Tuesday, December 6, 2011

I was gonna do a bunch of stuff, but I got high...

Now wait a second....it's not what you think.

Getting out of the shower this morning, I was hit with a sudden, staggering, overwhelming pain in my chest.

That can't be good.

I tried to remain calm, breathe deeply, and objectively assess the situation.

I needed to get Tucker off to school, I was supposed to attend a board meeting first thing, and my list grew from there. But it hurt, especially when I would breathe, and when I took my blood pressure it was higher than it should have been. My heart rate was strong and regular, which was good, but still...

I ended up calling Robert and asking him to come home and drive me to the ER. Tucker was able to go to a neighbors house until it was time to catch the bus and Sara came with us.

We got to the ER and they took me back immediately. My EKG's were normal so they moved me into a room and continued to try and figure out what was going on.

But the pain...oh my goodness! The pain. It would not go away, it would not ease up, and on top of that, my head started to pound which just made everything worse.

The nurse put in an IV, took a bunch of blood, and dosed me with some sort of pain killer and an anti-nausea medication. I also had to chew two baby aspirin which tasted absolutely no better that I remembered from my childhood. You'd think with all the improvements in medicine and technology that baby aspirin would taste better by now..especially since you aren't allowed to actually give aspirin to babies anymore.

I don't know if I was unknowingly participating in some sort of medication study in which some patients receive a placebo, but whatever pain medication she gave me didn't do a thing for my pain level. If anything, it got worse. After about an hour, the nurse gave me a Vicodin pill.

When that didn't help, they nurse finally gave me a shot of something. I think she said it was dolophine. But I don't really remember because about two seconds after she pushed that plunger into my IV, I was floating. I was flying. I was...high. And I mean, never having been a drug user, I never understood what people were talking about when they talked about the rush.

I get it now.

I had to get a chest x-ray almost immediately after getting high the dolophine, so all I remember is the pain easing up significantly by the time Walter wheeled me into the x-ray room about 45 seconds later.

It took all my restraint not to shout WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! as Walter, the x-ray guy, rolled me back to the room.

And let me just tell you, it was fun to color when I was high. Even with Sara, who is notoriously controlling and obnoxious about sharing crayons.

About 30 minutes later, the doctor came in and said that by process of elimination the problem was most likely that the the lining of my lungs was swollen and/or inflamed and causing the pain.According to Dr. G, my lungs were clear on the x-ray and my heart health was excellent. I was sent home with an anti-inflammatory to take for three days and a prescription for Vicodin that was so strong that the base pharmacy doesn't even stock it.

I have a follow up with my cardiologist on Thursday and until then I can't do anything strenuous. Which sucks because I missed Zumba tonight.

But I'm going to bed early....because I got high.

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