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2:52pm June 12, 2012

Home from the doctor.

A miracle happened. I got a doctor with a clue. All I had to do was print out what happened to me, let her listen to my lungs and take vital signs. And then she put me on antibiotics without even an X-ray. And I was out of the clinic within a couple hours of getting there. So I had time to play my violin (starting to get better at drone strings) and now I am curled up with Fey and can feel her purring rumbling through my body.

I have used my new ability to feel my body to good effect too. I was able to tell her exactly what hurt and felt weird. And I was able to figure out I needed help that way too. It’s amazing, almost like a switch flipped and I’m no longer totally disconnected from my physical self. Which is good because bodies are very important things, they’re whole communities of cells and stuff in their own right.

So I woke up choking on reflux this morning. Not unusual, but this time I aspirated it in a really nasty way. Could not breathe more than about a quarter of my lung capacity until I used an entire toilet paper roll coughing up huge amounts of stomach acid. No food, just utterly disgusting yellow liquid. Foul.

Took my oxygen level afterward, slowly climbed from 84 to normal. Breathing hurt. All phlegm tasted like bile. Heart going really fast. So went to the walk in clinic. Pretty much all they needed to know was bronchiectasis and aspiration and I got antibiotics.

The doctor told me that an X-ray usually won’t show whether you’ll get aspiration pneumonia in a few days. I’ve had one show that once but not usually. And she actually had to talk me into just getting antibiotics because I kept asking don’t you need more tests? She said she only risks irradiating people with X-rays if they’ll do anything to change the plan. But she already knew what to do. So… yeah. A doctor with a clue. When does that ever happen?

So despite my lungs feeling like shit (and feeling in fact like they are headed toward pneumonia) I am absurdly happy that this one time I did not need to explain or persuade or outright fight with someone. The lack of extra stress on top of being sick is amazing. I never notice how bad it is until someone does things right.