This is "part 2"of my recent trip to the Doctor/Emergency Room/Hospital - as I mentioned in the first post (HERE), I didn't intend on this becoming such a drawn out tale, but as I'm prone to do I've gotten awfully wordy and figured it was better split into pieces. As I mentioned in that earlier post, I am home now, and feeling much better, but I wanted to share this experience. For several reasons. partially because it was very traumatic for me, and J and everyone else in the house (at least I assume); partially so that I could save the "memory" of what happened while it was fresh in my mind; and partially because I think there is a bit of a warning here to those that might chose to "self-medicate (DIY) hormones". However, the single biggest reason is that as I've mentioned before, I feel there are certain "life altering" experiences for all of us in life and this one has definitely been one for me; similar in many ways to the one I had when J had to go out of town for her training last year as I've talked about in this blog before. That all being said, let me pick up where I left off in the last post.
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After I got off the phone with J, M and I headed out. Four days after things happened, I'm still shocked at M. She's normally the kind of person who "freaks out" under stress, but she was the epitome of calm as this was going on. In hindsight it was a real saving grace as I was on the verge of completely breaking down and I don't think I could have handled it had if she had been her "typical self". It was about a 20-25 minute drive to the hospital and we got there a few minutes prior to 5pm and headed to the ER. They were busy as a typical ER is I suppose. True to her word, the NP had arranged for everything and I was already "in the system" so the check-in process was quick. My blood pressure was still very low which was now a growing concern to me. I believe it was about a hour before they took me back and I was growing a touch frustrated, but I managed to hide it pretty well as I didn't want to get M going as I felt it wouldn't help anything. ER's are trained to prioritize and I'm sure from the looks of things I didn't look "high priority".
After about a hour, they did take me back with M. By now I guess they had an idea of what was going on and suddenly things were a bit higher of a priority. They hooked me up to a blood pressure machine, heart monitor, and so on and the nurse started getting pertinent details such as my symptoms, my medications and such. For once I was prepared and had a list of them with me. She went to do something and that's when things got really scary for me. The blood pressure machine is one that takes readings every so often on it's own and I could see the display. The readings were dropping bit by bit each time. Well finally it got one that it really didn't like and started beeping. Quietly at first, but progressively louder and louder.
This is the point that fear really and truly set it for me. I've been afraid of things before, but never like this. I honestly started wondering if I was going to literally have my heart just up and stop. I had been on Google on the drive down and in the waiting room researching what high potassium levels could do and what "renal failure" meant since that was a term the NP had used on the phone with me earlier. None of it sounded "good", but up until this moment I figured it was all something that would be "easily fixed"; but suddenly I was truly afraid that it wasn't and that I was honestly going to die. I was doing everything I could do not to completely break down. All I knew was that if it was my time then - well "it is what it is" and I could live with that. But what I could simply not bear to live was that I had been "snippy" (to be kind) to J on phone and that could possibly be the last things I ever said to her. And while I do consider M to be my sister and do care about her as such and was *eternally* grateful she was there with me, I didn't want to "move on" without J there.
I did my best to get some composure and simply told M that "I need you to get a hold of J and tell her I *need her* now." Again, bless M's heart, she didn't question me or anything, she simply did as I asked. As this was going on, I heard a call overhead referencing the room I was in so I assume the beeping of the machine had become a "concern", as two or three people suddenly appeared. I don't remember all of what started going on, I know one of them was hurriedly connecting me to an EKG machine, another was fussing with the blood pressure machine among other things, and the third was asking me questions and such. The ER Doctor appeared and started asking some of the same questions I had answered multiple times by now and I patiently answered them as best I could. He disappeared about as quickly as he appeared and the original nurse reappeared with some liquid that she mixed up. She told me it was something to give me a "bowel movement" and it would help pull some of the excess potassium from my system. We discussed the "taste" of it and she assured me it wasn't as bad as "bowel prep" so I figured I could survive it. That nurse was absolutely wonderful - the whole staff in the ER and hospital was for that matter. It was the consistency of a shake I suppose and the nurse was right, it reminded me of molasses.
Shortly after that Dr. Usry appeared. I personally didn't recognize him, but based upon his recognition of M I quickly figured out who he was. Things seemed to calm down at this point as he knew who I was and was obviously "up to speed" on what was going on. He spent some time with M and I explaining some things including what they planned on doing - including admitting me to the hospital, and how they planned on treating things. He departed about the time a different woman showed up to get chest x-rays so the room had to be cleared. As M headed for the hallway I could just hear her saying something that made it seem like J had made it which made me feel a bit better.
Once the x-rays were done, M and now J appeared and I did feel immensely better. At this point M was going to head home as she had to work and with J there it was a touch crowded in the room.
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I've sat on this post for a couple of days now and I've decided to not finish it beyond what is above - at least not now. The events that occurred - be them the ones I've written about already or the ones that were subsequent to the above - well I'll never forget them; but they aren't really relevant to the point I had. That all being said, if anybody actually has the desire to know the "details" - send me an email/etc and I'll be more than happy to share them - for that matter I may revisit this later on; but for now I think what's been written will suffice...
That point actually being a couple of points:
1) If you are going to self-medicate, PLEASE be careful. This was NOT the case for me, and frankly despite the fact that the Spiro is a suspect in what happened, I'm not sure if it was or wasn't - there are enough other medications and things in play here that I doubt anyone could ever be sure. However, the issues that did come up *could* be caused by Spiro and if someone does chose to DIY their HRT, something like this could happen and it could easily be life threatening.
2) While looking back now I truly don't believe I was in as much "trouble" as it seemed *to me* at the time in the ER; it could have been fatal either then, or later on. And while I did not feel "well" by any stretch, I definitely also did not feel bad enough to think the issue was life threatening - which I suppose it was. So just because you don't necessarily feel "horrible" - it doesn't mean that you should ignore symptoms of something. Definitely a lesson learned for me.
3) The biggest point though was that I was in a position - albeit only for a short time - that I thought that the last words I would have said to the person I love the most in this world were not only NOT "I LOVE YOU", but were words that were simply not very nice. I will NEVER put myself in that position again. It's a horrible place to be - it really is....
- M
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