This picture is appropriate ...
for 2009 has been the year of medical maladies.
Beginning in January -- three weeks into the new year -- I had to be taken to the hospital (ambulance and all) unable to take a full breath and tightness in my chest. Fun. They kept me overnight for observation; which means hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. Nothing. So they let me go home. I stayed home from work and rested for the next week until the following weekend ... BANG! same thing. Back to the ER -- stay overnight with more IVs, heart monitors, stress tests, x-rays, pulmonary tests, and CAT scans. (let me tell you how awful nitroglycerin tablets are!)
The only thing they found was a hiatal hernia which can mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. They gave me some Prilosec and told me to modify my diet. So okay, back home again, rested a few more days then I finally felt like I could go back to work and started slowly with half days. A week later I was back in the ER with new symptoms -- nausea, headache, vertigo, tightness of my upper chest, delightful. Doctors scratching their heads ... more tests ... so many CAT scans I probably glow in the dark. Let's just say that there are more current pictures of my insides than the outside! I finally realized that none of the medical professionals ever considered that it might be the medication. Let me see that box ... well, what do you know ... there it is. Problem solved, more or less. I still have to take medicine, but at least I can tolerate it and I won't have to take it long term. The other good news is that this experience did make me stop smoking once and for all.
Then in May, my oldest brother was admitted to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He'd been diagnosed about 10 years ago with myelodysplastic syndrome (smoldering leukemia) and had been in a clinical program with experimental medicine. Unfortunately the meds stopped working and the leukemia came on full force. After four months and many, many rounds of chemo ... he passed away last Friday.
Is it 2010 yet?
Beginning in January -- three weeks into the new year -- I had to be taken to the hospital (ambulance and all) unable to take a full breath and tightness in my chest. Fun. They kept me overnight for observation; which means hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. Nothing. So they let me go home. I stayed home from work and rested for the next week until the following weekend ... BANG! same thing. Back to the ER -- stay overnight with more IVs, heart monitors, stress tests, x-rays, pulmonary tests, and CAT scans. (let me tell you how awful nitroglycerin tablets are!)
The only thing they found was a hiatal hernia which can mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. They gave me some Prilosec and told me to modify my diet. So okay, back home again, rested a few more days then I finally felt like I could go back to work and started slowly with half days. A week later I was back in the ER with new symptoms -- nausea, headache, vertigo, tightness of my upper chest, delightful. Doctors scratching their heads ... more tests ... so many CAT scans I probably glow in the dark. Let's just say that there are more current pictures of my insides than the outside! I finally realized that none of the medical professionals ever considered that it might be the medication. Let me see that box ... well, what do you know ... there it is. Problem solved, more or less. I still have to take medicine, but at least I can tolerate it and I won't have to take it long term. The other good news is that this experience did make me stop smoking once and for all.
Then in May, my oldest brother was admitted to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. He'd been diagnosed about 10 years ago with myelodysplastic syndrome (smoldering leukemia) and had been in a clinical program with experimental medicine. Unfortunately the meds stopped working and the leukemia came on full force. After four months and many, many rounds of chemo ... he passed away last Friday.
Is it 2010 yet?