Urgent Care
Written by Drusilla on June 16th, 2014
Pneumonia.
I’d been trying to ignore my symptoms for a couple of weeks: lack of energy, no creativity, a pain under my wing when I coughed. Then my teeth started to ache and I called the dentist, imagining abscesses and root canals. He proclaimed my teeth just fine but maybe my sinuses weren’t?
Who knew that we have sinuses in our gums?
The symptoms worsened. Nasty coughing accompanied by stabbing pain, and now not only my teeth but my whole face ached. At 4:30 in the afternoon after an hour’s docent-led tour of the Sorolla exhibit in Balboa Park – by the end I was literally staggering — I drove myself to Urgent Care. This proves how truly rotten I felt. The last time I was there I’d been called out of bed to take my mother at three a.m. Every chair in the waiting room was full and the sun was rising by the time we escaped. Expecting the worst, this time I went armed with magazines and my IPad.
But here’s something I didn’t know. Late afternoon and very early evening are low traffic times in the medical urgency business. Within an hour of entering this major urban medical facility, I’d been seen by two nurses and a doctor, had my chest x-rayed, given up quantities of blood, and I was on an antibiotics drip with a warm blanket tucked around me. A good looking guy in a nurse’s uniform stuck his head round the curtain and handed me a plastic cup full of his own Hawaiian kettle chips.
I was in and out in less than two hours. I don’t expect it to happen again, but here’s a shout-out to Manny and Sunday and all the stellar professionals at Scripps Urgent Care, Torrey Pines.
Filed under Life Matters, Uncategorized | Tags: Health Care, Pneumonia, Urgent Care
Hi Dru,
I’m glad that’s all it was. I neglected a nagging cough for a couple of months. Finally my dear Mary convinced me to see the doctor. Stage 4 lung cancer and in my bones and lymph nodes. In Aug of 2012 I was given 6 months to a year to live. Today I’m playing with house money. I get chemo every 3 weeks. I’m fatigued at times, but I’m having a great life.
The take away for all is to not neglect what your body is telling you.
Stay well,
Steve Sporleder
I hope you are fully recovered by now.
Drusilla,
What a terrible fright. I’m so glad to hear you are now on the mend. (I follow your work with interest, as I have taken classes from you in the past and am a member of SDWI.) I checked in to your website because I wanted to get the name of your latest book, which I look forward to reading. Be well! Kay Sanger