Chronic Health Conditions Discussion and Support

I hope I just spelled it wrong, because they told me it was an oral antibiotic and also gave me a topical. I’m going to contact my “real” doctor, since I just sent him an “affirmative” reply about the antibiotics. They really, REALLY don’t know how to deal with Lupus here, even in the local hospitals. One time I spent about a week in the hospital in Philly and my doc said he THOUGHT I was okay, but go to the local ER if anything went South. I said, “Don’t send me home unless you know I’m okay because I swear to God I will crawl across the Ben Franklin Bridge before going to my local ER!” In all fairness, and I say this with no exaggeration, I almost lost my life in the local hospital, only to go to Philly after 2 weeks with a fairly constant 105 fever and eventually surviving after being treated there, so he knew I was serious. And, by the way, it turned out I had Legionella (Legionaires Disease), although they insisted it was impossible. I was contacted by the CDC. There was only one other case in the USA at the time, and it was a woman from Connecticut who had contracted it overseas. Other people must have come in contact with it, but my immune system was shot, so I was the only person who contracted it.
Two things will always stick with me: The doctors telling me I had 24-36 hours and I needed to say goodbye to my six year old son. (He’s 15 now.) And telling a nurse that I couldn’t breathe and could hear rattling in my lungs. (This was about 6 hours before the Legionella diagnosis when they discovered that one lung was 100% under water (fluid) and the other 60%.) She said, “You’re just hyperventilating because you’re upset that you’re dying. Try to calm down and be less dramatic.”
Now they gave me 36 hours, and this was my second night, so in theory, I should already have been dead, and I certainly think being “upset” wasn’t an uncalled for response, but a bit of empathy would have been nice. I HAD been crying. I thought I was leaving my baby. Even if I had just been hysterical, a bit of bedside manner would not have been out of order!