sch00lteacher
Social Security Sucks
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2001
- Posts
- 3,802
I had a little fun this weekend, another heart scare, that is all it turned out to be, again, scare. I am getting a wee bit tired of this. Sitting in the van, waiting for the wife to check out of Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart is part of the story, I hate that place, and I don't know why I keep going back, I got so upset at some of the idiots in there that it brought this on). Bam, chest pain. Pretty good one too. Came and went, nothing extra, no radiation to the jaw, or down the arm. The first few I just tried to ignore. Then they started to get worse. I started sweating like I just ran a mile. I didn't know what to do, here I am sitting in the middle of a parking lot full of people, but feeling mighty alone.
About 15 minuets into all this the wife comes out, and we leave, we are going grocery shopping. I didn't tell her I was having chest pains, I am a male, you all know that, males don't like hospitals. I think we'd rather die first. But she figured it out on her own, it is kind of hard to hide a 'pain face' and grabbing at your chest. She made me take my nitro. I would have taken it earlier but I was alone. What if I took it and passed out or some weird thing right? I took one, no help. Meanwhile we are sitting in the parking lot of Winn Dixie. I take the second one, and the pain goes away. I actually feel better than I have for days.
The wife wants to take me to the hospital, I want to go grocery shopping, heck anything would have been better than going to the hospital. I felt fine, we finished shopping and went home. I sat and watched TV all afternoon. But in the back of my mind I am wondering what am I supposed to do now. They tell you to take your nitro 3 times, wait five minuets between each time, if the pain goes away good. They never told me what to do next. I guess everyone just assumes that people are smart enough to go to the hospital. Well maybe women are. So I talked it over with my wife, we came to the conclusion that we would give my heart doctor a call (I do not like the fact that I even have a heart doctor). She called his service, and he called us damn near right back, good man. My wife talked to him, then gave me the phone. He basically said "go to the hospital, now." Kinda hard to ignore advice like that. So we went.
Now when you tell the ER people that the nitro made the pain go away they treat you a whole lot different than they do when you tell them you just got chest pain. I found that out this time. If you ever want to see a whole bunch of people get real busy just tell them that. I have been to the ER twice before with chest pain, they hurry a bit, but not like this. Before I really knew what was going on I had tubes and wires and stuff stuck to me or running into me, people asking me a thousand questions...
One new trick, then sent in this five year old boy (He must have been 20 something, but man he looked like a puppy to me, I am getting old) to check for blood in my stool. They never did that before. I tried to explain to the little guy that he wasn't big enough to check for blood in my stool. He didn't get the joke. I wasn't joking all that much, I kind of meant it. And this time they also gave me a blood thinner. Which consists of a damn shot in your stomach. When they tell you it don't hurt, you know what is coming right? I don't have to tell you guys. I got 3 more of those before I went home.
So I get a room upstairs in the cardiac area. Soon my doc comes in, he had the duty. Wanna keep you over night and run some tests tomorrow. Words I always hate to hear at the hospital, not the tests part, the staying over night.
The next morning bright and early a lady comes in and tells me she is here to explain the treadmill stress test to me. If I had had a gun I woulda shot her. I explained to her that I have two fake hips, and that I just got one done, and it hurts, and no damned doctor had better of signed me up for this test. She gave me that look that hospital people give when you don't just lay there and let them do things to you. I demanded to see the doctor. Wish I hadn't now.
The doctor came in about an hour later, my doctor came in. Oh, were not giving you a stress test (HA). I want to do a cardio catheterization again. We will do that tomorrow. He explained why, it made sense, but it didn't make me happy. So I spent Sunday sleeping and watching TV in the hospital.
Monday morning I found out I was last on the list, and would go about noon. I hadn't had anything by mouth since midnight. I was dying of thirst. The first nurse I asked for ice or something, anything, looked at me like I was Satan asking for her soul. Later I found a nurse who had the balls to ask the doctor, oh sure, he can even have a lite breakfast if he wants, all I wanted was something to drink. I got that. Then all I had to do was lay there and wait. The worst part of any hospital visit, knowing a test or procedure is coming up, waiting for it.
