alright, so
i'm lying in bed at around 1:30 on wednesday trying to fall asleep when my heart starts racing unexpectedly. or, i'm not really sure how to describe it. racing/flopping around. something non-standard and unsettling. i had actually experienced this a number of times recently for a couple of seconds before it went away, and basically ignored it. i've known for a couple years now that i have a heart murmur, and without really knowing what that was, figured this phenomenon was related to that condition.
this didn't go away though. i got up. i nearly passed out. i sat down at my desk. i surfed the net for a while, hoping it would go away, while the feeling of "you need to call the doctor" slowly crept up on me. after maybe 5 or 10 minutes i finally caved and called the physician on call. the receptionist took my information and said the physician on call would call me back. i waited.
and waited. and waited. i watched the latest episode of the daily show. once an hour had passed i called back again. this time the doc called me back in ten minutes or so.
"what are you experiencing?"
"um, i think, like, an irregular heartbeat?"
"yeah?"
"um, well, my heart is going really fast, it feels like its flopping around in my chest, and uh, it really sucks. it's really uncomfortable."
"can you elaborate?"
"uh. not really."
"okay, i guess, like, go to the hospital or something."
"how?"
"call a cab?"
i sit there for a while pondering whether to call a cab or call ssgt. vegan, who has a car. i decide i can't be sure that this thing is really an emergency and i don't want to get her out of bed for nothing, so i call a cab. i send her a text to see if she happened to be awake anyway, but no response, so i take the cab. i would later take a ton of shit for this decision.
in the cab i think about letting some people know about my state. i think about texting my sister but decide she would probably come down and i don't want that if it turns out to be no big deal. i text cpl. canadian to tell him to take care of the linguistics department event the next day that i was responsible for.
i get out of the cab about 50 yards from the ER and nearly pass out while walking it, but make it to the ER. now, call me naive or something, but i was kind of expecting that in the ER, there would be someone, like, just sitting there, staring at the door, waiting for people to come in with, you know, emergencies. there was none. i stand there sort of lost for a second, until a nurse walks by, going somewhere else, and as if my existence there was orthogonal to the purpose of the emergency room, asks me,
"uh, do you need something?"
"i have an emergency? question mark?"
she takes me over to her little desk thing to take my pulse.
"uh, you don't have an irregular heartbeat. your pulse is 99."
are you fucking kidding me, i think to myself.
"there is something wrong with me," i reiterate.
"well i'll oblige you, and give you an EKG, but there's nothing wrong with you. you got out of bed for no reason."
at this point i can't fucking believe this shit. i actually believe her at this point. she takes me to the trauma room and starts taking my information.
"is this something people hallucinate a lot?" i ask.
"oh, well, i don't know," she says. "did you drink a lot of pop today?"
"well no, but i do take adderall for ADD."
"oh, honey, that'll do it."
god i felt like such a fucking idiot. i was so embarrassed to have gotten out of bed for no reason. it was my worst fucking fear. worse than actually having a heart problem. she made me feel like such a fucking child.
she hooks me up to the EKG, tells me to relax, and walks out, for like 10 minutes (which of course felt like an hour). she comes back, and her nurse friend sort of follows.
"can i come in?" she asks.
"oh sure," the nurse responds. "peter doesn't mind if you see his chest."
fuck you lady. die in a fire and go straight to motherfucking hell.
she chats on with her friend for a while, then goes silent. she looks at me. she quickly unplugs the leads on my chest.
"yes?"
"okay," she admits, "your heart rate is 130 now."
she has me get up, and takes me over to this other dude. she shows him my EKG.
"whoa, holy shit!" he says. dude, i'm right fucking here.
i don't actually realize that they're admitting me until the dude prints out a wristband for me. he tells me to sit in the waiting room for a little bit. there are maybe 25 people there, and they are black. i wonder what that means.
he calls me after a bit and brings me into the ER proper. he tells me to go over there and gestures vaguely. god i hate that. god i fucking hate that. am i supposed to stand over here? or over there? am i supposed to stand? or sit on the bed? or lay down on the bed? it's not really a big deal but i really fucking hate that awkwardness. just tell me what the fuck to do, and i will do it. be fucking explicit and i will just do what you tell me to.
i end up laying down on the bed and an orderly comes by to take my blood. he is the first cool guy i come across. he asks me some questions.
