Asthma attacks
I had asthma attacks last week.
This is how uncomfortable I was: I didn't eat for more than three days. Literally. The only thing I put in my system was H2O and medicine. I couldn't walk more than five feet without propping myself up with a wall or counter top and I couldn't talk either. After three or four words I'd need to gasp for oxygen. I had never been in such discomfort.
Can't really tell you how it started. It was to severe to have been from allergies. The doctor I saw said it probably was a flare-up from some version of the flu. Originally I felt a cold coming on Monday at the movie theaters. I go see a lot of matinees during the day and last Monday I got real sexy wit it and decided to do a double-feature.
Pretty soon that air-conditioning draft was giving me a scratchy throat. By Monday night I had that tingle in the back of your mouth that you get when a cold is coming on. So I hit Walgreens for some cold medicine, loaded up on vitamin C, Golden Seal and Echinasea...I even gargled Listerine like pops used to teach me (more on that in the another blog).
No go though. By Tuesday it had turned into a chest cold...Mo phlegm than a little bit.
Now whenever I get a chest cold, I go on big-time pnuemonia alert. I had the nuemons once before and they say you're more susceptible to catching it again if you've had it once before. And I don't play with pneumonia because its deadly. So, to get rid of that mucus I went and got me some Tussin (more on that in the other blog). It helped with mucus, but my breathing kept getting worse.
This was really effin up my work week. I had several big stories due, inclduing one on NBA pseudo-legend Darryl Dawkin, who was an Orlando-native, and I couldn't do anything more than lay tossing and turning in bed. Talking made me exhausted and I didn't have the energy to sit up and write, let alone the clarity to write coherently and the interest to string together anything remotely eloquent. So we had to postpone my stories and give others to some of our part-time stringers.
My boss was being a prick about things too. Sending me emails about turning in my expense accounts when he knew I wouldn't be able to get him any receipts if I was house-bound. I didn't get a "Vince you aight?" until he heard I was in ER...and then it took about another day to get a "get better email". Which made me kind of upset since I've worked as hard, if not harder, than any writer since I arrived in Jan (but more on that and him in a future blog.) I'm like, "don't act like a nigga is mailing it in." (Do I sound like a scorned wife?)
By Thursday my breathing was so bad I went to an ER.
While there I've come to the indisputable unarguable conclusion that immigrant children, especially African and Latino children, are by far the most ill-behaved children on the planet. And it's all parenting.
The little black boy in the room sat quietly by his father. The little white boy got up and moved around every so often, but his mother would dutifully say something like, "OK Tyler, sit down now and color in your book. These people are sick." or "Tyler let the man walk through." Maybe not as forceful as an angry black mother, but it did the trick. The little rugrat sat down and let us, me in particular, be sick withought any added annoyance.
Meanwhile the little hispanic girl was going crazy: crawling on the dirty and wet lobby floor, stepping on everyones toes, taking down blinds. And all her 50-yeard mother would say was "Casandra. Casandra. Casandra. Casandra. Casandra." That's it! She just kept repeating her name in this mousy voice. Wouldn't bother grabbing her or even keeping her eye on the rambunctious kid. Just periodic "Casandras".
Sometime she would change her inflection, usually after Casandra had just done something incredibly mischevious like take a crayon from the white boy and draw a line on the wall. That's when we got, "Casandraaaaaaaaaaaaa". But even then it was just "Casandra" Homegirl couldn't even muster a "Dios Mio". Everyone understands kids will be kids, but adults are supposed to police them right? Not immigrant parents.
Am I a bigot? Probably. But you know I was ready to call child services.
Anyways after sitting in the waiting room for 2 hours, I was finally called to the back where I sat for another hour. During this hour, a nurse checked on my exactly twice. First to check my blood pressure and then have me blow in this contraption to see how much oxegen was in my body. After she she checked my oxy levels she just set the contraption on the table and bounced.
20 minutes later, after sitting in that room with my chest heaving, another nursed stepped in asked a couple questions and moved me to another room. There I sat for about 20 minutes while nurses whizzed back-n-forth past my room, never popping their head in. They weren't busy either. Most of them were in a an adjacent room eating chinese food. And that's cool. You need your breaks, but you work in an ER -- this isn't a call center. I mean, can you give me a doctor update? Can you set up an aerosol machine to get my breathing in check? What are you schmoes getting paid for? Needless to say I was heated. Finally another nurse walked in. It was actually the same one that checked me first and skated off with my lungs falling out my mouth. So Maria looked at my papers still lying on the table and said, "ohhhhhh noooooo. Has doctor come yet?" Of course I can't understand her because I'm weazing louding than a lawnmower. So I gasp and say, "what?!" "Doctor," she says. "He come"
I don't bother answering that stupid question. I just said, "Can you get a doctor in her please."
Five years later a doctor finally arrived, checked my breathing and hit me with the asthma attack diagnosis. He hit me with some meds and sent me on my way.
It's been about 3 or 4 days since and the breathing has definitely subsided.
Thing is though, the doctor said it would've never happened if I hadn't got sick. And if you believe my pops, I would've never gotten sick if I would've gargled more Listerine.
Check the next blog for the Listerine stats.