The test went fine. If you have had one, you know what I went through. If you haven't had one, well thank God first, but it is hard to describe. They mess around with your groin area a lot. It hurts. They numb it, it still hurts. Then they stick a wire up inside you, that you can not feel until it gets inside your heart. Then you feel something, at least I do. It feel weird, you can't actually tell what it is, you just know that it is wrong. I watched what I could on the monitors, some times you can see them some times you can't depends on where the x-ray machine thingies is. The doc asks you to hold your breath a lot. It is really fun when he releases a bunch of dye into the incoming aorta, and outgoing aorta (I am just guessing where they do it at, I couldn't tell anything except it was two different areas that cause blood to travel all through your body). Because you get this HOT flush traveling through your body, different parts of your body. It is hot, uncomfortably so, not burning. It is the only part that I really could do without. They take you back to your room where they remove the thing from your femoral artery. They then stand there for like fifteen minuets pushing as hard as they can on you to stop the bleeding. Then I could not move my leg for four hours, no rolling over, nothing. This is not easy. But I got to go home afterwards, which made it even harder to do! Counting down seconds.
Story goes that everything looks fine. In fact I look better than I did when I had my heart attack. Some of my blockages have gotten smaller, YEE HA! The area around the stint is only 25% occluded. Which is fantastic I guess. Most are 50 to 75 % because you body builds up scar tissue and what not around it.
No one knows what the pains were, maybe heart, maybe something else. They now want a complete GI work up done. Gotta talk to my regular ol' doctor and have her see about that.
I am home. I feel great. I got outta bed at two o'clock a.m., couldn't sleep. But I am not tired.
I hope like hell that this is the last of it for awhile. I went close to 40 years with out having much to do with doctors and the like. Only when I was stabbed, shot, or fell off a mountain or something. Now it seems like I spend all my time involved around them.
Anyhow, that is the story. There are three other parts floating around here someplace. If you took the time to read it, thanks, I don't know why I post this stuff except it does make it easier than having to explain it to ten different people. I can do it all at once.
I told my other family and friend through email, the least I could do for this family, and my friends here, is post this. Stay away from doctors, they make you sick. I really think they do, hell every time I don't feel good, there is a damned doctor.
About 15 minuets into all this the wife comes out, and we leave, we are going grocery shopping. I didn't tell her I was having chest pains, I am a male, you all know that, males don't like hospitals. I think we'd rather die first. But she figured it out on her own, it is kind of hard to hide a 'pain face' and grabbing at your chest. She made me take my nitro. I would have taken it earlier but I was alone. What if I took it and passed out or some weird thing right? I took one, no help. Meanwhile we are sitting in the parking lot of Winn Dixie. I take the second one, and the pain goes away. I actually feel better than I have for days.
The wife wants to take me to the hospital, I want to go grocery shopping, heck anything would have been better than going to the hospital. I felt fine, we finished shopping and went home. I sat and watched TV all afternoon. But in the back of my mind I am wondering what am I supposed to do now. They tell you to take your nitro 3 times, wait five minuets between each time, if the pain goes away good. They never told me what to do next. I guess everyone just assumes that people are smart enough to go to the hospital. Well maybe women are. So I talked it over with my wife, we came to the conclusion that we would give my heart doctor a call (I do not like the fact that I even have a heart doctor). She called his service, and he called us damn near right back, good man. My wife talked to him, then gave me the phone. He basically said "go to the hospital, now." Kinda hard to ignore advice like that. So we went.
Now when you tell the ER people that the nitro made the pain go away they treat you a whole lot different than they do when you tell them you just got chest pain. I found that out this time. If you ever want to see a whole bunch of people get real busy just tell them that. I have been to the ER twice before with chest pain, they hurry a bit, but not like this. Before I really knew what was going on I had tubes and wires and stuff stuck to me or running into me, people asking me a thousand questions...
