"As for how long it will take to feel normal again is a matter of what you are willing to accept as normal."

I can laugh at myself now but I accepted shortness of breath as normal when I was taking prednisone.

I argued with the urgent care doctor who called an ambulance to take me to the emergency room. I said, "if I wanted to go to the emergency room, I would have driven myself there." The urgent care doctor stood her ground and wasn't going to let me leave.

I thought the emergency room doctor would be more reasonable. I told him, "shortness of breath was normal for me and it wasn't any worse than it usually is." I asked if I could go home and I promised to call my primary care doctor. The emergency room doctor asked me about chest pain which I denied. I said I didn't have much pain as long as I took enough prednisone.

The emergency room doctor said my chest CT scan showed I had extensive, bilateral and multiple pulmonary embolisms. The emergency room doctor said there was a bed waiting for me in the intensive care unit.

The intensive care doctor said in all his many years of experience, he had never seen anything like what my chest CT showed. I suggested that maybe it wasn't my chest CT because I felt "normal" when I took prednisone. The intensive care doctor suggested I was taking too much prednisone because I wasn't normal. He added that taking prednisone wasn't normal for anyone.