Ugly V-Day adventure
Okay.
The Thursday starts as usual, which means i get up too early for my taste, and drive T to Calculus, half hour away, and sit and wait while he takes his exam. Drive home.
Mark calls.
Let me set this up. He's been having chest tightness for months now. But he's a man of a certain age, with slightly high blood pressure. So if you try to make a doctor's appt, all they will say is, "go to the ER." No matter what you say. And you can't just go to a cardiologist. the ER. No matter how you beg, Mark's doctor won't send him straight to a stress test. Because he's a man, with chest tightness. A few months ago, when I was having heart symptoms, since I'm just a woman, I was sent to the heart center (sort of a test factory) for a stress test.
So after a couple of days of discussion, and going back and forth, by Thursday he's thinking that the weekend is coming up and he sure doesn't want to be in an ER on the weekend, with all the drunks and gun shot wounds. So this call is, will i take him to the ER. So I pack up a bag with books (Sudoku, crossword, etc), chocolate, power bars, etc. Hey, don't laugh. I've been in ERs. In fact, we went through the whole heart attack thing with Mark about 4 years ago when they finally figured out that the weird feelings he was getting then were from mitral valve prolapse acting up, and .... anxiety.
So he calls. I bolt down a bowl of cereal (no time for breakfast before calculus, and it's lunchtime) and drive to pick him up at work. We discuss more, waffle, finally end up at the ER by about 12:45. Of course, male, chest tightness, dizziness, nausea, he's hooked up and they're drawing blood before he can even fill out all the forms. Chest X-ray and CT, EKG, oxygen, and eventually a GI cocktail of Mylanta, lidocaine, and phenobarbital. All this so they can tell us he's probably not having a heart attack, and by the way doesn't seem to have any cancerous masses in that area that could be causing unpleasant sensations. So he has an appt. Friday with a cardiologist for a stress test. Uhmmm, didn't we just spend hours and hours and thousands of Blue Cross's dollars to establish that he was okay? Well, turns out you can't completely rule out heart problems until a cardiologist gives him a stress test.
Dammit!! Didn't I beg them to just give the man a stress test?
So, at about 6pm, they let us go. Hours of boring in between the tests. The books and food supplies got us through. Mark was fine. Phenobarbital is a FINE drug. Calmed him down, lowered his blood pressure.
I was an absolute wreck. I have real issues with medpros, and particularly with hospitals. I come from a long line of matriarchs who believe hospitals are for the dying or the foolish, and that having to deal with the medical patriarchy is bad for you. Sometimes necessary, but only as a last resort, and only if you carefully monitor and question them. For me personally to end up in an ER, I will have to arrive unconscious in an ambulance that someone else called. Plus, I'm a terrible hypochondriac, (the system's term for excellent somatic empath) in a highly charged atmosphere, so every time they suggested another symptom to Mark, I felt it. By the end of the afternoon, I wasn't worth burying. And knowing that it's all in your head doesn't help at all. And having to keep it together so your highly anxious husband, whom the ER has convinced that he either has a heart attack or cancer, won't get any more panicky, is just no picnic.
Happy Valentine's Day, indeed.
The Thursday starts as usual, which means i get up too early for my taste, and drive T to Calculus, half hour away, and sit and wait while he takes his exam. Drive home.
Mark calls.
Let me set this up. He's been having chest tightness for months now. But he's a man of a certain age, with slightly high blood pressure. So if you try to make a doctor's appt, all they will say is, "go to the ER." No matter what you say. And you can't just go to a cardiologist. the ER. No matter how you beg, Mark's doctor won't send him straight to a stress test. Because he's a man, with chest tightness. A few months ago, when I was having heart symptoms, since I'm just a woman, I was sent to the heart center (sort of a test factory) for a stress test.
So after a couple of days of discussion, and going back and forth, by Thursday he's thinking that the weekend is coming up and he sure doesn't want to be in an ER on the weekend, with all the drunks and gun shot wounds. So this call is, will i take him to the ER. So I pack up a bag with books (Sudoku, crossword, etc), chocolate, power bars, etc. Hey, don't laugh. I've been in ERs. In fact, we went through the whole heart attack thing with Mark about 4 years ago when they finally figured out that the weird feelings he was getting then were from mitral valve prolapse acting up, and .... anxiety.
So he calls. I bolt down a bowl of cereal (no time for breakfast before calculus, and it's lunchtime) and drive to pick him up at work. We discuss more, waffle, finally end up at the ER by about 12:45. Of course, male, chest tightness, dizziness, nausea, he's hooked up and they're drawing blood before he can even fill out all the forms. Chest X-ray and CT, EKG, oxygen, and eventually a GI cocktail of Mylanta, lidocaine, and phenobarbital. All this so they can tell us he's probably not having a heart attack, and by the way doesn't seem to have any cancerous masses in that area that could be causing unpleasant sensations. So he has an appt. Friday with a cardiologist for a stress test. Uhmmm, didn't we just spend hours and hours and thousands of Blue Cross's dollars to establish that he was okay? Well, turns out you can't completely rule out heart problems until a cardiologist gives him a stress test.
Dammit!! Didn't I beg them to just give the man a stress test?
So, at about 6pm, they let us go. Hours of boring in between the tests. The books and food supplies got us through. Mark was fine. Phenobarbital is a FINE drug. Calmed him down, lowered his blood pressure.
I was an absolute wreck. I have real issues with medpros, and particularly with hospitals. I come from a long line of matriarchs who believe hospitals are for the dying or the foolish, and that having to deal with the medical patriarchy is bad for you. Sometimes necessary, but only as a last resort, and only if you carefully monitor and question them. For me personally to end up in an ER, I will have to arrive unconscious in an ambulance that someone else called. Plus, I'm a terrible hypochondriac, (the system's term for excellent somatic empath) in a highly charged atmosphere, so every time they suggested another symptom to Mark, I felt it. By the end of the afternoon, I wasn't worth burying. And knowing that it's all in your head doesn't help at all. And having to keep it together so your highly anxious husband, whom the ER has convinced that he either has a heart attack or cancer, won't get any more panicky, is just no picnic.
Happy Valentine's Day, indeed.