One new trick, then sent in this five year old boy (He must have been 20 something, but man he looked like a puppy to me, I am getting old) to check for blood in my stool. They never did that before. I tried to explain to the little guy that he wasn't big enough to check for blood in my stool. He didn't get the joke. I wasn't joking all that much, I kind of meant it. And this time they also gave me a blood thinner. Which consists of a damn shot in your stomach. When they tell you it don't hurt, you know what is coming right? I don't have to tell you guys. I got 3 more of those before I went home.
So I get a room upstairs in the cardiac area. Soon my doc comes in, he had the duty. Wanna keep you over night and run some tests tomorrow. Words I always hate to hear at the hospital, not the tests part, the staying over night.
The next morning bright and early a lady comes in and tells me she is here to explain the treadmill stress test to me. If I had had a gun I woulda shot her. I explained to her that I have two fake hips, and that I just got one done, and it hurts, and no damned doctor had better of signed me up for this test. She gave me that look that hospital people give when you don't just lay there and let them do things to you. I demanded to see the doctor. Wish I hadn't now.
The doctor came in about an hour later, my doctor came in. Oh, were not giving you a stress test (HA). I want to do a cardio catheterization again. We will do that tomorrow. He explained why, it made sense, but it didn't make me happy. So I spent Sunday sleeping and watching TV in the hospital.
Monday morning I found out I was last on the list, and would go about noon. I hadn't had anything by mouth since midnight. I was dying of thirst. The first nurse I asked for ice or something, anything, looked at me like I was Satan asking for her soul. Later I found a nurse who had the balls to ask the doctor, oh sure, he can even have a lite breakfast if he wants, all I wanted was something to drink. I got that. Then all I had to do was lay there and wait. The worst part of any hospital visit, knowing a test or procedure is coming up, waiting for it.
The test went fine. If you have had one, you know what I went through. If you haven't had one, well thank God first, but it is hard to describe. They mess around with your groin area a lot. It hurts. They numb it, it still hurts. Then they stick a wire up inside you, that you can not feel until it gets inside your heart. Then you feel something, at least I do. It feel weird, you can't actually tell what it is, you just know that it is wrong. I watched what I could on the monitors, some times you can see them some times you can't depends on where the x-ray machine thingies is. The doc asks you to hold your breath a lot. It is really fun when he releases a bunch of dye into the incoming aorta, and outgoing aorta (I am just guessing where they do it at, I couldn't tell anything except it was two different areas that cause blood to travel all through your body). Because you get this HOT flush traveling through your body, different parts of your body. It is hot, uncomfortably so, not burning. It is the only part that I really could do without. They take you back to your room where they remove the thing from your femoral artery. They then stand there for like fifteen minuets pushing as hard as they can on you to stop the bleeding. Then I could not move my leg for four hours, no rolling over, nothing. This is not easy. But I got to go home afterwards, which made it even harder to do! Counting down seconds.
Story goes that everything looks fine. In fact I look better than I did when I had my heart attack. Some of my blockages have gotten smaller, YEE HA! The area around the stint is only 25% occluded. Which is fantastic I guess. Most are 50 to 75 % because you body builds up scar tissue and what not around it.
No one knows what the pains were, maybe heart, maybe something else. They now want a complete GI work up done. Gotta talk to my regular ol' doctor and have her see about that.
I am home. I feel great. I got outta bed at two o'clock a.m., couldn't sleep. But I am not tired.
I hope like hell that this is the last of it for awhile. I went close to 40 years with out having much to do with doctors and the like. Only when I was stabbed, shot, or fell off a mountain or something. Now it seems like I spend all my time involved around them.
Anyhow, that is the story. There are three other parts floating around here someplace. If you took the time to read it, thanks, I don't know why I post this stuff except it does make it easier than having to explain it to ten different people. I can do it all at once.
I told my other family and friend through email, the least I could do for this family, and my friends here, is post this. Stay away from doctors, they make you sick. I really think they do, hell every time I don't feel good, there is a damned doctor.
