Remember that time I went to the hospital?
Here is an update as to what has just recently happened to me this week. It’s long because I suck at telling stories! :)
On Sunday morning, I woke up with a horrible sore throat. With a high fever and body aches as my only other symptoms, I decided it was probably strep throat. Strep was confirmed on Monday morning when I went to the doctor and was prescribed antibiotics. By Monday evening, I felt fantastic and was looking forward to subbing at a middle school on Tuesday.
However, at about 2:30am on Tuesday morning, I woke up with severe tightness in my chest and some difficulty breathing. At first I thought it was a heart attack, but then decided I was being ridiculous. Hello? I just turned 25. I should NOT be having a heart attack. Maybe an asthma attack? So I took my inhaler, but nothing changed. I remembered the pharmacist outlying the possible side effects of the penicillin I was taking, so I went back to read those. Among the ones listed as concerns to “tell your doctor immediately” were shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, and tightness of chest. Around 3:30am, I decided to call Kaiser’s on-call nurse to find out where to go-urgent care, ER, wait for my doctor to open at 7am-and what to do next. Her suggestion was to get to an ER as soon as possible. So, I woke up my roommate Margaret and off we went.
I was admitted to ER around 4am and the nurses drew blood, did an EKG, and a chest x-ray. The EKG and chest x-ray both came back clean and clear. But I still had this pain in my chest that was a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. It was intense pain. When the doctor came back with my blood test results, he explained that enzymes leaking from my heart were abnormal, so they were going to test again, to rule out lab error. The second round of blood tests found that the same enzyme was now elevated. The Internal MD was sent to talk to me in the ER and fully explained that I likely had myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles caused by a virus of some sort. He said that was probably the same virus that caused my sore throat. It had travelled from my throat to my heart. Awesome.
Around 8:30am, I was brought to my own room in the hospital to have more tests and be monitored. I was in pretty severe pain until around noon on Tuesday when the ibuprofen kicked in. The doctors ordered an echo cardiogram, which is actually really cool. It takes about 20 minutes to complete, but it is an ultrasound of your heart and you get to see your heart pumping from all different angles. Scary because we were looking for abnormalities in my heart, but cool because I’ve seen what my heart looks like! I spent about the next 24 or so hours in the hospital, having my blood drawn and tested for that enzyme, triponin. In my first blood test, it was at about a 0.5, which is the low mark for abnormality. It peaked at 1.6 early Wednesday morning.
The doctors decided I could go home Wednesday afternoon since levels were decreased. I’m taking my antibiotics to get rid of the strep, ibuprofen 3 times a day to reduce the inflammation in my heart muscles, and Prilosec once a day because the constant dosages of ibuprofen cause very, very painful reflux. In other words, it’s totally under control and I’m doing just fine. I have to lay low for a week or so. I’ll go back to my primary care doctor next week for a follow-up and know more.
So, that’s what’s new with me since I turned 25. :) It was my first stay in the ER and the hospital, and I have no desire to do it again anytime soon. It was pretty terrifying at times, mainly because I knew it was my heart that was having problems.
Anyway, hope all of you are happy and healthy!
On Sunday morning, I woke up with a horrible sore throat. With a high fever and body aches as my only other symptoms, I decided it was probably strep throat. Strep was confirmed on Monday morning when I went to the doctor and was prescribed antibiotics. By Monday evening, I felt fantastic and was looking forward to subbing at a middle school on Tuesday.
However, at about 2:30am on Tuesday morning, I woke up with severe tightness in my chest and some difficulty breathing. At first I thought it was a heart attack, but then decided I was being ridiculous. Hello? I just turned 25. I should NOT be having a heart attack. Maybe an asthma attack? So I took my inhaler, but nothing changed. I remembered the pharmacist outlying the possible side effects of the penicillin I was taking, so I went back to read those. Among the ones listed as concerns to “tell your doctor immediately” were shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, and tightness of chest. Around 3:30am, I decided to call Kaiser’s on-call nurse to find out where to go-urgent care, ER, wait for my doctor to open at 7am-and what to do next. Her suggestion was to get to an ER as soon as possible. So, I woke up my roommate Margaret and off we went.
I was admitted to ER around 4am and the nurses drew blood, did an EKG, and a chest x-ray. The EKG and chest x-ray both came back clean and clear. But I still had this pain in my chest that was a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. It was intense pain. When the doctor came back with my blood test results, he explained that enzymes leaking from my heart were abnormal, so they were going to test again, to rule out lab error. The second round of blood tests found that the same enzyme was now elevated. The Internal MD was sent to talk to me in the ER and fully explained that I likely had myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles caused by a virus of some sort. He said that was probably the same virus that caused my sore throat. It had travelled from my throat to my heart. Awesome.
Around 8:30am, I was brought to my own room in the hospital to have more tests and be monitored. I was in pretty severe pain until around noon on Tuesday when the ibuprofen kicked in. The doctors ordered an echo cardiogram, which is actually really cool. It takes about 20 minutes to complete, but it is an ultrasound of your heart and you get to see your heart pumping from all different angles. Scary because we were looking for abnormalities in my heart, but cool because I’ve seen what my heart looks like! I spent about the next 24 or so hours in the hospital, having my blood drawn and tested for that enzyme, triponin. In my first blood test, it was at about a 0.5, which is the low mark for abnormality. It peaked at 1.6 early Wednesday morning.
The doctors decided I could go home Wednesday afternoon since levels were decreased. I’m taking my antibiotics to get rid of the strep, ibuprofen 3 times a day to reduce the inflammation in my heart muscles, and Prilosec once a day because the constant dosages of ibuprofen cause very, very painful reflux. In other words, it’s totally under control and I’m doing just fine. I have to lay low for a week or so. I’ll go back to my primary care doctor next week for a follow-up and know more.
So, that’s what’s new with me since I turned 25. :) It was my first stay in the ER and the hospital, and I have no desire to do it again anytime soon. It was pretty terrifying at times, mainly because I knew it was my heart that was having problems.
Anyway, hope all of you are happy and healthy!