Improving, that's all. Can't ask for much else. Went to the lung dr. today and they still don't really have a clue what's wrong. Made up my psych nursing test from Friday, which I feel like I did pretty well on. They're just going to keep me on prescriptions for now and hope I get over it.

Can't wait to get back to some kind of normal life!

I'm home since yesterday afternoon, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I didn't sleep well last night, and was back to wheezing and coughing and in pain, and woke up this morning feeling like crud. It really must be something in my house. I'm eliminating things, one by one, and I'm thinking of going to see an allergist. So frustrating to know something is wrong and not be able to say WHAT.

Pretty sure I'll be heading home today, my o2 sats were good overnight and I slept! Oh my how I slept! First time in a month I've slept all night without interruption and man can I feel it this morning. The nurse even skipped the middle-of-the-night vitals and such because they knew exactly how crappy I sleep and how exhausted I was, and she came in and saw me sleeping and charted that and skipped her middle of the night stuff and let me sleep. And kept the respiratory and blood and such people out of my room too. I am so grateful this morning, because it really does feel good to be well-rested for a change.

I'll keep y'all posted, but I'm pretty certain when the dr comes this afternoon I'll be out of here again. Let's just hope I go home and stay feeling good, I'm done with this place if it's not for clinicals.

Assuming I do okay overnight tonight, tomorrow I will go home again. I'm scared to say the least. They still don't really know what caused this last relapse, only that perhaps they didn't send me home on enough steroids and will try more this time. As soon as I got back in here, I got so much better, and really I'm like a new person today. Go figure. I have to wonder if I'm allergic to something in my house or something? There's nothing new there that really could have brought this on. At any rate, I'm happy to be feeling better and happy that I'm going home tomorrow and happy that I won't have to quit nursing school after all for now. I hope just to make it through the next 7 weeks so I can have the summer to recover, and hopefully that will fix me up. Hopefully...

Good news is I'm getting better again. Bad news is, they still don't know why or why I get worse when I go home! They just increased the dosage of my steroids, put me on some strong pain killers (so I can breathe deeply and clear those lungs) and put me to bed. Not much different than at home - I was on a lower dose of steroids and some not-so-strong pain killers (ibuprofen type) and probably therefore doing less deep breathing, but still much resting (my house and its ramshackle appearance will attest to that!)

At any rate, the lung specialist is thinking today maybe I'm hypersensitive allergic to something in my house, some chemical. I'm thinking we sprayed for ants about the time this all began, and he said it could be something as simple as that. Then the inflammation started, and it's never cleared up because i'm re-exposed every time I go home (we've used the same ant spray each time I've been home too). So this time we're going to get me up to par (again), and send me home with a very strong dose of steroids for quite a long time to give my lungs a chance to heal. Meanwhile, I'm to stay away from any and all chemicals, get dye-free, perfume free laundry detergent, use vinegar and baking soda to clean with, etc., because IF I relapse again then I will have to go be a guinea pig for the university guys up the way. Which I really don't want to do. No thank you.

Oh, and did I mention that we still have no insurance (remember when I quit that job and said I'd regret not having insurance?)... I really don't know what we're going to do about all this, as we have racked up well over $50k worth of bills this time around and we don't qualify for state help. We tried. Bankruptcy? I don't know, I guess we'll sort it out later after I get well, but what a mess!!! We still have around 20k from the strokes in Dec., not to mention 5k or so from the birth itself (although I think we did get those ones paid for, we were prepared for that). Let me get well first, and then I'll work on a payment plan or something. Problem is they're from 20 different places. Maybe chapter 13? Hard not to worry about it with so much time on my hands in here, but for now I think I'll go worry about my classes and study for a while. They promised to have me out of here by Monday and back in clinicals by Tuesday. We shall see.