It sounds worse than what it was, but I found myself in the Community North ER on my Friday night last night. After feeling lethargic and sweaty and achy all day at school, I got home and felt worse. I had a sore neck, sore throat, swollen glands in my neck, and the worst headache I have had in a while. Luke's little warning light went off and said we should go to an urgent care facility.
We went to MedCheck by our hospital and they got a few vitals on me and then decided that I should go to the ER. With the stiffness in my neck, they were wanting to rule out meningitis. Of course, the lovely H1N1 is also going around, so that was a concern as well.
We headed to the ER thinking that we would have a 3 hour wait at 9:00 on a Friday night. There were several people in there waiting already, but we managed to see the triage nurse really quickly. Being pregnant, they made me wear a pretty fancy mask over my face :-), which I think made them move a little faster.
I was put in a room and seen by a doctor in a matter of minutes. The doctor came in and quickly ruled out meningitis, but he said that they are no longer testing for the flu because of the inaccuracy of the tests (apparently only a 40% accuracy rate?). Since I had some flu symptoms, they decided to treat me as if I had H1N1 and prescribe Tamiflu. Luke and I were both happy with this, as Luke has told me that not very many people with H1N1 were even being treated with Tamiflu in the hospital, that they were just told to drink Gatorade and rest.
The doctor did say that I needed to lay low, stay down, and rest. HA! He also said that if I had a fever, I shouldn't go back to school until I was fever free for 24 hours. This put me into worry mode because I have a sorority sister/friend's wedding in Chicago today, and not only could I not stand the thought of missing it, we also had a hotel reservation and other friends riding with us to consider. We thought about it and decided that we shouldn't stay the night in Chicago, and we should go for the wedding and as long as we can make it to the reception and then head back that night. This way I could sleep in my own bed and sleep in on Sunday without worrying that we had to get up early and head home. We were able to cancel the reservation with no penalty (thank GOODNESS!), and we will still be able to see beautiful Kelley get married (double thank GOODNESS!).
I am more exhausted than I have ever been. I have been falling asleep before 9 on most nights (except Thursday for Grey's!), but when I wake up in the morning, I still feel like a walking zombie. Pregnancy combined with illness is not a good mix...and I just need the time to be able to recover. Hmm...maybe next weekend?
Anyway-- I am going to just fine, and we dopplered the baby last night because he/she is not moving hard enough to let me feel it (boo!), so I was worried and I wanted to hear for myself that he/she is OK. We got the heartbeat at around 145 bpm, so from our perspective, the baby is just fine, too.
In similar thoughts, I think it is LAUGHABLE that the health departments can administer huge, massive H1N1 vaccinations in malls, but yet not give supplies to enough OB offices to vaccinate their pregnant women, who are in the highest risk category. I called four different places, including my own doctor's office, someone else's doctor's office, and both the Marion Co. and Delaware Co. health departments, and I was told my doctor didn't have it yet, that the other doctor had it but couldn't give it to me since I am not their patient, Marion Co. didn't answer, and Delaware Co. is doing a "clinic" at the fairgrounds on Tuesday. I can call for an appointment Monday. Looks like this is my best bet. Again...laughable.
But hey, if we can't laugh, we'll cry, right?!
