Acute Bronchitis

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Acute Bronchitis

That’s what the doctor told me.

I have not been feeling well for some time. I realized just the other day that it had been over three weeks since my cough began and I was just getting tired of being sick.

I got the cough about the 19th of April. It wasn’t too bad just more frequent than I would have liked and kind of annoying. I didn’t think too much of it. I was coughing a lot in the week leading up to the Mini R&R trip on the 24-27 of April. I almost didn’t go scuba diving because of it. I think the fact that I did go scuba diving probably aggravated whatever I had. Luckily it waited until the end of the trip to start hitting me how terrible I felt. When we were sitting in the airport in Cairns waiting for the flight is when I started to get a headache and my throat first began to hurt. Then on my birthday I was not feeling up to my A-game and after the fun daytime to evening adventures I had I was glad to hit the hay early, much to the shagrin of some of my housemates. I didn’t feel terrible for the Hunter Valley trip. I had a cough but the headache started as the day progressed. On Sunday I tried to sleep a lot and started suffering from sinus headaches. I took some Dayquil on Tuesday so I could be ready for Soccer Practice coaching, which really helped but didn’t do it for me in the long run. Later on in the week I just spent all the time that I wasn’t in class in my bed with a cold compress on my head to alleviate the terrible pains.

On Wednesday I finally got upright enough to send an e-mail to Emily (one of my Arcadia contacts in town) to ask how I go about seeing a doctor. Three weeks of sickness just wasn’t going away on it’s own. Emily immediately responding with some very helpful information. I called the medical center on campus to make an appointment. The first available was on Friday and next available on Monday. I was supposed to go on a camping fieldtrip in the Blue Mountains for my class this weekend starting at 9am on Friday. I set the appointment for Monday hoping I would survive the trip in order to come back to see the doctor. I didn’t think this was realistic so on Thursday morning 8:30 I went to the health center to try to see the casual (walk-in)doctor. I was the first in. He heard my cough even before I was all the way in his office. He listened to my breathing and said yeah maybe some antibiotics would be a good idea. He said I should feel better in about 48hrs. I then decided to enlighten him that I was supposed to be on a campout this weekend. He said NO DEAL! I was shocked I didn’t know what to do. It was part of my grade to go on the campout. But my first priority was to get my script filled and start on the drugs. So I called my mom to make sure I wasn’t prescribed an antibiotic that I was allergic to, she gave me a fright. Then I went to the local chemist who wasn’t open for another 10minutes. So I waited. Finally with the drugs in hand I headed back to the house. I went to class and then crawled back in bed after crafting an e-mail to my lecturer to let him know that the doctor said I shouldn’t go on camp.

My lecturer was very understanding but gave me times that I could take the train out and meet them if I started to feel better on Saturday or Sunday. I knew it wouldn’t be good but I wasn’t sure that I shouldn’t go. I had been so excited for it and I was supposed to be in a group of all Australians to hang out with all weekend.

That night after dinner kinda gave me my eventual deciding factor. I completely forgot that I had dance class that night so I hung out at dinner socializing until I realized that it was 6:30 and I was actually supposed to be at dance class already. So I mistakenly decided to hurry by running down the street towards campus. My body started telling me to stop running, so I walked but it was too late. I was already coughing. Coughing too much and too deeply until I couldn’t handle it and lost a little of my supper in the bush beside the street. Then I stopped coughing a felt better. Needless to say I walked the rest of the way to dance. This didn’t help me immediately come to the decision that I shouldn’t go this weekend but it was the deciding factor in the end.

My mom helped me convince myself that the lesson that I was to learn here was not to persevere and show everyone how tough I could be. It was for me to learn to take care of myself and know when to slow down.

I didn’t go camping over the weekend. I took it slow…well mostly. I had a couple more lessons over the course of the weekend of overexerting myself but thankfully I learned by just feeling tired and going back to bed these times.

On the 13th of May I completed my dosage of antibiotics and I’m happy to say that I feel much better now. I did feel sad when I saw the video of the fun pictures from the weekend in class but I’m glad I stayed home and rested. Now I have more adventures to do so I hope I don’t get sick again…………☺

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