A few weeks ago, the love of my life was dealing with what would be diagnosed as Acute Bronchitis. He had been dealing with the symptoms of coughing and a slight difficulty in breathing for a while. He was managing it with his inhalers, assuming it was asthma due to the change of weather. After going to the doctor he was diagnosed and given prescriptions. That night, he had to pick up a prescription that had mistakenly not been given to him earlier during his trip to the pharmacy.
On this same night for dinner, we had smoked chicken, sausage, potatoes, and steamed vegetables. Alas, it twas not I that cooked this delicious meal.
Skipping ahead, the huz-band left around 8:30 that evening to pick up the missing medicine. On his return, he comes in the house with what sounds like a forced calmness in his voice. He says, “My lungs feel like they are burning and I can’t breathe. I need to go to the hospital!” I thought to myself, “If you can’t breathe, how are you able to talk?” Now I can’t lie. My first thought wasn’t “Oh my goodness! What’s wrong with my baby?” It was, “Are you kidding me? I just powdered down and put my pajamas on.” I literally had one leg in the bed while my second leg was in mid swing.
However, I knew that it was time for me to be the supportive and understanding wife. Not the wife that is looking at the time. I needed to ignore the fact that it was after my bedtime, although I was beginning to feel the heaviness of good sleep weighing down upon my eyelids. Because unlike him I still had to go to work in the morning. But I became a big girl and after my miniature mental tantrum I redressed and drove the huz-band to the hospital.
While in the waiting room, he kept telling me to not panic and that he was okay. Even though I wasn’t panicking. He had just went to the doctor that morning and I knew these doctors weren’t going to give him any new information or a new diagnosis. I felt as if he hadn’t given the medicine time to work. I told him all of this before we left the house, but according to him “his lungs were on fire.”
Back in the waiting room, I asked him, “Are you sure it’s not heartburn causing you to feel like your lungs are burning or the side effect from the pills you’ve taken and then a panic attack which caused you to feel like you couldn’t breathe”? He had told me earlier that he had an antibiotic that would give him heartburn. He has also dealt with panic attacks when he was younger. “No, it’s not that. I am really struggling breathing right now. I felt this way last night.” Again, I notice that he’s saying this, and NOT having problems breathing while saying it. If he was struggling with his breathing, he would be struggling with speaking. I had asthma as a child, so I know what it is to struggle with breathing.
At the hospital, he’s given a breathing treatment and he tells the doctors why we’re here. He answers the doctors’ questions about what he has taken, medically, and also what he’s eaten that night. Their conclusion, “He does have acute bronchitis but his lungs are clear.” Thank God! They also add, “It seems like you probably just have heartburn from the food you ate and the antibiotic. Your anxiety caused you to feel as if you couldn’t breathe.”
We look at each other and I give him my Grinch smile. When the doctor leaves, I kindly and with all the love I can give my wondrous huz-band, I respond with, “Told ya! But I’m glad we know for sure and that it isn’t anything worse…I love ya now let’s go home because I’m is sleepy!”
Merry Christmas
Everyone!
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