Emergency room visit

For those of you who are not Facebook friends, I wound up at Kaiser Sunset Emergency Tuesday. I'm ok- sort of but here is what happened.

On Tuesday I woke up kind of felling funny, not funny haha, but funny peculiar.  I went to work anyway.  On my way in I started to get chest pains.  Great.    I have to walk up a hill to get to work but was kind of yelling at myself to push myself up the hill.  I figured it was just anxiety, although it really didn't feel like that.  There was pressure in my chest,like a giant hand pressing in the middle of my chest.  I took my anxiety meds, thinking they would help. It got worse.  But you know me, I'm stubborn.  I had a meeting I had been preparing for and  I thought "ok, just make the meeting and then go to Kaiser"  My pulmonologist had told me to go to emergency and get the tests run and he would talk to me next week.  I felt awful and the pain was getting more intense.  I went to the cot room to rest, figuring it would give the meds a fighting chance.  It got worse.  Finally I was talking to a co-worker and realized I was not tracking properly.  She said she would get her car and take me to emergency.  I agreed.  Then they called my boss and she made them call 911.  This is were is got interesting.  I didn't want 911 but rules are rules so I waited for the paramedics in the lunchroom.  There were a lot of co-workers having lunch and I really didn't want them doing medical stuff on me in the lunchroom, so when one of the officers offered to take me to another chair I went with him.  The paramedics took my vitals. My BP was in stroke territory.  They put me in the ambulance and ran an EKG.  As I was pretty certain I was not having a heart attack. The paramedic began castigating me about it, HIS determination was that I was just having an anxiety attack. I have something called pulmonary hypertension and I told him so.  HE said "No you just have garden variety hypertension and this is just going to be a really expensive taxi ride."  Now....  one of my triggers is finances.  His comment about how much this was going to cost me did NOTHING to ease my fears. I was in pain.  I was scared.  I was in the back of a freaking ambulance- and all this guy could do was insinuate I was just some hysterical woman who needed to take her anxiety pill and get over it.  He actually asked me where my husband was, and said that if he were coming they would wait and release me to him.  I offered to get out of the ambulance right then.  He said no I couldn't.  I told them to take me to Kaiser Sunset, where Chris was meeting me.  It took a while and he asked me a few more questions, but he already had his diagnosis as far as he was concerned. He was not reassuring in any way.  I thought compassion would be part of the game plan here.

I got to Kaiser and they ran all kinds of tests. The test for the presence of blood clots in my lungs was off the charts.  In January, I had the test done and it was 1640- normal is around 500.  But my doctor said that maybe that IS my normal and they would keep an eye on it.  This time the numbers were 4000- more than double. They ran another CAT scan and... nothing.  I have a meeting with my doctor on Tuesday.  I want to know why and what I should be doing.  I see a cocktail of even more meds in my future.  I WILL get well.  I have to.  I have Chris and my Bob.  They mean everything to me.

I took it easy on Wednesday and shakily went back to work on Thursday.  Made it through the day. The pain is still there, not as much but it is there.  I am having trouble sleeping- duh.  Chris is taking me away on a planned getaway this weekend and I have no plans but to relax and watch the river flow.  Sit on the bank with a cup of coffee and a good book for a bit.  Take photos and relax.  Maybe go to Oatman and see the burros.  Relax and remember that life is brief.  I promised to get back into my art.  Maybe I will try to remember how to write poetry.  I used to be pretty good at it and it is a creative process that I miss doing.  These blogs are ok to and I promise to try to write more of them; not just complaining about my life but thoughtful insightful things that  might go through my brain.