Post by papaof2 on Jan 24, 2019 21:11:36 GMT -6
Finally finding myself with time to document the past couple of days.
Tuesday morning, I planned to sleep in but I'm awakened early by my wife's "I need your help." Rarely a good start to the day…
She goes on to explain that she'd gotten up to go to the kitchen and been hit by shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea and a cold sweat. She sat at the kitchen table for a few minutes and decided she should be back in bed. An hour later she tried to get up again - with the same results - so she woke me.
I checked her symptoms and there were enough matching "heart attack in a female over 50" that I insisted she let me take her to the urgent care office that's maybe ten minutes away.
After a grumbled "OK", I handed her cell phone to her and grabbed my phone, a large power bank and a charging cable. Then we were out the door and in my truck, only to find the garage door opener on that side wasn't working. Not wanting to leave a garage door unlocked after opening it manually, we took her vehicle. I've preached "fill at 1/2" enough that she does so most of the time and it had more than half a tank of gas. She was hurting too much to fix herself anything for breakfast and I didn't take the time so we're both out the door without breakfast.
The receptionist at urgent care got my wife's symptoms and her ID and we were quickly in an exam room with an EKG machine coming in the door. That EKG isn't life or death serious but it's not completely normal so the MD says to go to an ER where they can do more sophisticated testing. So that becomes the next stop.
We're at the ER in 20 minutes and haven't been inside five minutes before they're doing their own life or death EKG. Again, it's not an obviously serious EKG but it's not perfect either. Because women present differently than men, what looks like indigestion might be a heart attack - and vice-versa - they treat it as serious if not immediately life-threatening.
Shortly she's in a room in the ER, connected to a monitor and they're taking her back for Xrays. When they return, they take enough blood to be considered a donation - minor exaggeration but at least five vials and two syringes of blood. Some of that goes to the lab, some is used for in-room testing for things from A1C (blood sugar levels for the past three months - not a concern for her) to lactic acid and cardiac enzymes (both done with a handheld test instrument that looks *very* expensive).
The quick tests (five minutes for one, ten minutes for the other) look OK but the cardiologist stops in to say "We're keeping you overnight for a stress test and an echo cardiogram in the morning." (chemical stress test with nuclear tagged components so they can get some serious images)
She eventually gets to a room and they bring her the generic evening meal - after 730PM. Meanwhile, I've gone to the 24 hour foodery in the hospital basement to find something to eat. So we're eating "breakfast" at almost 8PM - it was a long day.
After a sleepless night, she calls me at 7AM Wednesday to say they're taking her back for the stress test. I get there a little later and they're doing the echo cardiogram in her room (machine's on a cart).
Much later, the cardiologist comes in and says "Your heart is fine. You might have a 1% chance of a heart attack in the next ten years. You have a history of minor esophagus problems and I think this is a much worse episode of that. Your body's internal pain sensors aren't accurate enough to reliably determine whether the source is your heart or your esophagus and your heart is a little out of the typical position. Call your GI doctor for an exam in the next week or so."
An hour later, she's officially released and we're out the door.
Just a normal morning, but we're suddenly in the midst of a potential life or death situation for the next 24+ hours.
Negatives: The garage door opener didn't work. While there was bottled water in her vehicle, there was no food (I didn't think to grab a GHB from my truck). Didn't matter for her as they didn't want her eating but it would have been nice to have had quick food for at hand myself earlier in the day.
Positives: We had another vehicle with plenty of fuel. While I used the GPS to confirm I was on the fastest route to the ER, my memory would have sufficed. I had cash and credit cards to cover whatever might have been needed (food for me, parking, etc). Because of much more than usual use, I needed to recharge my phone - twice - but I had the power bank to do that. My wife's heart is very healthy.
Where are we now?
Waiting for a callback from the GI MD.
I checked the breaker for the garage door opener and the opener has power so I'll be up on a ladder tomorrow finding out why it's not working.
