KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
At the end of this past October I got a cold. Just a cold, plain and simple. How bad could it be? At sixty-seven years of age, I've had plenty of colds that lasted a few days, drink plenty of liquids, rest, and presto, before you know it you can breathe and smell again and food tastes normal. Only this time, I got worse and thought it went in my chest, so after five days, I went to the doctor. He agreed I had a cold, though I sounded chesty. He gave me antibiotics and prednisone to help the healing. Only, I have a leak in my heart - aortic regurgitation - and, unbeknownst to me, I cannot take steroids. I took three prescribed doses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning when I awoke I had trouble breathing and figured I just needed more prednisone and took another dose. Please follow below the squiggly to see what happened next.
So, like I said, I quickly take my morning dose of prednisone and before I knew it, I couldn't breathe at all. I felt as if I were drowning. I quickly called to my daughter, whom I live with, and told her to call an amulance that I could not breathe. It felt as if no air was getting into my lungs when I would take a breath in. It was a very scary situation and I began to panic. "I can't breathe, I can't breathe," I kept saying. My daughter and her husband kept trying to calm me down and get me to stop talking, and I could not quit saying I couldn't breathe. I was beginning to get in a quite panicky state - no, that's not true. I was in a panicky state. It was the most incredible feeling to breathe in deeply and only breathe in water.
It seemed like ages before the ambulance was there, though I think they probably came pretty quickly. The emt put an oxygen mask over my face and it did not seem to help at all. And I couldn't quit saying I couldn't breathe. And no-one could shut me up. I kept trying to breathe and all I could feel was what seemed like water going into my lungs. As it turns out, I had pneumonia and congestive heart failure and I was breathing water. My heart and lungs were filled wih it and it was the most uncomfortable physical feeling I have ever had and cannot describe the panic.
The prednisone had caused my blood pressure to spike - when the emt took it my pressure was 256/158. My pulse/oxygen was 61%, which is why I couldn't breathe. The emt's started an ekg on me and my daughter says they took one look at it and said forget it and rushed me on a stretcher out to the ambulance. The ride to the hospital was only about ten minutes and I do not remember anything about it. I only know the oxygen mask did not seem to be working and I still could not breathe.
At the hospital, they catherized me and quickly gave me loads of a diuretic to start getting the water off my lungs and heart. They also put me on a breathing machine called a B-Pap, which seemed to help a bit, but not much. As soon as I was slightly stabilized, I was moved to the ICU where I spent four days. It seems they had a very hard time getting my blood pressure down. I was two more days in a regular hospital room and finally, after six days, released to go home.
I saw my cardiologist a week after I was hospitalized and he told me I had three organs necessary for survival - my heart, lungs and kidneys in crisis. He said they almsot lost me. I think the crisis for my kidneys was they sort of overdid the diuretic, but they needed to to quickly get the water off my lungs and chest.
It took me five months to finally recuperate and get my energy and health back. It's only truly been the last couple of weeks that I have felt okay.
Congestive Heart Failure is a condition in which the heaert's function as a pump is inadquate to meet the body's needs. Many diseases, including diabetes and valvular dysfunction, which I have, can cause congestive heart failure. In general the symptoms are fatigue, diminished exercise capacity, shortness of breath and swelling. In my case it was brought on rather rapidly by the prednisone, due to the leak I have in my heart.
I am okay now, have to be looked at more carefully by my cardiologist, and it is possible we are going to have to replace the aortic valve, which is not a simple surgery, so I'm hoping not. I only know the scariest I have ever been physically is the day I couldn't breathe anything but water and know I never want to experience that again. Thank you for reading and everyone, take good care of yourselves and stay healthy!