My Day Began With an Ambulance Ride...
So this morning around 8am I was woken up by a severe stabbing pain in my chest. It was three ribs up, directly below my left breast. It felt like a hot knife. I was instantly wide awake, and almost unable to breathe. All but the shallowest breaths made the pain lance through me, almost incapacitating me. Figuring it was gas, I sat up and tried to ride it out... but the pain was really, really bad. Far worse than any gas bubble I've ever had. It hurt constantly, but spiked sharply if I inhaled, tried to stand up straight, or tried to rotate my torso in either direction.
After about five minutes with no change (or possibly it got even a little bit worse) I started to worry. If it was gas, it should have moved by then, or faded away. Instead it was constant, and so, so bad. I finally decided to go upstairs and talk to my mom. It was hard getting up the stairs. I guess I looked pretty bad, hunched over and wincing in pain, barely able to talk because it required too much breathing. My mom was on the phone to 911 in probably under a minute. After describing my symptoms to the 911 operator, she handed me the phone, telling me an ambulance was on the way. I started down the stairs, to get dressed, but the 911 operator told me they didn't want me moving and told me to sit down on the stairs where I was. So I did. They asked me if I had any aspirin--my mom found some chewable baby aspirin. The operator told me to take 4 and to make sure I chewed them rather than swallowing them. I did.
We heard the ambulances coming and then two guys came through the front door. I don't remember if they knocked, but they weren't in any kind of uniforms or anything. My mom called down to me telling me to ask them if they were with the ambulance. I did and they were. Then more guys came in. And more guys. They helped me up off the stairs and the short distance over to a chair, where they took some vital signs and started asking me questions. There were so many people in the small entryway of the cottage! I think that in addition to me and my mom there were eight men there. A couple of them looked barely old enough to shave.
I gave them the copy of the medications that I take which I keep in my purse, and they continued asking me questions and doing stuff--I don't remember the details because all I was doing was trying not to take a breath too deeply. I was more or less lightly panting, which was the only way I could breathe without being in agony. They said I needed to go to the hospital. I said I didn't have insurance and they said not to worry about that right now. Considering that my mom has heart problems in the family medical history from both sides, and considering how very bad the pain was, I finally agreed to go to the hospital.
Then it became a question of do I have my mom drive me, or do I take the ambulance. They already had the stretcher out and in the door. My mom had shut Cory (the only one of the three cats who would try to get out the door) in my bedroom. I asked how far the hospital was, and they said about 35 minutes. I weighed the options. I was afraid of such a long drive with just my mom, in case it turned out to be something serious... if something was really wrong, I wanted medical help to be right there, so reluctantly I chose the ambulance.
My mom grabbed my Kindle and phone and I convinced the crowd of men that I was ok to go the short distance down the hall to put clothes on (I was in my nightgown) and grab my shoes. Once I hobbled back from my room, wearing a t-shirt and some loose-fitting cotton pants and my ballet-flats which are really more slippers than shoes, they helped me onto the stretcher. They buckled me down and I put my Kindle and phone into my purse and they wheeled me out and into the ambulance. Every bump and jostle felt like a bullet shooting through my chest. On top of that, my ever-present cough (going on over 3 months now) had kicked in for the morning and I was battling the reflex to take a deep breath after each cough--coughs that were like stabs themselves.
As we pulled out of the driveway I saw that there was a second ambulance there. I'm not sure what they had planned--cut me in half and take me in separate vehicles? Anyway, it felt like it took a million years just to get to the end of our street. I was hurting so badly I wanted to cry. The man riding in the back with me asked if I wanted him to start an IV, so that in case the hospital wanted to give me anything it would already be in place. I said that unless he felt it was really necessary, I'd just as soon not have an IV started in the back of a bouncing vehicle.
Finally we made it into North Conway, which was thick with traffic as it always is on the weekends--it's well known for its many outlet stores, various specialty shops, and restaurants. Unlike the usual drive down the strip, however, we were driving at speed--the siren was on and all the cars pulled over for us, and we didn't have to stop at any of the lights.
I decided it would be funny to check in to Foursquare from the ambulance, so I got my phone out. The only place to add a new location in my Foursquare app is from the search results page, so I dutifully typed in "ambulance" into the search box, figuring it would get no hits and allow me to add it, when to my surprise, "the ambulance" popped up as a location! And only .6 miles away! I checked in with a note "Chest pains very bad" and put my phone away.
So another nice thing about the ambulance vs the car is that you don't have to go through registration and triage and then sit in the waiting room once you get to the emergency room. They just wheel you right back into a room right away. Within minutes a nurse was peeling off the sticky electrode hookups that the ambulance guy had put on me and sticking new ones to me. All in all I had three different sets of electrodes put on and peeled off of my chest during my stay at the ER. They asked me about my pain on a scale of 1 to 10; I gave it an 8.
My mom showed up about 10 or 15 minutes after I got there, and sat and kept me company. The hospital had a good free wifi signal and so we played a little DrawSomething and talked, which made the time pass more easily, though I was still in a lot of pain.