"sorry about all these questions," he says. "i'm just bored."
"yeah me too," i reply. he laughs. ding.
"wow you got some nice veins here," he says.
"yeah i've noticed," i reply. (i have. they are huge and many.) he laughs.
"alright, this'll be easy. just get some blood here and... ooh, i'm making a mess. ooh, i'm really making a mess."
uh, okay. he departs and a little while late cute black doctor comes to check in on me. she informs me my heart is going, like, way too frigging fast. they're going to try to do something about that. i get moved to bed about fifteen feet away.
i sit around for while. i ponder how completely surreal this experience is. it's now 4 am, and three hours ago i was laying down to bed, thinking about the next day, like any other night, just chilling, no big deal. now, holy shit, what the fuck. i wasn't that stressed out, just. whoa. surreal. if anything it was comforting to be in a hospital and know people smarter than me were taking care of me. i'm always comforted by hospitals, doctor's offices, dentists, barbers. etc.
at some point my monitor starts beeping. i look up at it. it says "189". no one seems to be too concerned about it. after a while it stops. later is starts again. after a little while vaguely mediterranean nurse comes in.
"oh, that's you making all that noise." she presses the button that makes the sound stop and heads out.
eventually cute black doctor comes back with older doctor-in-charge, cool orderly, and a couple of nurses. they hook me up with another EKG. a nurse hooks me up with an iv. much like the last guy, he declares,
"boy, i'm making a mess here."
i almost say, "how much of much a mess can you make before i run out of blood?"
i have this image in my head of them going to draw blood and then going "uh, OH shit, shit, he's out of blood... fuck, fuck, uhhhh somebody, get some blood? please? i need some blood. he does not have any left."
cute black doctor tells me all about the medication they're going to try on me.
"okay, this is going to slow your heart down. but it's going to make you feel, like, really crappy for like, two seconds." um, alright. they shoot it into my iv and sure enough, holy shit, that felt awful. like, world-crashing-down-on-me awful. ooof.
um, and it also *accelerated* my heart. okay. they discuss whether it would be appropriate to give me more. cute black doctor decides that i have atrial fibrillation and should be given a different medication however. she convinces the others and they give me that. it totally works and i drop down to like 70. it was my own little moment of house.
after that they leave and i kind of doze on and off for a while. they bring me lactosefull breakfast.
"i can't eat that. i'm lactose intolerant."
"oh. that sucks."
cute nose-stud cardiologist comes by and updates me on the sitch. my heartrate is under control but i'm still arrythmic. but it's nbd, she thinks i'll be out by the afternoon.
"and i'll have someone come down and get more information from you. it'll be uh... oh, i can never remember how to say his last name, uh... oh, it'll be dr. smith!"
"yep, that's a tricky one," i reply. she laughs. damn but i am hilarious.
kind-of-nervous quiet doctor comes and gets my information.
"how long have you been experiencing these palpatations?"
"um... like... a month? or maybe, like, a year? i honestly cannot tell you."
"can you narrow it down more?"
"really, seriously, i cannot. i don't know. i just, i do not pay attention to these things. i really, really don't know." this would be a problem for my entire stay.
they take me for an echocardiogram. i text with cpl. canadian while they're doing it. they take me back down and i doze for a while again. cute glasses cardiologist gives me the down low.
"okay so it looks like one of your pulmonary veins is too small, and maybe that's what's causing your arrythmia. so we wanna do a CT scan to check that out."
"okay. i just had one of those." (they thought my spleen was too big, turns out it isn't)
"but your heart needs to be beating regularly for that to work. so we need to zap your heart into a regular rhythm first."
"uhhh okay."
"but we can't do that unless we're sure there aren't any blood clots, otherwise we could give you a stroke. so we need to a) put you on blood thinners and b) put an ultrasound machine down your frigging ESOPHAGUS to scan your heart FROM YOUR ESOPHAGUS to check for blood clots."
