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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Hospital Stay :o(

I suppose the title is a dead giveaway to say the least. I did land in the hospital on Thursday night, my husband's birthday. It all started like this . . .

I fainted. Four times. Out like a light. I could hear my husband's voice but could not respond. After the fourth floor hit my husband insisted on taking me to the local emergency room . . .

We arrived after 20 minutes of driving in near zero visibility snow. I was ushered into a room quickly and hooked up to an IV. Now the IV was a problem for both nurses and to say I nearly had a blackout from the needle being put in and out, yikes!

In the next room was our own personal episode of COPS. Four policemen were guarding a drunk young man who was being very abusive. I tried to relax between yells of "I didn't do nothin'" and "Get off me pigs". Lovely . . .

I was admitted. I was taken to a cold, uninviting room. I was introduced to a few people then told to try and sleep. That would have been okay except across from my room was a patient that was having a definite problem. Groaning and yelling came wafting through the air reminding me of Sloth from the Goonies. . .

After a few hours of bad sleep I was wisked off to testing. CT scan, Echocardiogram, chest xray and ultrasound of my heart and carotid arteries. I was still very cold . . .

The food was terrible. I had to ring to go to the bathroom (I did understand this as a safety measure). After all that the tests came back negative (yay). . .

With all of this I asked myself, why couldn't I go home and do any other tests on an outpatient basis? I asked for the nurse and he paged the doctor who came to see me. I convinced him, as a medical professional (retired, medically) myself that I could monitor my status, my husband would be home and I could do anything else outpatient. He was initially reluctant but finally said yes. . .

I came home and felt fine. This is Saturday and I still feel fine. I have reasoned that since all my tests were negative something else must have happened. Here are the facts: I had not eaten in a long time, it was 1:30am, I had not consumed adequate liquids that day, there was an adrenaline rush from seeing the opening of the musical (my husband was the pit conductor) and I tend to be lightheaded easily due to medications. I believe it was this combination of factors that lead to my fainting. . . .

I am going to follow up with the doctor, I did buy a blood pressure cuff and I have consciously tried to drink more water today. . .

I did come away from all of this with one thought: I am going to take a little bit more time for myself. I do not want to go back to that room again, ever!

1 comment:

  1. Kudos to you for taking more time for yourself. Seems we all learn this lesson at some point, the trouble is for me, keeping the lesson learned, haha... glad you are better, take care.

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