Pragmatist
Pragmatist

I'm just now home from the hospital.  *sigh*

Atrial fibrillation again.  I was walking from the living room to the bedroom and felt weak, then noticed my heart was doing something it shouldn't be doing.  I thought I'd lie down a few minutes and see if it would calm down.  Then after a couple minutes, I decided this wasn't something I should be casual about.

So I called 911.  This is 911. What is your emergency?

Me, panting: Irregular heartbeat.

911:  Hold on, I'll patch you to the paramedics.  (dead air for few seconds)

Voice:  This is paramedic.  What is your emergency?

I repeated the problem, he asked some questions, like "when did it start?"  Me: "Just a few minutes ago."

Para: Can you get to the door and unlock it?

Me: It's unlocked.

Some more questions and answers, and a knock on the door.  I hollered COME IN!  I'm here in the kitchen.

Four paramedics and a couple firemen in turnouts.  Got a little crowded there.

So...cut to the chase.  We got to the hospital ER, more questions, all the while escorting me to a bed.  Bed...well that's only an approximation.  More like a concrete slab covered with a sheet.  And I was on that concrete slab for TWELVE HOURS, before a bed became available in Cardiac Care Unit. Must be a lot of sick people.

But finally a bed.  A real honest-to-goodness bed.  Soft as a cloud compare to the ER "bed."  More questions and answers.  Does Macy's talk to Gimbel's?  Does one service talk to another service.  Oh, now I'm hysterically laughing.  Does one shift talk to another shift? *snort* Well, at least I had my story straight and didn't have to remember what I said to whom.

I called my doctor's office this morning, while still in the ER, to cancel my appointment.  The receptionist said she'd patch me in to the doctor, just hold on.  So, he came on the line and said "You'd do anything to keep from talking to me!"  Chuckles on both ends.  So we talked awhile, and I'll make another appointment for next week.

Anyway...I was on a heart monitor all this while, and that life-giving organ was pumping away, but not effectively.  All of a sudden, after all those 12 hours of trying to get comfortable, and maybe catch a z or two, the ER nurse popped into my room and said "We have a room!" and proceeded to bundle me upstairs.  Had to be disconnected from the primary monitor and plugged into a portable monitor to go along with the gurney.  As we were gathering what few belongings I had, when the nurse looked at the monitor and exclaimed "She converted!"  Converted, I'm thinking. Converted?  Never! I say.  Oh, little misunderstanding here; my heart reverted to the proper sinus rhythm.  Just as I'm going to CCU!

I was admitted to CCU, anyway, for further monitoring, and I gotta say, the food at that hospital was great!  Two more doctors interviewed me, asking the same questions and getting the same answers.  More vital signs.  More shots.  I have an enormous bruise on my upper left arm from a shot of a blood thinner, the name of which I've forgotten.  Supposed to go in the stomach, but that sort of grossed me.  So I took the second one in the stomach this morning.

Admitted to the ER just before midnight Tuesday, spent 12 hours there, then admitted to the CCU, released today (Thursday) just before noon.  Is there something about the two hands of the clock meeting and schmoozing that has some significance in my life?

An observation: fat men don't wiggle the way fat women do.  The main hallway dead-ended in front of my ER room, and I watched many people to-ing and fro-ing.  

Oh, and I got an Ambien last night and I...slept, zzzzzzzzz'd like I haven't zzzzzzzzz'd in a long time.  I'm gonna get me some more of that stuff.

Shalom