They gave me a percocet and a breathing treatment (because of my cough), and took me back for a chest x-ray. They also drew some blood to do a test to see if I had a blood clot (like in my lung) which I had no idea you could test for in the blood. The bloodwork came back negative and the x-ray looked clean, so eventually they discharged me with a diagnosis of Pleurisy and two prescriptions: one for a liquid pain killer and one for an antibiotic. I signed some paperwork and my mom helped me out to the car. It was around noon by then.
We went to Walmart to fill the prescriptions, on the chance that one or both of them was on the "$4 prescriptions" list (the antibiotic was; the painkiller was not but was only $14 so not a big deal) since I no longer have health insurance to cover such things. After a brief stop at the grocery store (my mom ran in for one thing while I waited in the car) we were on our way home. I was feeling a bit better but still in quite a bit of pain. I was getting used to breathing more shallowly, which helped. Also, I had taken my first dose of the pain medication in the Walmart bathroom, so it would start working as soon as possible.
By the time we got home it was early afternoon. I was supposed to take it easy, so I spent a little while in the room upstairs with all of our "for sale" stuff, weighing things (with boxes & padding added) so I would know how much to charge for shipping when I listed them on ebay. (Some of the stuff was already listed, with a "guess" regarding shipping; some stuff was still waiting to be added in the first place.) Then I came downstairs and started a pot of my spaghetti sauce and then took my laptop out onto the porch and settled in.
After dinner, I went up to my mom's room to watch Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice, which was a really great documentary. My mom and I kept wondering if the narrator was a man or a woman--it was a really distinctive and odd voice, and very androgenous. Finally my mom looked it up and said it was narrated by "a Scottish actor named David Tennant."
"That is NOT David Tennant!" I said, "unless it's a different David Tennant than the one that I know..."
We did some more digging and it turns out that the British version has the David Tennant (swoon & drool) but that the American one was narrated by someone named Novella* Nelson. The clip on this page has this narrator so you can see what I mean, and you can read the many, many comments complaining about the narration, including things like "Awesome footage totally destroyed by the awful dreadful narrator. I had to mute it to keep watching it."
I'm currently downloading a torrent of what purports to be the David Tennant version. :)
Anyway, I got up after the show was over, and stopped short as I tried to stand. The pain was back again, in the same place. I tried to take a deep breath and could not. I had been feeling quite a bit better for the latter part of the afternoon/early evening, but it appears that that was short lived. I took another dose of the pain medication and came back out here on the porch with my laptop, which is where I am right now, typing this.
And so that was my day. Anti-fun. I don't recommend Pleurisy to anyone looking for a good time.
*seriously, who names their kid Novella??
After about five minutes with no change (or possibly it got even a little bit worse) I started to worry. If it was gas, it should have moved by then, or faded away. Instead it was constant, and so, so bad. I finally decided to go upstairs and talk to my mom. It was hard getting up the stairs. I guess I looked pretty bad, hunched over and wincing in pain, barely able to talk because it required too much breathing. My mom was on the phone to 911 in probably under a minute. After describing my symptoms to the 911 operator, she handed me the phone, telling me an ambulance was on the way. I started down the stairs, to get dressed, but the 911 operator told me they didn't want me moving and told me to sit down on the stairs where I was. So I did. They asked me if I had any aspirin--my mom found some chewable baby aspirin. The operator told me to take 4 and to make sure I chewed them rather than swallowing them. I did.
We heard the ambulances coming and then two guys came through the front door. I don't remember if they knocked, but they weren't in any kind of uniforms or anything. My mom called down to me telling me to ask them if they were with the ambulance. I did and they were. Then more guys came in. And more guys. They helped me up off the stairs and the short distance over to a chair, where they took some vital signs and started asking me questions. There were so many people in the small entryway of the cottage! I think that in addition to me and my mom there were eight men there. A couple of them looked barely old enough to shave.
I gave them the copy of the medications that I take which I keep in my purse, and they continued asking me questions and doing stuff--I don't remember the details because all I was doing was trying not to take a breath too deeply. I was more or less lightly panting, which was the only way I could breathe without being in agony. They said I needed to go to the hospital. I said I didn't have insurance and they said not to worry about that right now. Considering that my mom has heart problems in the family medical history from both sides, and considering how very bad the pain was, I finally agreed to go to the hospital.
Then it became a question of do I have my mom drive me, or do I take the ambulance. They already had the stretcher out and in the door. My mom had shut Cory (the only one of the three cats who would try to get out the door) in my bedroom. I asked how far the hospital was, and they said about 35 minutes. I weighed the options. I was afraid of such a long drive with just my mom, in case it turned out to be something serious... if something was really wrong, I wanted medical help to be right there, so reluctantly I chose the ambulance.
