All the gory details, part 1

Even I get bored listening to the story of my pulmonary embolism over and over again. So I am going to tell it once, as completely as I can remember, and you may read or not read depending upon your interest.

My first recognized symptoms began on Monday, September 26th, in the early evening. Was it six o’clock or seven? I don’t know. Since I didn’t anticipate it to be the beginning of a life changing event, I didn’t make a special note of the time. Suffice it to say it was early Monday evening. I began to experience a pain that felt like a cracked rib on my left side. The pain was moderate but bearable so I tended to ignore it. I slept poorly that night and still had the pain in the morning.

The pain worsened on Tuesday, September 27th, but I still managed to attend a Weight Watchers meeting at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday evenings, after WW, Penny and I usually go to dinner at Applebee’s. We have a full week until our next weigh-in. But that evening I begged off and we went on home. Penny drove my car as far as her house (I have to be feeling bad to give someone else my car keys) and then I drove the last two miles to my house on untraveled back streets. I made it home, grabbed a light snack and dressed for bed, intending to make it an early night. When I lay flat on the bed the pain was so bad I had to get up. I headed for the recliner where I spent many a night while nursing Joe. At this point I started to think about calling for an ambulance. But I didn’t know what I could tell them other than I hurt. I dozed off and on in the recliner until I came awake at midnight.

Wednesday, September 28th, barely awake I struggled to the bathroom to relieve my bladder. I sat down on the commode. The next thing I knew it was five minutes later and I was nose down on the bathroom floor. My first thought is what am I doing on the floor? As I attempted to get up the pain was so debilitating that I didn’t think I would be able to get off the floor and out of the bathroom. I am very grateful that the bathroom is handicap accessible because I was able to use the grab bars next to the toilet and on the wall to pull myself to my feet. There was no question I would call for an ambulance. As I made my way back to the recliner, I turned on the porch light and unlocked the front door. I slipped my feet into the canvas slip-ons that I wear for slippers, collapsed into the recliner, picked up phone, and dialed 911.

“911 Operator, what is your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance,” I responded. We went through the address thing, then my symptoms and finally I was assured than an ambulance was seconds away.

When the knock came on the door, I tried to respond. But between the solid core door and my weak voice, the EMTs and the ambulance crew couldn’t hear me. But they pushed the door open and I assured then they were in the right place. They put the BP cuff on me, asked a few questions, and soon I was on the gurney. They turned off my inside lights, I managed to lock the front door, and then I was down the ramp and being loaded into the ambulance. The fire department EMTs cleared me for transport and the ambulance pulled away from the house.

I drifted in and out of consciousness and only came alert when I was being wheeled into the ER. I had nurses and an ER technician attaching leads to my body and the BP cuff to my arm. Then I was wheeled into x-ray to determine if my ribs were broken. They weren’t. But my lungs appeared clouded on the x-ray. The ER doctor had a preliminary diagnosis in mind when she sent me down for a CT scan of my lungs. When I finally got back to my cell in the ER and the doctor returned I asked her if I would be going home.

She replied, “Not anytime soon.”

She then told me I had a pulmonary embolism and I wouldn’t be going home until they pulled me back from the brink. They started me on Norco for pain, Coumadin to thin the clots, and an antibiotic to prevent infection. They admitted me even though they didn’t have a bed for me - they needed to wait for another patient to be discharged. After starting on the Norco I drifted out of consciousness. I awoke when they moved me into a bed in the medical wing.

I knew I needed to contact some people to take care of the cat and my mail. I had deadlines I was going to miss and I needed to let people know I was down but not out. While the deadlines would be missed, the submissions would be made late rather than never. I turned on my cell phone and brought up my address book. My cell phone does not hold a charge so I had only minutes to write down important contact phone numbers. I called my friend Penny to tell her we wouldn’t be walking our two miles that morning. I gave Penny the pet sitter’s phone numbers and asked her to tell Teri I was hospitalized and request that she look after Red. I called the only CWC member whose phone number was in my cell, because we had car pooled a few times, to let the club board know that the newsletter was going to be significantly late. Then I phoned my daughter so that a family member would know I was very ill but planned to recover. After that last phone call I zonked out.

At some point an x-ray technician appeared with a portable x-ray machine to take another picture of my lungs. I had an ultrasound of my legs to see if there were any clots lingering in wait to attack my lungs; none were found. I assured everyone for the fourth time that I had not recently taken a long airplane flight or a long road trip. I had not been sitting for an extended period with my legs immobile. I walk for one full hour, four days a week, a distance over two miles. I am not a couch potato, I do not smoke, I eat healthy, and I don’t engage in high risk activities or non-activities.

When the doctor came in late Wednesday afternoon I asked her to stop the Norco. The medication left my brains scrambled. She agreed to change from the Norco to Vicodin which is only half the strength of the Norco.

Wednesday night was Grand Central Station for the entire swing and grave yard shift. I would drift off to sleep then awake suddenly with a body standing over me. They would always apologize for startling me. They would check my IV or my oxygen, take my blood pressure, ask if I needed anything. “Yes, please, I would like to sleep longer than thirty minutes without interruption.”