Pneumonia....still

I finally got into my regular GP....Thank god.  He was very concerned I've been sick 3 weeks.  We decided to pull out the big gun tests to figure out why I'm on these super strong antibiotics and still sick.  Because I caught this on the cruise ship, he wanted to rule out lots of things because you are exposed to so many people.  So I had an Xray and lots of blood draws.

He looked in my ears and said the right one was a mess and he could see significant fluid build up.  The left was a little better.  To fix that, we are going to try Afrin but only for 3 days.  After that, it can damage the tissue in my nose.  I will take Sudafed during the day to help.

The Xray shows indeed it is still pneumonia.  About 1/2 my lungs are filled with fluid which is no bueno.  I actually thought I was doing a little better.  But he was curious what kind of pneumonia.  So the blood work showed that.  My White Blood count is high but not "cancer"  high.  It's actually been high all month so I wasn't terribly worried about that (scary I get enough blood work done to know that eh?).  He also said my glucose test showed I was a little high.  He wants me to come back for another one of those to double check since I wasn't fasting.  He said it wasn't Legionnaires disease which is nice because that is deadly but he said this one is going to take awhile to get over.  He said when he had it, it took 6 weeks and he is healthy.

He was very concerned I was on 2 very strong antibiotics.  He said in "people like me" without healthy immune systems, there is significant risks in stripping my body of all the "healthy" flora.  He said I could catch things we can't fight.  So we are changing antibiotics.  To a Tetracycline version.  He said it should do the trick.  He also gave me some probiotics to take to help boost my system.  I certainly don't want stripped flora!

He gave me more narcotic cough syrup.  I stuck with the 4-5 hour one because it has a decongestant in it that really clears up my sniffles at night.  The 12 hour one doesn't have that.  I am totally okay to take another dose in the middle of the night as long as it has been at least 5 hours.  I also told him about the insomnia.  It is killing me after 2 weeks of restless on/off sleeping.  He said I can take my Benedryl I take to sleep but to realize we are double dipping in similar drugs.  It is okay but DO NOT DRIVE while on both.  Silly guy.  I would never drive on a narcotic....and no alcohol.  Good thing my next party isn't until October!

He said if I am not feeling much better by next week, he wants to see me again.  The good news is even my client told me I sounded better today.  Maybe I do.  I wouldn't know because I still can't hear a damn thing.  What?....what?.....Say again.  I still didn't catch it........never mind.  It probably wasn't that important anyway.