This is how uncomfortable I was: I didn't eat for more than three days. Literally. The only thing I put in my system was H2O and medicine. I couldn't walk more than five feet without propping myself up with a wall or counter top and I couldn't talk either. After three or four words I'd need to gasp for oxygen. I had never been in such discomfort.
Can't really tell you how it started. It was to severe to have been from allergies. The doctor I saw said it probably was a flare-up from some version of the flu. Originally I felt a cold coming on Monday at the movie theaters. I go see a lot of matinees during the day and last Monday I got real sexy wit it and decided to do a double-feature.
Pretty soon that air-conditioning draft was giving me a scratchy throat. By Monday night I had that tingle in the back of your mouth that you get when a cold is coming on. So I hit Walgreens for some cold medicine, loaded up on vitamin C, Golden Seal and Echinasea...I even gargled Listerine like pops used to teach me (more on that in the another blog).
No go though. By Tuesday it had turned into a chest cold...Mo phlegm than a little bit.
Now whenever I get a chest cold, I go on big-time pnuemonia alert. I had the nuemons once before and they say you're more susceptible to catching it again if you've had it once before. And I don't play with pneumonia because its deadly. So, to get rid of that mucus I went and got me some Tussin (more on that in the other blog). It helped with mucus, but my breathing kept getting worse.
This was really effin up my work week. I had several big stories due, inclduing one on NBA pseudo-legend Darryl Dawkin, who was an Orlando-native, and I couldn't do anything more than lay tossing and turning in bed. Talking made me exhausted and I didn't have the energy to sit up and write, let alone the clarity to write coherently and the interest to string together anything remotely eloquent. So we had to postpone my stories and give others to some of our part-time stringers.
My boss was being a prick about things too. Sending me emails about turning in my expense accounts when he knew I wouldn't be able to get him any receipts if I was house-bound. I didn't get a "Vince you aight?" until he heard I was in ER...and then it took about another day to get a "get better email". Which made me kind of upset since I've worked as hard, if not harder, than any writer since I arrived in Jan (but more on that and him in a future blog.) I'm like, "don't act like a nigga is mailing it in." (Do I sound like a scorned wife?)
By Thursday my breathing was so bad I went to an ER.
While there I've come to the indisputable unarguable conclusion that immigrant children, especially African and Latino children, are by far the most ill-behaved children on the planet. And it's all parenting.
The little black boy in the room sat quietly by his father. The little white boy got up and moved around every so often, but his mother would dutifully say something like, "OK Tyler, sit down now and color in your book. These people are sick." or "Tyler let the man walk through." Maybe not as forceful as an angry black mother, but it did the trick. The little rugrat sat down and let us, me in particular, be sick withought any added annoyance.
Meanwhile the little hispanic girl was going crazy: crawling on the dirty and wet lobby floor, stepping on everyones toes, taking down blinds. And all her 50-yeard mother would say was "Casandra. Casandra. Casandra. Casandra. Casandra." That's it! She just kept repeating her name in this mousy voice. Wouldn't bother grabbing her or even keeping her eye on the rambunctious kid. Just periodic "Casandras".
Sometime she would change her inflection, usually after Casandra had just done something incredibly mischevious like take a crayon from the white boy and draw a line on the wall. That's when we got, "Casandraaaaaaaaaaaaa". But even then it was just "Casandra" Homegirl couldn't even muster a "Dios Mio". Everyone understands kids will be kids, but adults are supposed to police them right? Not immigrant parents.
Am I a bigot? Probably. But you know I was ready to call child services.
Anyways after sitting in the waiting room for 2 hours, I was finally called to the back where I sat for another hour. During this hour, a nurse checked on my exactly twice. First to check my blood pressure and then have me blow in this contraption to see how much oxegen was in my body. After she she checked my oxy levels she just set the contraption on the table and bounced.
20 minutes later, after sitting in that room with my chest heaving, another nursed stepped in asked a couple questions and moved me to another room. There I sat for about 20 minutes while nurses whizzed back-n-forth past my room, never popping their head in. They weren't busy either. Most of them were in a an adjacent room eating chinese food. And that's cool. You need your breaks, but you work in an ER -- this isn't a call center. I mean, can you give me a doctor update? Can you set up an aerosol machine to get my breathing in check? What are you schmoes getting paid for? Needless to say I was heated. Finally another nurse walked in. It was actually the same one that checked me first and skated off with my lungs falling out my mouth. So Maria looked at my papers still lying on the table and said, "ohhhhhh noooooo. Has doctor come yet?" Of course I can't understand her because I'm weazing louding than a lawnmower. So I gasp and say, "what?!" "Doctor," she says. "He come"
I don't bother answering that stupid question. I just said, "Can you get a doctor in her please."
Five years later a doctor finally arrived, checked my breathing and hit me with the asthma attack diagnosis. He hit me with some meds and sent me on my way.
It's been about 3 or 4 days since and the breathing has definitely subsided.
Thing is though, the doctor said it would've never happened if I hadn't got sick. And if you believe my pops, I would've never gotten sick if I would've gargled more Listerine.
Check the next blog for the Listerine stats.
posted by Twistinado @ 12:09 AM
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