We're just a retired couple living a boring life ;-)
Tuesday morning, I planned to sleep in but I'm awakened early by my wife's "I need your help." Rarely a good start to the day…
She goes on to explain that she'd gotten up to go to the kitchen and been hit by shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea and a cold sweat. She sat at the kitchen table for a few minutes and decided she should be back in bed. An hour later she tried to get up again - with the same results - so she woke me.
I checked her symptoms and there were enough matching "heart attack in a female over 50" that I insisted she let me take her to the urgent care office that's maybe ten minutes away.
After a grumbled "OK", I handed her cell phone to her and grabbed my phone, a large power bank and a charging cable. Then we were out the door and in my truck, only to find the garage door opener on that side wasn't working. Not wanting to leave a garage door unlocked after opening it manually, we took her vehicle. I've preached "fill at 1/2" enough that she does so most of the time and it had more than half a tank of gas. She was hurting too much to fix herself anything for breakfast and I didn't take the time so we're both out the door without breakfast.
The receptionist at urgent care got my wife's symptoms and her ID and we were quickly in an exam room with an EKG machine coming in the door. That EKG isn't life or death serious but it's not completely normal so the MD says to go to an ER where they can do more sophisticated testing. So that becomes the next stop.
We're at the ER in 20 minutes and haven't been inside five minutes before they're doing their own life or death EKG. Again, it's not an obviously serious EKG but it's not perfect either. Because women present differently than men, what looks like indigestion might be a heart attack - and vice-versa - they treat it as serious if not immediately life-threatening.
Shortly she's in a room in the ER, connected to a monitor and they're taking her back for Xrays. When they return, they take enough blood to be considered a donation - minor exaggeration but at least five vials and two syringes of blood. Some of that goes to the lab, some is used for in-room testing for things from A1C (blood sugar levels for the past three months - not a concern for her) to lactic acid and cardiac enzymes (both done with a handheld test instrument that looks *very* expensive).
The quick tests (five minutes for one, ten minutes for the other) look OK but the cardiologist stops in to say "We're keeping you overnight for a stress test and an echo cardiogram in the morning." (chemical stress test with nuclear tagged components so they can get some serious images)
She eventually gets to a room and they bring her the generic evening meal - after 730PM. Meanwhile, I've gone to the 24 hour foodery in the hospital basement to find something to eat. So we're eating "breakfast" at almost 8PM - it was a long day.
After a sleepless night, she calls me at 7AM Wednesday to say they're taking her back for the stress test. I get there a little later and they're doing the echo cardiogram in her room (machine's on a cart).
Much later, the cardiologist comes in and says "Your heart is fine. You might have a 1% chance of a heart attack in the next ten years. You have a history of minor esophagus problems and I think this is a much worse episode of that. Your body's internal pain sensors aren't accurate enough to reliably determine whether the source is your heart or your esophagus and your heart is a little out of the typical position. Call your GI doctor for an exam in the next week or so."
An hour later, she's officially released and we're out the door.
Just a normal morning, but we're suddenly in the midst of a potential life or death situation for the next 24+ hours.
Negatives: The garage door opener didn't work. While there was bottled water in her vehicle, there was no food (I didn't think to grab a GHB from my truck). Didn't matter for her as they didn't want her eating but it would have been nice to have had quick food for at hand myself earlier in the day.
Positives: We had another vehicle with plenty of fuel. While I used the GPS to confirm I was on the fastest route to the ER, my memory would have sufficed. I had cash and credit cards to cover whatever might have been needed (food for me, parking, etc). Because of much more than usual use, I needed to recharge my phone - twice - but I had the power bank to do that. My wife's heart is very healthy.
Where are we now?
Waiting for a callback from the GI MD.
I checked the breaker for the garage door opener and the opener has power so I'll be up on a ladder tomorrow finding out why it's not working.
We're just a retired couple living a boring life ;-)
