Saturday, June 4, 2011

Life is complicated but wonderful

Memorial Day of 2011 was a traumatic day for me, I went into the emergency room with severe neck shoulder and back pain on the left side. I drove the 8 or 10 miles, parked and walked to the door, went in and asked security where I go to sign in, he said to the clipboard and pointed. I headed toward it and this lady came running over and took my arm and said she would help me, she sat me down hooked up the blood pressure cuff and then said "Come on we are going to the back", she guided me to a room and called for an EKG Stat. They wired me up and took the readings then I was told to go back to the waiting room and they would call me over to register me.
I went out sat down and my name was called, I went to the window to sign all the paperwork and just sat down when the first lady came running back out and said "Cheryl come with me". We went to the ICU Heart center of the ER, by this time I still hadn't done any of the paperwork and tried to tell them I had no insurance, they hooked me up to a heart monitor, started an IV, slapped a nitro patch on me and ran around like crazy people then gave me morphine.
Heck after the morphine I was ready to go home, of course that didn't happen, Then all heck broke loose, I got so hot I felt like I was burning up. I asked for a cold towel and next thing I knew they were putting cold clothes all over me, bringing in more doctors, nurses, cardiologists, and I think even the cleaning crew. They took off the nitro patch and gave me Benedryl and in a short while I was doing better, by this time I was getting scared and unsure I'd ever get out of there.
They did a chest and abdominal cat scan and took me back to the ICU where I was never alone even though they had a monitor right there. I guess that is when it dawned on me that I'm not so young or physically fit as I once was, my thoughts dealt with what would happen to my poor cats, would I ever see my daughter and son and two beautiful granddaughters again, would I ever smell the rain or flowers, hear the birds sing.
After about 11 hours they told me I had not had a heart attack and the heart was doing well, but... believe me a but is something you don't want to hear from a doctor. They found an aortic aneurism, it is low and below all the vital organs and small so they would only have to watch it to be sure it doesn't get worse.
Well I was supposed to be released the next morning and that didn't happen, nor did I get out that afternoon or evening then they said they had found another spot on a blood vessel that they are not sure of. If it is another aneurism it is in a more dangerous spot, but they would redo the cat scan and see if it or the other one had changed in about 6 weeks.
Believe me when I got home all I wanted to do was smell the flowers, hear the birds sing and enjoy my time here on earth, nothing will make you enjoy your meager life more than a good scare. I am so grateful for everyone and everything in my life, there have been bad times, there have been good times, I plan to only concentrate on the good times and forget the bad. I am going to make the most of life and enjoy every second I have. Love you all

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