Free Something of a Storm (All in Good Time Book 1) by Brooke St. James Page B

there with me.
    My head felt heavy.
    I couldn’t hold it up any longer.
    I decided the cold tile would feel nice, so I slumped to one side letting my cheek make contact with the floor. I was thinking about how badly urinary tract infections sucked when Kate Martin, the pastor's wife, came into the bathroom.
    "Oh, hi," I said, picking my head up of the floor and making my way to an upright position. She gasped and stooped down beside me. "Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a concerned voice.
    "I think so," I said. "I don't know." My head was spinning and I closed my eyes for fear that I would throw-up. "I took some Penicillin and I think it might be making me sick," I said. "I don't feel good at all."
    She got right in front of me, trying to make me make eye contact with her. I tried to get myself together, but I just couldn't. I'd never been so out of it in my life. The next thing I knew, I was agreeing with her that we needed to go to the ER, and she was loading me in her Jeep.
    I vaguely remembered talking to Peter on the way out. He was concerned, but Kate assured him that she didn't mind going with me. I told the ER doctor about my UTI, and how I'd been prescribed Penicillin, which seemed to be doing more harm than good. They made me do a CT scan of my belly because of the intense nausea and tightness, but it came back normal. The doctor said it was normal to have "GI discomfort" from Penicillin. He switched me to Amoxicillin and lowered my dosage to 250mg instead of 500. I was thankful for the change since I'd already decided penicillin didn't agree with my body.
    The trip to the ER took about six hours, and I left there feeling slightly more alert than I was before I came. Kate stayed with me the whole time, and when it was all over, she brought me home and asked if there was anything else she could do. I refused and told her I'd send Lexi and Andy to the corner drugstore to pick up my new prescription.
    She gave me her number and made me promise to call if I needed anything. I assured her that the Amoxicillin would be a game changer for me and I'd be fine by morning.
    I wasn't fine the next morning. The symptoms were back with a vengeance. I hated hospitals, and wanted with all my heart to avoid going back there, but I truly felt like I was dying. My insides, from my throat to my gut were synched up in a tight knot. I could feel and see throbbing in my stomach. It was my heartbeat, but I'd never felt or seen it in my stomach before. Adrenaline coursed through my body in hot waves making me feel sick and restless. Something was really wrong, and I knew it.
    By that afternoon, I made Lexi drive me to the hospital for the second day in a row. I explained the whole situation to the doctor and told him I thought maybe I was having a reaction to the drugs and needed to get on something else to treat my UTI. I told him my heart was beating out of my chest and I could see the pulse in my stomach. I distinctly remember him looking at me like I was crazy when I said that.
    They gave me a bag full of IV fluids, which seemed to calm my body slightly. "Nausea is underrated," he said somewhat sympathetically. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well. But you had a scan yesterday and it was fine. Your vitals and blood work look fine. Your white blood cell count is slightly off, but that's consistent with your infection. You need to stay on the antibiotic you've been given," he said. "If we give you another one now that you've already started that one, there's gonna be issues with resistance."
    I didn't understand any of that, but it seemed like he knew what he was talking about. I made sure he knew I felt sick as a dog—completely out of it.
    "Sometimes it takes a little while for your system to adjust to the medicine," he said. "It's quite common for people to experience GI issues with them, especially at first."
    For the next week, I took the Amoxicillin I'd been given. It was bad, but it wasn't as bad as the first few days. I could