My mom grabbed my Kindle and phone and I convinced the crowd of men that I was ok to go the short distance down the hall to put clothes on (I was in my nightgown) and grab my shoes. Once I hobbled back from my room, wearing a t-shirt and some loose-fitting cotton pants and my ballet-flats which are really more slippers than shoes, they helped me onto the stretcher. They buckled me down and I put my Kindle and phone into my purse and they wheeled me out and into the ambulance. Every bump and jostle felt like a bullet shooting through my chest. On top of that, my ever-present cough (going on over 3 months now) had kicked in for the morning and I was battling the reflex to take a deep breath after each cough--coughs that were like stabs themselves.
As we pulled out of the driveway I saw that there was a second ambulance there. I'm not sure what they had planned--cut me in half and take me in separate vehicles? Anyway, it felt like it took a million years just to get to the end of our street. I was hurting so badly I wanted to cry. The man riding in the back with me asked if I wanted him to start an IV, so that in case the hospital wanted to give me anything it would already be in place. I said that unless he felt it was really necessary, I'd just as soon not have an IV started in the back of a bouncing vehicle.
Finally we made it into North Conway, which was thick with traffic as it always is on the weekends--it's well known for its many outlet stores, various specialty shops, and restaurants. Unlike the usual drive down the strip, however, we were driving at speed--the siren was on and all the cars pulled over for us, and we didn't have to stop at any of the lights.
I decided it would be funny to check in to Foursquare from the ambulance, so I got my phone out. The only place to add a new location in my Foursquare app is from the search results page, so I dutifully typed in "ambulance" into the search box, figuring it would get no hits and allow me to add it, when to my surprise, "the ambulance" popped up as a location! And only .6 miles away! I checked in with a note "Chest pains very bad" and put my phone away.
So another nice thing about the ambulance vs the car is that you don't have to go through registration and triage and then sit in the waiting room once you get to the emergency room. They just wheel you right back into a room right away. Within minutes a nurse was peeling off the sticky electrode hookups that the ambulance guy had put on me and sticking new ones to me. All in all I had three different sets of electrodes put on and peeled off of my chest during my stay at the ER. They asked me about my pain on a scale of 1 to 10; I gave it an 8.
My mom showed up about 10 or 15 minutes after I got there, and sat and kept me company. The hospital had a good free wifi signal and so we played a little DrawSomething and talked, which made the time pass more easily, though I was still in a lot of pain.
They gave me a percocet and a breathing treatment (because of my cough), and took me back for a chest x-ray. They also drew some blood to do a test to see if I had a blood clot (like in my lung) which I had no idea you could test for in the blood. The bloodwork came back negative and the x-ray looked clean, so eventually they discharged me with a diagnosis of Pleurisy and two prescriptions: one for a liquid pain killer and one for an antibiotic. I signed some paperwork and my mom helped me out to the car. It was around noon by then.
We went to Walmart to fill the prescriptions, on the chance that one or both of them was on the "$4 prescriptions" list (the antibiotic was; the painkiller was not but was only $14 so not a big deal) since I no longer have health insurance to cover such things. After a brief stop at the grocery store (my mom ran in for one thing while I waited in the car) we were on our way home. I was feeling a bit better but still in quite a bit of pain. I was getting used to breathing more shallowly, which helped. Also, I had taken my first dose of the pain medication in the Walmart bathroom, so it would start working as soon as possible.
By the time we got home it was early afternoon. I was supposed to take it easy, so I spent a little while in the room upstairs with all of our "for sale" stuff, weighing things (with boxes & padding added) so I would know how much to charge for shipping when I listed them on ebay. (Some of the stuff was already listed, with a "guess" regarding shipping; some stuff was still waiting to be added in the first place.) Then I came downstairs and started a pot of my spaghetti sauce and then took my laptop out onto the porch and settled in.
After dinner, I went up to my mom's room to watch Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice, which was a really great documentary. My mom and I kept wondering if the narrator was a man or a woman--it was a really distinctive and odd voice, and very androgenous. Finally my mom looked it up and said it was narrated by "a Scottish actor named David Tennant."
"That is NOT David Tennant!" I said, "unless it's a different David Tennant than the one that I know..."
We did some more digging and it turns out that the British version has the David Tennant (swoon & drool) but that the American one was narrated by someone named Novella* Nelson. The clip on this page has this narrator so you can see what I mean, and you can read the many, many comments complaining about the narration, including things like "Awesome footage totally destroyed by the awful dreadful narrator. I had to mute it to keep watching it."
I'm currently downloading a torrent of what purports to be the David Tennant version. :)
Anyway, I got up after the show was over, and stopped short as I tried to stand. The pain was back again, in the same place. I tried to take a deep breath and could not. I had been feeling quite a bit better for the latter part of the afternoon/early evening, but it appears that that was short lived. I took another dose of the pain medication and came back out here on the porch with my laptop, which is where I am right now, typing this.
And so that was my day. Anti-fun. I don't recommend Pleurisy to anyone looking for a good time.
*seriously, who names their kid Novella??