"holy shit that's awesome."
"yep."
okay this is getting pretty long. to be continued.
this didn't go away though. i got up. i nearly passed out. i sat down at my desk. i surfed the net for a while, hoping it would go away, while the feeling of "you need to call the doctor" slowly crept up on me. after maybe 5 or 10 minutes i finally caved and called the physician on call. the receptionist took my information and said the physician on call would call me back. i waited.
and waited. and waited. i watched the latest episode of the daily show. once an hour had passed i called back again. this time the doc called me back in ten minutes or so.
"what are you experiencing?"
"um, i think, like, an irregular heartbeat?"
"yeah?"
"um, well, my heart is going really fast, it feels like its flopping around in my chest, and uh, it really sucks. it's really uncomfortable."
"can you elaborate?"
"uh. not really."
"okay, i guess, like, go to the hospital or something."
"how?"
"call a cab?"
i sit there for a while pondering whether to call a cab or call ssgt. vegan, who has a car. i decide i can't be sure that this thing is really an emergency and i don't want to get her out of bed for nothing, so i call a cab. i send her a text to see if she happened to be awake anyway, but no response, so i take the cab. i would later take a ton of shit for this decision.
in the cab i think about letting some people know about my state. i think about texting my sister but decide she would probably come down and i don't want that if it turns out to be no big deal. i text cpl. canadian to tell him to take care of the linguistics department event the next day that i was responsible for.
i get out of the cab about 50 yards from the ER and nearly pass out while walking it, but make it to the ER. now, call me naive or something, but i was kind of expecting that in the ER, there would be someone, like, just sitting there, staring at the door, waiting for people to come in with, you know, emergencies. there was none. i stand there sort of lost for a second, until a nurse walks by, going somewhere else, and as if my existence there was orthogonal to the purpose of the emergency room, asks me,
"uh, do you need something?"
"i have an emergency? question mark?"
she takes me over to her little desk thing to take my pulse.
"uh, you don't have an irregular heartbeat. your pulse is 99."
are you fucking kidding me, i think to myself.
"there is something wrong with me," i reiterate.
"well i'll oblige you, and give you an EKG, but there's nothing wrong with you. you got out of bed for no reason."
at this point i can't fucking believe this shit. i actually believe her at this point. she takes me to the trauma room and starts taking my information.
"is this something people hallucinate a lot?" i ask.
"oh, well, i don't know," she says. "did you drink a lot of pop today?"
"well no, but i do take adderall for ADD."
"oh, honey, that'll do it."
god i felt like such a fucking idiot. i was so embarrassed to have gotten out of bed for no reason. it was my worst fucking fear. worse than actually having a heart problem. she made me feel like such a fucking child.
she hooks me up to the EKG, tells me to relax, and walks out, for like 10 minutes (which of course felt like an hour). she comes back, and her nurse friend sort of follows.
"can i come in?" she asks.
"oh sure," the nurse responds. "peter doesn't mind if you see his chest."
fuck you lady. die in a fire and go straight to motherfucking hell.
she chats on with her friend for a while, then goes silent. she looks at me. she quickly unplugs the leads on my chest.
"yes?"
"okay," she admits, "your heart rate is 130 now."
she has me get up, and takes me over to this other dude. she shows him my EKG.
"whoa, holy shit!" he says. dude, i'm right fucking here.
i don't actually realize that they're admitting me until the dude prints out a wristband for me. he tells me to sit in the waiting room for a little bit. there are maybe 25 people there, and they are black. i wonder what that means.
he calls me after a bit and brings me into the ER proper. he tells me to go over there and gestures vaguely. god i hate that. god i fucking hate that. am i supposed to stand over here? or over there? am i supposed to stand? or sit on the bed? or lay down on the bed? it's not really a big deal but i really fucking hate that awkwardness. just tell me what the fuck to do, and i will do it. be fucking explicit and i will just do what you tell me to.
i end up laying down on the bed and an orderly comes by to take my blood. he is the first cool guy i come across. he asks me some questions.
