I had planned to make key lime bars

[resonant]

So I learned some things this weekend:

- Even if you have a CPAP machine, sleep apnea can still make your blood pressure spike while you sleep.

- When your blood pressure spikes, it can wake you up feeling like you can't breathe.

- If you call a nurse line for advice and you say, "I can't breathe," they're going to tell you to go to the ER. (No 24-hour urgent care here.)

- If you go to the ER and you say, "I can't breathe," and a blood test shows even the tiniest uptick in one of the chemicals that are associated with heart failure, protocol requires them to admit you to the hospital.

So I spent 12 hours in the hospital Sunday night/Monday morning, when I would have liked to be enjoying a quiet holiday at home.

And the only thing that came of it was that a doctor changed my blood pressure meds.

(I suppose it's better to be hospitalized for almost nothing than to be hospitalized for definitely something.)

I couldn't sleep without my machine, and I was bored out of my skull. Luckily I had "The Goblin Emperor" in my library of e-books, so I read it again. Like, *all* of it in one day.

Also I'm fat and 55, so "chest pains" kept making its way onto my chart. A nurse would come and say, "So are you still having chest pains?" and I'd say, "I have never had one (1) chest pain," and she'd say, "Oh, I'd better take that out of the computer," and then the shift would change and a new nurse would come in and say, "How are your chest pains?" There was a whiteboard in the room with a space for My Treatment Goals, and the goal was "No chest pains." (It's good to be able to achieve at least one goal.) I can't believe how many times I had to tell people I wasn't having chest pains. And what do you want to bet that the next time I see my doctor, she'll look at my chart and say, "So, breathing difficulties and chest pains?"

In the ER, before they admitted me, I was in Room 13. I said to the nurse, "You have a Room 13? Medical people must not be superstitious." She said, "We are *so* superstitious. Because we see what happens when the moon is full!"

Comments

[ride_4ever]

Eeeep! It's not funny when it's really happening to you but if that weren't really happening to you it would be like something out of a hospital sitcom show, how they kept asking you about the chest pains that you aren't having.

As far as that "full moon on the hospital ward" thing: my mother worked on a closed psychiatric ward, and she said that even though the patients couldn't actually SEE the full moon there was more agitation and behavioral outbursts on the ward during the full moon.

[resonant]

When I was a police reporter, a cop told me the same thing.”Last night we got a guy who beat his brother with an axe handle.”

(This was in a tiny town in the North Carolina mountains. “Are you related to anybody here? No? Don’t marry anybody from here and you will never experience crime.” And I didn’t.)

[ride_4ever]

Which leads me to questions:

Are you a native North Carolinian?

Did being a police reporter affect your due South fic writing (as far as being knowledgeable about police procedurals)?

[celli]

that sounds like a decided lack of fun. :/ I just spent some quality ER time after anxiety-produced chest pains but my breathing was fine, so clearly your chart borrowed my symptoms. Sorry 'bout that.

[adafrog]

Glad you're okay, though. Oh man, we get something in our head, and it doesn't come out, especially things like chest pain.
We ae *SO* superstitious. It's not even funny.

[resonant]

Yes, I’m a native Tar Heel, though I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Midwest.

I was only a cop reporter for about three months, between the time Greg was hired and the time he finally showed up. I covered a couple of trials during that time and collected a lot of very minor crime news. The only time I remember using it for due South was in The Teeth of the Hydra when I had someone saying “no, we were clumsy and we deserved to lose this trial” — that’s a paraphrase of some Waynesville courtroom chatter I overheard.

[dira]

That sort of thing happened to one of my uncles--he had a nasty cold turning into bronchitis, went to his doctor to ask for antibiotics, but because he said that his chest (where his lungs are!) hurt, and he was over 50 and had never had a stress test, they rushed him to the hospital for an ECG and the whole works. I don't know if he ever did manage to get his antibiotics, either...

[castiron]

Glad it turned out to be minor, and I hope the medical bills aren't too ridiculous.

[resonant]

Yeah, I dread that. I have a high-deductible insurance plan, and it all depends on how close I am to meeting that damned deductible.

[resonant]

Oh, man, that's a pain. I was lucky that I had had an EKG and a stress test in January, so they didn't make me do another one.

[resonant]

Oh, are you in the medical field? I'd love to hear about any medical superstitions that you'd care to share!

[resonant]

Aha, you're where it came from! So sorry you had to share this experience, though.

My breathing hasn't been quite normal for quite some time -- I had no idea that blood pressure could do that, but two separate doctors told me so yesterday -- but when I can't catch my breath from whatever physical reason, very quickly I also can't catch my breath because it makes me anxious *not to be able to breathe* -- that's my only experience of anxiety expressing itself in physical discomfort, and it's *horrible,* so you have all my sympathies.

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

It's so frustrating when people don't listen to you.

I'm glad nothing was seriously wrong.

[resonant]

Thanks! Yes, frustrating and scary too, because I was afraid I was going to wind up getting treatment I didn't need or want.

And I did have to talk the hospitalist out of wheeling me in for a balloon heart catheter right then and there -- he didn't seem to think "I have no one in town to drive me home" and "I have to lead a meeting tomorrow morning at 11" were good enough reasons, but I was lucky enough that "The cardiologist says he'll schedule one if I want one but he won't be concerned if I don't" was persuasive.

This is the incentive I need to really start doing yoga every day, though.

[oracne]

*whew* I'm glad it wasn't anything big.

[spikedluv]

I did not know that about blood pressure. I'm glad you're okay.

[resonant]

Yeah, I got lucky. I just got a follow-up call-back from the 24-hour nurse line, where they're really really really eager to stay on top of my medical needs, which I cynically interpret as meaning that a telephone RN is a lot cheaper than a real doctor.

[resonant]

I don't really find anything on the internet about it, either, but at some point early on they slapped a nitroglycerine patch on my back, and within 15 minutes I could breathe freely, which offers some evidence.

[lunabee34]

I'm so glad you were able to avoid unnecessary procedures.

It is astonishing and concerning how much of modern medicine seems to be first convincing the doctor something is actually wrong with you and then convincing the doctor not to do something you don't actually need. :(

[adafrog]

There's the usual things to *not say*: 'the patient is stable', 'it's a quiet day', 'we're slow', 'this'll be easy.'
Then there's the rule of threes: three things happen, like three kids with appendicitis, etc.
And the full moon craziness.

It's also kind of funny how we keep sterile. I mean, there's really something we're trying to keep away from, but you can't see it, so watching all the sterile people walk around not touching things, and keeping the hands up, and etc can get quite amusing.

[resonant]

Wow, I never thought about the sterility thing. I guess to a space alien or a person from 1600, it really would look like some superstition.

[adafrog]

Sometimes I just sit back and think about it while I watch people glove up and sincker to myself.