My Hospital Stay (Otherwise known as "I’m still alive")

I’m still at the hospital. I’m writing this one handed since I have an IV by my hand and it hurts to type…

As doomsey already mentioned, things got really interesting on Monday night. I was talking on IRC with some friends and flipping through LJ when suddenly. I felt my heart start to race and I had a hard time catching my breath. I told doomsey at the time that I was feeling strange. Then, I lay down on the floor and tried to calm down, thinking that it was a bizarre panic attack. Before I knew it, I woke up and saw doomsey standing over me and talking on the phone with the paramedics. I had passed out. doomsey later told me that I had stopped breathing and I was starting to turn blue. Quite honestly, I think that, if this had happened while I was at home alone, I probably would have been a goner. I also think that doomsey saved my life. He saw that I was having a serious medical problem and reacted very quickly. Not only that, but I passed out face down on the carpet. We think that his turning me over (and later turning me on my side), may have also dislodged something that caused me to come around again.

The paramedics came in minutes. They checked my blood pressure and pulse and observed that both were pretty high. They also tried to get me to sit up, but I immediately started feeling dizzy again. They decided to put me in the ambulance and take me to the nearest ER. What probably stabilized me (aka kept me from dying) was the oxygen they put me on. Because of my condition, I wasn’t able to pump enough oxygen through my body. At one point, I almost passed out again in the ambulance. The paramedics told me to breathe slowly in through my nose and out my mouth, and I followed their instructions. I barely managed to stay conscious.

When we got to the hospital, doomsey got me admitted and answered all their questions about my medical history since I was really out of it. I was very uncomfortable because my heart was going 100 miles per hour and I had a hard time catching my breath. They found me a room and started to do tests. After they saw that my heart sounded like that of a frightened jackrabbit after walking a few feet to go to the bathroom, they decided to tell me not to walk and that they were going to do a CT scan. Then, the doctor came in, said that I had a pulmonary embolism that had broken apart and lodged in my lungs. I was surprised. I thought that either I was either having a bizarre panic attack or I was having an allergic reaction to one of my medications (I had been taking an anti-inflammatory prescribed by my doctor for a foot injury). After I heard his diagnosis, my thoughts were pretty much: “that sounds serious," “am I going to need emergency surgery? “ and “am I going to die?" Later, the ER doctor told me that it was a blood clot in my lungs and that it could have killed me. After I was out of the woods, doomsey told me that he did some research online and found out that one in three people with pulmonary embolism die. This did not make me feel good. I still think it’s a miracle that I managed to survive. [My sister called me after I got into the ICU. She said to me, “The ICU is for old people, loser. She later told me that she knew I was going to be okay when I told her to sit and spin. Yep…I was still being sarcastic with my sister].

Right after the ER doctor gave me a diagnosis, they put me on heparin, a blood thinner that is administered intravenously, and Xanax to get my heart rate down. Then, they wheeled me up to the ICU where they hooked me up to a bunch of machines to measure my blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration. I was also hooked up to oxygen and an IV with heparin and fluids. I was told to lie in bed and try not to move around a lot since the blood clots could travel and cause more problems (ie a heart attack or a stroke). This meant that I couldn’t get up to use the bathroom and had to use a bedpan. Yuck! Not fun!

And if that wasn’t enough, more drama followed. Within a few hours, my parents arrived at the hospital with my brother. My brother is mentally disabled, and I think that he had a hard time processing what was going on. He just couldn’t deal with seeing me so sick and hooked up to all kinds of machines. When the doctor came to talk to me, my dad sent my brother out of the room. We think that either he wad eavesdropping or he saw someone else in bad shape in another room. Just as he was finishing explaining things, we heard someone fall down outside. My brother had fainted. They ended up taking him down to the ER to get things checked out, and my mom had to go with him. I saw her when she left, and she was just overwhelmed. She was crying. In the ER, they determined that my brother was going to be okay. He did, however, have a nasty bump on his head.

I was supposed to check out of the ICU around the second day, but more shit hit the fan. They had me sitting up in the bed as if it were a chair (I was doing much better by that point.) This was my first time sitting up and I also so happened to be talking to my mom and worry-worting. Suddenly, I felt dizzy. My mom was in the process of finding someone when I fainted. By the time I had woken up, all kinds of people were in my room. I lay down and started feeling faint again. The doctor came running in and had the nurses give me more fluids. I immediately started to feel better. They held me an extra day and had a cardiologist order some more tests. They gave me an EKG and an ultrasound and determined that there was nothing wrong with my heart. The fainting spells were caused by stress, and I was certainly under a lot of it after almost, you know, dying the day before. The cardiologist explained that this is something that often happens to people between the ages of 15 and 35 and that it was not unusual for someone who is in the ICU.

The next day, I was given the green light to move to a room in the cardiovascular wing. I have a roommate and the rooms are kind of small. It's hard to navigate through the room with an IV. There’s also what dewfreak referred to as a “singer" (blondibritecake and dewfreak came to visit yesterday) across the hall from me. When I first got here, she was yelling “Hello?," “Help me," “Get me out of here!" and “Where did my little friend go?" It’s also kind of sad because she’s from a nursing home, has health problems, and is alone.

It looks like I am pretty much out of the woods. It’s just a matter of weaning me off of the IV blood thinners and onto oral ones. They want my blood count to be between 2 and 3 (INR?) before they can let me go home. They think this isn’t going to happen until Monday. Tonight, they’re going to take me off the IV and start giving me injections, so at least I don’t have to do that. I might also be allowed to take a walk tonight, but I’m not sure. The nurses here tend to be a bit more conservative about what I’m allowed to do than the doctors.

Oh…I also wanted to mention that I’m going to have to take blood thinners for four to six months to prevent another clot. The doctors seem to think that this clot was caused by a combination of factors: birth control and the foot injury on New Year’s Eve. Needless to say, I’m not going to be taking birth control anymore seeing as it damn near killed me.

So…that’s about it. The nurses aren’t letting me get up very often, and I’m tired of looking at four walls. I am very very bored…