Tuesday, December 23, 2008

sick sick sick

Hubby has had a terrible hacking cough for about a month now. I've told him several times to go to the dr but he wouldn't. finally I got him to go on Friday. Sure enough, he's got an upper respiratory infection. They prescribed him amoxicillin and a very strong cough syrup; although they didn't have the cough syrup when we got to the pharmacy. Sometime last weekend, I started a dry cough and a sore/scratchy throat. But I never felt bad - mainly just a cough. Justin's had a cough and a little runny nose for a while. So, my intentions were to get Justin and I to the dr yesterday now that Travis had gone.

But, Sunday, hubby had an episode. We had spent the night at my parent's house, but didn't get a lot of sleep that night. On the way home, I drove while Travis slept. We were about 30 mins from home when he woke up and was rubbing his neck. Then he took a swallow of his drink. Then he started coughing. He was coughing pretty hard and I thought I might need to pull over b/c he might get sick. Well then it sounded different. I looked over and his eyes were rolling back and his head and hand started jerking. I thought he was having a seizure!! I start crying and asking him if he's ok and he's not responding to me. The whole thing lasted like 10-15 secs. Next thing I know, he sits up and starts asking me what's wrong? He's freaking out thinking something was wrong with me or that we had got in an accident. He had no idea what had just happened. He thought he had fell back asleep!!! It took me about 5 mins to calm down enough to return to driving.

After that, I made him go back to the dr yesterday. The dr said he had had a vasovagal attack, which is just a simple faint. He coughed so much and had so much pressure on his chest that his blood pressure dropped and cut off blood supply to the brain. His brain literally shut down and restarted. She said that it does happen very quickly and it looks exactly like a seizure. She told him to pull over if he started coughing while he was driving in case it happens again. He now has bronchitis and she prescribed him an inhaler.

She also re-sent the cough syrup prescription to the pharmacy and told us it would be the most expensive medicine. So last night we went to the pharmacy to pick it up. I was baffled when she told me the total for my 6 items was $176. It turns out his cough syrup was $150!! I just paid it and we went on about our business. When we got home, we realized that we didn't even get the cough syrup!!!! They had made notes on the bag about the price and wanted to ask us if we wanted to pay that much for it. So, back I go to the pharmacy. When I got there, I asked if they had his insurance on file for him. They did not! So I was able to get his medicine, and get the difference in the cash price and the copay refunded - $116! She also saw that we paid full price for his amoxicillin on Friday night and refunded that money as well!

So now that hubby is all squared away (hopefully), I got to get Justin and I squared away. I took Justin to the dr yesterday afternoon and he does have an upper respiratory infection. My dr appt is 8:15 this morning and I bet I have the same thing. I just hope we can get most of this yucky stuff cleared up before Christmas!!

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