Terrible Sickness

Last weekend, particularly on Saturday night, I started having a sharp pain pierce through my left lung. I have been struggling with bronchitis since the start of this semester, so I assumed that this pain was some sort of rebound development related to the prolonged bronchitis. Sunday the pain got so much worse. It was like having a serrated knife stabbed into and then pushed all the way through out my back every time I took a single breath. TRUE AGONY! By Monday morning I thought I was surely having a heart attack since the pain centered on the left side of my chest. I decided to sacrifice my seven hours of time up at the LSU Fast track ER clinic so that I could find out what in the world was wrong with me. They did the usual battery of tests, as slowly as possible of course, blood work and a chest x-ray. They decided that I have something called pleurisy. Pleurisy, I learned, is an inflammation of the lining of the lung whereby it is filled to a certain degree with fluid and expands to rub up against the chest wall and cause pain. If it was the worst case scenario then the only real remedy is to open the chest and extract the fluid by sticking a huge needle into the space between the lung and lining. How terrifying does that sound?! If you don't have such a dire condition, the pleurisy just makes your life a living, breathing torture. They prescribed Naproxin which is just Alieve for its anti-inflammatory properties and supposedly because it also helps with the pain. It most certainly does not help with any of this awful pain. If I could not breathe, I would. But since you can't "take a break from breathing ever" I'm forced to anticipate that raging stabing pain with everey little breath I take. Forget if hell is made of fire or ice, for me, it would be eternity suffering from bronchitis and pleurisy. And naproxin?! seriously?! I'm like sobbing in tears when this doctor explains that they will not opt to prescribe a stronger anti inflammatory medication or something that is specifically for pain either. What kind of medicine are these fine folks peddling? Mind you I am grateful to be able to go for treatment eventhough I have no medical insurance, but when you are a patient there they seem to forget you are also a human being with real feelings and a real life that will continue on whether or not I can breathe without wanting to scream in pain. In the end after my breakdown subsided, I left glad to know I wasn't having a heart attack or a pneumonia, but still very distrubed that pleurisy's treatment, according to them, was just to take Alieve and wait until it goes away. Oh how I'm praying for the time to fly by!

As always, thanks for reading and stay well.

The Cajun Haole