Feeling like you're drowning is the worst feeling

Sorry it's taken a while to write this blog but I've been so ill past few days and just not had the energy to focus and type.
It's hard to explain to people how it actually feels when you're struggling. I think people assume that it's how they feel when they have a cold or just think "but you deal with it all the time so surely you're used to it?" But you're not and with each tiny breath you hope that you'll bounce back quickly and wont deteriorate any further.
On Tuesday they admitted me in to Frimley, I wasn't too surprised as I'd had an extremely rough weekend and although I kept a smile on my face I knew that I was heading for a little stay so it wasn't a shock.
I'll start from the beginning..Last Thursday I came home from work with a cold starting & by Friday evening my cough was all the time, I couldn't go more than a minute without coughing. 9am I was exhausted so went to bed. I woke up at 2am with that all too familiar feeling of a high temperature. It was 39.1 and stayed like that for ages but eventually it started to come down but it took until 4.30am to get to 37.7. I just really couldn't breathe well and that took it out of me. The exact same thing happened all weekend, my chest felt like it was full of glue and was so uncomfortable to breathe; it sounded like I'd inhaled a bowl of rice krispies. I managed to get out for my best friends 21st on Saturday evening as it was just a meal so I could sit down and relax, didn't have to be running around anywhere. 
In clinic on Tuesday we found out my lung function had gone from about 2.3l (65%) to 1.3l (37%) so I was not happy at all, it's a massive drop in such a short space of time (a week). Feeling like you're drowning is the worst feeling. Dr Ho put me on IV meropenum and IV aztreonum and I managed to get a room in the evening. I had a little bit of O2 on the first evening as my SATS were a bit up and down and it helped my lungs along. 
You can't always explain how horrible it all feels and I wish someone could feel what it's like, just for 5 minutes, so they can get some perspective. 
At 2am Wednesday morning my poor night nurse woke me up, "I'm so sorry, they want you to come for your x-ray now" - apparently the radiographer who'd had my slip for ages decided that 2am would be a fabulous time for me to go. I was not a happy girl! And when I got back there were lorries outside my room unloading things and beeping so I didn't get much sleep at all that night.
Dr Ho saw me this morning and said he wanted me on some steroids (pred), much to my disgust..I hate steroids with a passion. They make my face so rounded and make my moods all over the place. But if I need them then I'll have them. I did ask when I can go home as I previously had said I'll stay in if I can go home by the weekend and he said he'll see me tomorrow and if I am improving maybe tomorrow or over the weekend I could go, but he really wants these huge coughing fits to ease up a bit as just as he walked in I was throwing up from coughing so much! 
Fingers crossed that everything starts improving and I can finish the course of IVs off at home - I'm having patches where my breathing is easier so that's a promising sign. The physio said we might try 'the bird' which is a machine that pushes air in to your lungs to help you breathe so will hopefully expand my airways and help shift all the mucus that's stuck.
Happy Halloween :)