And the Diagnosis is...

Pneumonia.

Yep.

I got what I thought I wouldn't catch.

Moral of the story:
Don't mix pain killers with alcohol.

But I felt fine after taking a couple.
I wanted to go out and sing karaoke...
and after taking two pain killers....
(because my teeth still hurt after four days)
I thought I would be fine.
I had the energy.
So we walked to the bar.
KARAOKE NIGHT!

It was a normal Saturday night.
My Zachary had to work.
So my roommates and I went out.
And we had a lot of fun.
We sang a lot of songs.
We even did an awesome ending encore.
And danced after karaoke was over.
And stayed til we got kicked out.
Which is normal.
I over did it.

I don't really know what happened next.
We weren't very far up the street.
Not far at all.
I was walking in between my two roommates.

One of them had my bike.
Because we walked all the way there
until I realized...
I forgot my wallet at home.
He went back to get it.
Isn't that nice???

I remember not being able to breathe.
I was wheezing and trying to breathe and trying to walk.
I had a hold of each of them on each side of me.
And I stopped walking.
I couldn't go on anymore.

And then there were red and blue lights behind me.
Officer Carley trying to talk to me.
Talking to my roommates.
Relaying the messages to the 1st Responders.
I couldn't understand what they were saying.
Then the rumble of the ambulance parked next to us.
They're throwing me on the cot.
And placing oxygen masks on my face.

I heard Officer Carley say
that I like to fight when I'm drunk.
He's right.
Not something I'm proud of
but history speaks for itself.
Its common to come to
and not know where you are
and freak out
and the first thought is
Who the hell are you, what are you doing to me, and how do I get out of here?

I heard him say he thought I was having an allergic reaction
to the alcohol and pain killers.
That I had my wisdom teeth pulled a couple days ago.
That he's seen me more intoxicated than this,
but never in a state of distress
to where I couldn't breathe
and every breath I took
felt as if it could have been my last.

An IV poke in my hand.
Oxygen tubes in my nose and around my mouth.
A Paramedic sitting next to me
trying to talk to me.
Officer Carley's headlights from the squad car
following the ambulance
blasting me in the eyes
as I was whisked away
to the emergency room.

Stripped of my clothes and assisted into a hospital gown
More pokes, prods and questions.
I've been coughing for more than a week.
I had two teeth pulled on Tuesday.
It gotten worse since then.
Thought I'd ride it out at home....
fluids, hot tea, cough syrup, gargle with warm salt water, lots of rest....
all the things Dr. Mom prescribes
wasn't good enough.

Poked three more times for blood draw.
The first phlebotomist couldn't get it.
I have squirmy veins.
A radiologist wheeled me down for a chest x-ray.
The nurse made me pee on the commode.
That was gross.
I wanted to go to the bathroom.
Instead they brought it to me.

The doctor came in
and said the chest x ray showed
I have a little bit of pneumonia
in my left lung.
Sent me with a scrip for an antibiotic and tylenol with codeine.
And got me a cab ride home.

I slept in the recliner for a couple hours Monday morning.
Because I would cough and hack my brains out if I tried to lie down.
I even tried reclining in my bed.
That didn't work.
I didn't go to school Monday.
Officer Carley came by Monday night
and asked my roommates how I was doing.
That was nice of him.

Tuesday was worse.
I really felt like I would die.
My roommates said give it one more day
to see if the antibiotics would kick in.
By now it felt like someone had a fist around my windpipe
and was squeezing tighter and tighter
with every breath.

Tuesday night I woke up at 3 a.m.
Coughing and wheezing.
I thought about calling 911
but I'm tough... I'll make it.
I was up for three more hours coughing and wheezing.
I couldn't relax.
I couldn't lay down.
The only thing that helped
was sitting up in bed.
My lower abdomen was starting to throb
from coughing so hard.

By Wednesday when I woke up
my roommates said they could hear me wheezing
from across the room.
I was just trying to breathe.
I called the Nurse Advisor line
and she told me to come back to the hospital.
I had been progressively getting worse.
I couldn't say a sentence
without gasping for air.
I couldn't walk across the hall to the bathroom
without hacking my lungs out.

To Urgent Care it was
on the next bus.
They whisked me off to the emergency room
Again.
Back in the hospital gown.
Back to the breathing treatments.
Back to the x ray room.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
That was courtesy of the kitten
walking on my keyboard.

More questions.
No I haven't been coughing anything up.
No I haven't had a fever.
But if I had
the Tylenol with codeine
they had given me a few days ago
would hide that well.
I'd been wheezing for two days.
Why didn't they give me an inhaler
the first time?
Is the mold we found in my room
a cause of the pneumonia?
Since they have me antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia,
not viral.
Which means I'm not contagious.

