It was just another day in Southern California. I had a follow up visit to the doctor and a long list of things to talk to her about. Being a typical day I had a little chest pressure in the morning and was short of breath from all the moving around to get ready and get there and walk in to the doctors office. After the usual long wait, they took me into the preliminary area and weight, blood pressure, temp nd all that. They only thing that raised an interest was my pulse which was running at 126. Well, didn’t bother me since I know that my pulse is usually running around 114 to 128. Now back to the waiting room.
About 45 minutes to an hour later I was taken back to a room. After a few minutes the doctor came in. I was fully prepared with my printouts on my glucose levels, current meds and current symptoms. Top of the list was the fact that I have been unusually more out of breath, dizzy, light headed and now adding frequent nausea to the list. She ordered an EKG. When they did the EKG she told the nurse to call 911 and told me there was a difference between this EKG and the previous EKG taken 6 months before and it was not a good change.
So when the paramedics get there they hook up their own EKG machine and said they also saw the difference and I needed to go to the hospital. One the way I questioned the paramedic for more information. He told me the EKG looked like some dead tissue in the heart muscle.
Upon arriving at the hospital they immediately took to me a room and hooked up yet another EKG, drew blood, put me on oxygen and then came back many more times for more blood. Their conclusion, and feel free to help me decipher this: I see the anomaly they saw but don’t think it’s anything to worry about. However, given your current symptoms you can either get admitted here or go see a cardiologist first thing in the morning. Either way to need to be sure to see a cardiologist before the weekend and that’s critical. Hmmmm, nothing to worry about but I need to see a cardiologist before the weekend. Well, then let’s just check in and get it over with. For the next two days I got constant breathing treatments, lots of blood taken, another EKG, and Echo Cardiogram of my heart and then a Echo Cardiogram (Doppler) of my carotid arteries. Now, they have had me on Oxygen the whole time too and Nitro Glycerin patches. Yesterday I got a severe headache (I rarely get any headaches at all) and the pain was terrible. It felt like someone was running needles through my sinuses into the back of my left eye. They came in and removed the nitro patch. The echo cardiogram person sitting next to me while this was happening and then the nurse left. The echo operated then begins to remove the left should of my patient garmit and finds another nitro patch. Ooops! He called the nurse right back in and that one was removed. The echo was administered and 20 minutes later my headache subsided and I crashed out.
The report: my enzymes show no evidence of a heart attack and the echos look fine. So I’m laying in bed with another splitting headache and the nurse brings me Tylenol. It doesn’t help and keeps getting worse again and it starts up with the left eye hurting really bad again. I take a drink of ice cold water and about 3 minutes later I feel my throat closing up. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that before, but it’s not pleasant. It quickly swelled so far shut that I could not breath. Weird noises for escaping from me as I fought with all my strength to get air in and out. Within seconds there were nurses and technicians surrounding me yelling, just relax, just relax. I tried to explain the best I could that I could not breathe but they didn’t get it. This must have gone on for 5 or 10 minutes, though for me it felt like a lifetime and I thought it was over. Did not think I was going to make it out alive. I forgot to mention this whole time I’m reaching for and trying to grab my epi pen and they wouldn’t let me. They thought I was having an anxiety attack. OMFG! I could have died there. One nurse said later than they didn’t have a humidifier on the Oxygen and I was mouth breathing so I had a lot of dry mucus in my throat and my throat was really dry. When I put the Ice cold water down my throat it stuck together and wouldn’t let air get through. The doctor still listed it as an anxiety attack. Ha! I could see it now, cause of death: suffocation due to an anxiety attack. Ha, someone needs to go back to med school.
Anyway, they have now added to my other meds: Imdur for chest pain (Nitrate) and Antivert for the dizziness. I was supposed to have my Xolair shot for my asthma on Friday but obviously did not make it.
Oh, and there’s still no real answer. What did the doctor and paramedic see? Why didn’t it show up at the hospital with me? Will it happen again? Hmmmmm
I hope your week was not as exciting as this. I may add more to this as time goes on. Right now I’m very tired and going to lay down for a while.