Terry insisted we go to the hospital. We arrived at the Lakeshore General Hospital at 10:20. and I was # 98. Whether it meant I was the 98th patient they saw at the ER that day or if their numbers restart at #1 all the time? No clue. I was seen by the triage nurse around 10:30 and by the emergency registration person 5 minutes later. They confirmed the info they had on file for me was still accurate and printed me a new hospital card.
I was seen around 1am by a resident doctor who asked me a plethora of questions. She decided I needed blood tests and a chest x-ray. I had chest pains on the right side, which I had assumed were more muscular from banging into a glass door at lunch time yesterday, because I assumed it was unlocked. It was locked. After the blood in my mucus I didn't know anymore. I had to wait another 30 minutes until the intern consulted the night ER doctor to make sure she hadn't overlooked anything. Then the nurse came in and took 2 vials of blood from my left arm and left a giant bruise that's still coming out today. After which I was sent to Xray. No lineups there, and we returned to the ER desk to give them the XRAY tags, after which I was sent back to the waiting room and told to wait till I was called.
There was signs up saying that blood tests results take 2 hours so I figured I'd be there till 4, but around 3:30 they called me in. I was told I showed signs of being a long term 'heavy smoker', and that I needed a CT scan first thing in the morning, like around 7am. I asked if I could go home to sleep, I was told they wanted to keep me in case the coughing up blood got worse so they could monitor me. That they would find a spot where I could get some Zzz's. Terry went home at that point to put Zoey to bed and came back after she was sleeping.
They had found a stretcher in the corridor near the nurse's station marked by the letter "L", where I was put at that point. I was told I had to wear gown but I didn't need to remove my pants. So I took off shirt, put on gown and tried to sleep. Terry came back and found me. Stayed with me till 4 and he went out for a smoke and said when he came back I was sleeping under the watchful eye of a nurse, so he went back home to get sleep figuring I'd call him the minute I woke up.
At 6:30 AM they got another patient and moved me to "N" instead, and moving me is what woke me up. I was asleep cradling my purse. I'm surprised I slept in a corridor for about an hour in a half. But after I was moved I was put under bright lights and the person that got my spot was this moron heading to Cuba who got so drunk at the airport, he fell on his face and the plane would not left him on, his choices were probably police or ambulance. He kept saying he wanted to leave.....
At 6:45 a nurse came to take my pressure and temperature and otherwise check my vital signs. Around 7:45 AM the head day ER doctor came to tell me I was still on the list for the early morning CT scan, asked me about the coughing blood the night before and if I was still, I told him yes. He said that I looked in really good health and that the CT scan should provide answers after which I'd be seen by a lung specialist.
I was pretty anxious at that point, especially since my phone was dead, so I had no way to keep my mind from thinking the worse. What comes to mind when people cough blood is lung cancer. I didn't think though that someone that sick couldn't be in as good a health as me. I went to see Egypt Falls and did the skyline trail in Cape Breton in early August. I also did this advanced trail in Mauricie national park earlier in the season. Both were up and down very mountainous trails and while I had to stop to catch my breath at times, I have always had to do this going up mountains even as a teen.
I had the CT scan around 8:30AM. When I was about to be put in the machine, the nurse looked for a tube in my arm and no one had prepared me. So she put a tube in. Where they put iodine inside you for the scan. It feels weird when they put the iodine you feel like you're about to pee yourself and drool all over yourself. Sensation lasts for 30 seconds but it's weird.
ARound 9:45 the lung specialist came to find me and asked a bit of my history again. Said it was possible I have atypical pneumonia and also bronchiectasis. That the bronchiectasis was caused by some really bad infection I may have had years ago and that due to that, I have parts of my lungs that have a harder time clearing the crap inside the bronchi and that it could cause bleeding.
I have been put on 2 types of antibiotics. One in the penicillin family and the other in the tetracycline family. I was given more blood tests, 5 more vials were taken out of the tube left in my right arm after CT scan. I am also going to have to go take a sputum test at the chest institute. They will call to give me an appointment. I will be seeing the Lung specialist again 2 weeks after that test. He also told me to call if the bleeding got worse.
It's stopped for now thankfully. It's really unerving to cough up fresh blood even in small amounts. And while I thought it was the right side ,where I have some muscular pain and it hurts at time to breathe, the bleeding is coming from left side. Could be near where I broke the ribs. He noticed I had "Overlapping" ribs. Told him I had broken a rib back in February, but I hadn't seen anyone for it. He commented "There's nothing we can do for a broken rib except to give pain meds"
So I was discharged around 10am. Was there 12 hours. I'd have more heavy coughing since the laryngitis a few weeks back and I'd commented more then once to Terry that I wondered if I might not have pneumonia. I had some of my work colleagues and underlings who have been commenting the past few weeks how my cough wasn't improving. The irony is that I hadn't coughed as much yesterday and I thought I was finally better!
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