The doc said
if I wasn't responding to the breathing treatments
through the nebulizer
that I would have to stay in the hospital.
I've only had to once.
I didn't like it.

The first two didn't seem to work.
Two hours down and I was starting to breathe a little easier.
They gave me another.
and I was OK.
So they made sure I could breathe
after the 4th one.

Four hours later
I was discharged.
The chest x ray showed
I had swelling in my lungs
more than the pneumonia brought on.
So they gave me an inhaler and a steroid
to breathe easier and get the swollen lungs down.
Said I should be back to normal by the weekend.
And set me up with a local doctor.

I'm already feeling better.
I can talk.
I'm not wheezing with every breath.
I have a little bit of energy.
But I think I'm going to save it.
for....

KARAOKE NIGHT

this weekend ;)

We is All a Bunch of Sicklies

Yep. I've had this crazy cough for a little more than a week now... it didn't really start to come about til I kissed Zach last Friday.... that man has the worst immune system in the world... if he can catch something, he will. It doesn't help that he works in the lab at the clinic and can catch just about anything. This time he's said its his tonsils. Again. Which he apparently has something wrong with them about every four months.

I'm not even coughing anything up, just have a sore throat and a harsh, deep cough. I saw on the news last night that there have been several cases of whooping cough confirmed in our area but I looked up the symptoms to that and I don't seem to have them... sounds like bronchitis but I have to sleep sitting up because the cough is worse at night and I don't want it to turn into pneumonia.... everyone's telling me to see a dr but I have Dr Mom ;)

So I have been hiding in my room alot, under the vaporizer and humidifier with cough syrup and cough drops and hot tea with lemon and sugar pumping into me like water... doesn't help that I had two teeth pulled out on Tuesday morning and got good painkillers for that... so I've pretty much been an invalid for the past three days.

Akira was in the hospital last night... dr said on Wed. she had the stomach flu and yesterday she was worse so she was taken in and they admitted her because she was dehydrated and had low blood sugar. They didn't really say much more than that... but she's home now and acting like the normal three year old that she is, for the most part. Just hoping everyone else in the house doesn't get sick now also... it's making the rounds....

AS IF!!!!

So my book didn't make it to the quarter finals round of the ABNA Novel thing. Oh well... I don't think these people know what they're talking about because these are the reviews I got back from 2 "Expert Reviewers"....


ABNA Expert Reviewer:

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?
I'm really trying to think of something positive to say, but I can't. I guess it's nice to see Haley and Corey have a wholesome, fun relationship. It can be such a drag when relationships happen between two people who are obviously very bad for each other.

What aspect needs the most work?

Where to start?

The main character, Haley, sounds and acts like she is all of twelve years old. I couldn't believe it when it mentioned she was a senior in high school. From her word choices to what she does, Haley seems like a child. I mean, her idea of fun is terrorizing kids on the bus? That sounds like elementary school, for crying out loud!

You also need to decide whether this story is being told in the past tense or the present tense. The narrative constantly switches. For example:
"Corey was Haley’s best buddy on the bus. Together, the two of them were major partners in crime. Big-time. He is also valedictorian of their senior class."

Corey WAS Haley's best buddy...the two of them WERE major partners...these are past tense statements. He IS valedictorian - that is present tense. The tense changes how the story is told and what the reader can expect from it...and it HAS TO BE CONSISTENT throughout the narrative.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?
I would not recommend this to anyone.

The dialogue is unnatural and stiff; teenagers don't really talk like Haley, Corey and Nick.

The writing itself is very juvenile. If I had to guess, I would say that someone between the ages of twelve and fifteen wrote it. The language is unsophisticated, and the simplistic plot and characterizations show an underdeveloped, immature writer. I guess that's the good news - if the writer is as young as I suspect, than as he/she grows older and matures, the writing will also improve.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?
The excerpt does a good job establishing the relationships among the main characters without being overly expository. There are also a number of foreshadowing threads suggesting the mystery to come, and of course the problem of the cliffhanger ending to grab the reader's attention.

What aspect needs the most work?
The dialogue does not seem very realistic for teenagers, and the character's behavior and emotional responses also seem simplistic, so that the characters seem much younger than they are supposed to be (which makes the seeming foreshadowing of amorous feelings between the underage protagonist and the bus driver even more creepy). The narrative style also seems overly simple, even for a young adult audience.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?
The plot seems as if it may have some potential, but would benefit from more realistic dialogue, character development, and developed narration.

--------------------------------------------------

Yeh, these people said teenagers really don't talk like this... apparently none of these "expert reviewers" have ever lived or grown up in rural Midwest town where they have to create their own fun. Whatever. Everyone else who's read it loved it, including my English Composition instructor. Why would she say its great and encourage me to publish it, if it wasn't?