"sorry about all these questions," he says. "i'm just bored."
"yeah me too," i reply. he laughs. ding.
"wow you got some nice veins here," he says.
"yeah i've noticed," i reply. (i have. they are huge and many.) he laughs.
"alright, this'll be easy. just get some blood here and... ooh, i'm making a mess. ooh, i'm really making a mess."
uh, okay. he departs and a little while late cute black doctor comes to check in on me. she informs me my heart is going, like, way too frigging fast. they're going to try to do something about that. i get moved to bed about fifteen feet away.
i sit around for while. i ponder how completely surreal this experience is. it's now 4 am, and three hours ago i was laying down to bed, thinking about the next day, like any other night, just chilling, no big deal. now, holy shit, what the fuck. i wasn't that stressed out, just. whoa. surreal. if anything it was comforting to be in a hospital and know people smarter than me were taking care of me. i'm always comforted by hospitals, doctor's offices, dentists, barbers. etc.
at some point my monitor starts beeping. i look up at it. it says "189". no one seems to be too concerned about it. after a while it stops. later is starts again. after a little while vaguely mediterranean nurse comes in.
"oh, that's you making all that noise." she presses the button that makes the sound stop and heads out.
eventually cute black doctor comes back with older doctor-in-charge, cool orderly, and a couple of nurses. they hook me up with another EKG. a nurse hooks me up with an iv. much like the last guy, he declares,
"boy, i'm making a mess here."
i almost say, "how much of much a mess can you make before i run out of blood?"
i have this image in my head of them going to draw blood and then going "uh, OH shit, shit, he's out of blood... fuck, fuck, uhhhh somebody, get some blood? please? i need some blood. he does not have any left."
cute black doctor tells me all about the medication they're going to try on me.
"okay, this is going to slow your heart down. but it's going to make you feel, like, really crappy for like, two seconds." um, alright. they shoot it into my iv and sure enough, holy shit, that felt awful. like, world-crashing-down-on-me awful. ooof.
um, and it also *accelerated* my heart. okay. they discuss whether it would be appropriate to give me more. cute black doctor decides that i have atrial fibrillation and should be given a different medication however. she convinces the others and they give me that. it totally works and i drop down to like 70. it was my own little moment of house.
after that they leave and i kind of doze on and off for a while. they bring me lactosefull breakfast.
"i can't eat that. i'm lactose intolerant."
"oh. that sucks."
cute nose-stud cardiologist comes by and updates me on the sitch. my heartrate is under control but i'm still arrythmic. but it's nbd, she thinks i'll be out by the afternoon.
"and i'll have someone come down and get more information from you. it'll be uh... oh, i can never remember how to say his last name, uh... oh, it'll be dr. smith!"
"yep, that's a tricky one," i reply. she laughs. damn but i am hilarious.
kind-of-nervous quiet doctor comes and gets my information.
"how long have you been experiencing these palpatations?"
"um... like... a month? or maybe, like, a year? i honestly cannot tell you."
"can you narrow it down more?"
"really, seriously, i cannot. i don't know. i just, i do not pay attention to these things. i really, really don't know." this would be a problem for my entire stay.
they take me for an echocardiogram. i text with cpl. canadian while they're doing it. they take me back down and i doze for a while again. cute glasses cardiologist gives me the down low.
"okay so it looks like one of your pulmonary veins is too small, and maybe that's what's causing your arrythmia. so we wanna do a CT scan to check that out."
"okay. i just had one of those." (they thought my spleen was too big, turns out it isn't)
"but your heart needs to be beating regularly for that to work. so we need to zap your heart into a regular rhythm first."
"uhhh okay."
"but we can't do that unless we're sure there aren't any blood clots, otherwise we could give you a stroke. so we need to a) put you on blood thinners and b) put an ultrasound machine down your frigging ESOPHAGUS to scan your heart FROM YOUR ESOPHAGUS to check for blood clots."
"holy shit that's awesome."
"yep."
okay this is getting pretty long. to be continued.