Monday, September 23, 2024
Just past 7:00 pm I'm sitting in the dining room after supper with Brian, Mam, and others. Andy had left for the grocery store. I'm scrounging around the bottom of a pan of 7 layer bars, looking for broken pieces worth eating while still saving some whole bars for Clare. I took a bite of a piece and almost immediately felt a spike of pain on the right side of my face. There is a broken tooth and I'm usually careful to chew on my left side, but a large pecan got over to to the bad side and I chomped down on it. Hard. Directly in the middle of the broken tooth. I immediately froze. It was obvious to everyone at the table that something had happened. I sat in frozen pain and carefully probed the tooth to remove the nut and assess the damage. I thought it had broken in half or was ready to fall out.
The first/last time I experienced pain in this tooth was about 5 weeks earlier, which is another story. But at that time I took painkillers and went to bed while it was still light out, in the hope that it would subside by the time I woke up. So this time I left the first floor dining room to take painkillers and lie down in my room, on the third floor over the garage. Nearly fatal mistake.
Time passed - ten minutes maybe - and I noticed some slight congestion while I was lying on my side. The congestion increased. I sat up and tried to clear my throat. The congestion increased. Soon I was clearing my throat constantly and beginning to cough up some fluid. I caught the fluid in a paper cup and it was pink. Not good. I couldn't keep up with the congestion and now I realized that this was SERIOUS. I don't remember who I called first... I think I called Andy and told him I thought I had to go to the hospital. This may have been at 7:43 and he was still at the store.
I called Natalie at 7:44 to ask for an inhaler. It was more like the breathless, high-pitched gasp of a drowning person. Poor Natalie. She had been sitting in the living room with Theresa, Clare, Brian, Jess, etc. Philip was playing at a friend's house at this time - thank God he wasn't in the house to witness this. I stumbled through the rec room, numb with panic and fear and disbelief, and Brian met me on the steps. I tried to use the inhaler but I couldn't draw a big enough breath.
He helped me to the living room and I sat down on the piano bench, trying to use the inhaler effectively while the rest of them in the living room looked on in astonishment. I remembering noticing that Clare was there and said hello to her. Brian helped me to the Suburban and I remember Andy putting it in overdrive to get to the hospital while I repeatedly attempted to spit some of the congestion out the window.
The ER wasn't busy and I walked in on my own two feet. They provided a wheelchair and I tried to talk at the reception window, but I was gasping for air. I had enough presence of mind to tell the guard that I had crochet scissors in my bag, which had to be surrendered for security reasons. I'd say they took me back to a treatment room within two minutes. As soon as I got into a bed, they put a pressurized oxygen mask on my face, which felt life-saving. The relief was instantaneous and enormous.
The next four hours are a blur. Two IVs. Two or three nitro pills under the tongue. Two nebulizer treatments. One Xray. One trip for a CAT scan. Multiple persons asking to verify if I was SURE I didn't have blockages. Didn't have history of heart failure. Didn't have asthma. Didn't have COPD. They were treating me for a heart attack because nothing else added up.
Andy says it was 2:30 a.m. when I left in an ambulance for the main hospital. The EMT fiddled with my hand IVs the whole way, because they kept getting blocked. Apparently the hand has to be curved at just the right angle to keep the flow going. I don't remember what was being administered through the IV.
I concentrated on every curve and turn of the road to the hospital, which I have driven time and time again. We stayed on the main highways at that time of night, and could feel when we got to the narrows and turned across the bridge. I saw the lights of the tunnel and felt the turn at the walking bridge. Soon they came to the Advanced Medicine entrance and wheeled me up to the eighth floor.
My primary nurse was a young man Clare's age with a beautiful boy-band head of hair. His name was Stephen, and I like it better with a PH even though I'm not sure. It seemed like he talked to me for the next four hours straight, asking all the intake questions and making me comfortable. I have no concept of time from that night, but I think I remember waking around 7 and learning that I was going to the cath lab Tuesday morning anytime after 9 a.m.
I was aware of the risks of catheterization, especially since my wonderful cardiac nurse daughter told me the story of the first catheterization she assisted at, a nice woman in her eighties named Ruth Stump. She reassured Ruth about this routine procedure, assuring her that she'd be fine. Then the probe punctured her aortic artery and she died on the table. It sounds like a horrible thing to say, but you have to take into account our family's morbid sense of humor. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I asked to be seen by a priest but one didn't come visit me until Wednesday evening. Oh well. I was more than a little scared (not because of my wonderful daughter) and feeling very mortal. I couldn't believe when they came for me on the early side - maybe around ten? I couldn't think of anything else but to pray the Act of Contrition and the Memorare on repeat.
The cath went smoothly and no blockages were found - go me! Not too shabby for someone with a sedentary lifestyle who takes in butter intravenously. I also have prize-winning LDLs, triglycerides, HDLs, through absolutely no effort on my part.
Those three days in the hospital went very slowly. Most of the time I was extremely drowsy and my sheets were always damp with sweat. I could barely stay awake on Tuesday, but every time I opened my eyes, Andy was there. I didn't even know he had come. Natalie and Noelle came to visit for a bit, and Clare came, bringing dinner for Andy - all he had to eat all day was half my hospital lunch - but I couldn't even stay awake to talk to her.
To be continued…
Later
Over the course of the next two days, every time a new team of doctors from another department came to talk to me, I made sure I mentioned my tooth pain and how I really wanted to see a dentist. I told my sob story to everybody that walked in the room. Finally on Wednesday a dentist briefly popped in and I told him my story. His manner was rather brusque but before longo I had an appointment to be seen in the hospital dental clinic shortly after discharge the following day.
