A Trip to the Hospital

So my weekend wasn't too exciting, so I thought I'd spice it up with a trip to the ER Sunday night. Let me explain....

Around 10pm Sunday night, I went in the kitchen to get something to drink, kinda puttering around. Andrew had just gone upstairs to bed and I was downstairs with Tanner who had just fallen asleep. Out of nowhere, I got a sudden pain in my chest. It was kinda uncomfortable and weird. I walked around for a minute, tried sitting down, thinking it would go away. The tightness seemed to go all the around me like a big rubberband and it was also very painful in the middle, like where your sternum is. After a few minutes I started to get a little scared, not knowing what was wrong with me so I went upstairs to see Andrew. I walked in our bedroom and just walked over to his side of the bed and said, "Something's wrong.." then proceeded to burst into tears. It seemed to be getting worse and nothing I did was helping the pain go away. Andrew gave me a quick blessing and kept asking me what he should do. I finally agreed that maybe he should drive me to the hospital. He called his parents and asked them to come sit with the kids. While we were waiting I became more anxious and Andrew asked if he should call the paramedics. I nodded my head and so he called 911. I was beside myself at this point because I was sobbing and in pain and scared that something was really wrong with me. Andrew's parents came and soon after the ambulance and fire truck drove up. I thought maybe 2 or 3 guys would show up, but in walked like 10 guys who were either EMTs or paramedics. They immediately hooked me up to heart monitors and were taking my blood pressure as they began to ask me like 4 million questions. Once they established that I was stable the rest of the guys left and 2 paramedics wheeled me out to the ambulance. As they were taking me out on the gurney I joked with them that I suddenly felt like Britney Spears and one of the paramedics said, "Well I believe there are some paparazzi helicopters outside!"

They hooked my up to an EKG machine and put in an IV on my hand (very poorly done I might add) and drove me to Summerlin Hospital. They gave me aspirin and sprayed nitro glycerin under my tongue and it seemed to ease the pain somewhat. Andrew followed behind us and the paramedics were joking with me that he was an attorney and literally chasing an ambulance --- these guys are hilarious! They must not get out much.

They brought me into the ER and that funny paramedic guy was taking all the wires and stuff off of my chest and said politely that he'll try to keep me covered so I'm not exposed to the people in the ER. I joked with him, "Hey if these people want to see that kind of show, there are other places in town they can go!" To which he said sarcastically, "Really? Are there places like that around here?" They took all my information, what I was feeling, my insurance, blah, blah blah and so on. They moved me to a bed that was in the hallway up against the wall. The ER was very busy at that point and there were people everywhere. Andrew sat there with me for about 2 hours until a doctor finally came over and said that they were going to run some tests and keep me overnight to observe me. He told Andrew that he might as well go home because I would be there awhile. So Andrew went home sometime after 1am and there I sat in that hospital bed in the hallway from 11pm until about 8 the next morning!!!

I was parked right next to their equipment room, so every few minutes people were punching in a code on a very noisy keypad to get into this room. Then the bed in front of me had a one - legged guy with diabetes who kept throwing up and filling his bedpan all night, so needless to say I didn't get much sleep. Around 4:30 am a nice doctor came and talked to me and asked me another gazillion questions. He said my first set of blood tests were fine and the only thing they showed was that I was anemic. My EKG was "non-specific" and that he didn't see anything wrong on that either, so.......they would do more tests to rule out anything with my heart and look for blood clots.

Within about 2 hours they did a cat-scan of my chest, a chest x-ray, an ultrasound of my legs, and another round of blood tests. My last test was a stress-test, where they hook you up and see how your heart reacts while walking on a treadmill. They said it would be awhile for that test, so about 8am Monday morning they took me up to the 4th floor in the cardiology dept and put me in a "holding room" with 3 other women. At least there was a TV and a comfortable bed! The nurse took my vitals and then I laid down and slept for hours. I woke up for a little bit when Andrew showed up but then fell back asleep. They brought lunch trays for everyone, but I couldn't eat until I had this stress test, so I was STARVING while everyone else got to eat.

They finally came to take me to the stress test around 1pm and 2 hours later I was done. They took me back to my room and I finally got to eat my lunch tray that had been sitting out for 2 hours!!! I hate hospital food, but was so hungry I didn't even care--I steered clear of the roast turkey however because the last thing I needed was food poisoning. So I had some cooked carrots, a couple bites of potatoes, a hard roll and a 2 bites of a very crunchy cookie. Yum!! The nurse got the results of my stress test and talked to the doctor over the phone and said it all looked good and I could go home....Hallelujah!! I signed my paper and was gone. We got home around 4:30 and it was so good to walk into the house and be greeted with hugs from the kids. I went to the couch and picked up Tanner and just held him - it felt so good to be home with my family. My sweet mother in law and my sister in law Carolyn had been there all day with Mason and Tanner and together they took care of the boys, did ALL my laundry, washed dishes, and cleaned my house.

So after all that time and all those tests, there was no conclusion as to what caused my chest pain. Andrew and I are a little miffed that they couldn't find anything more conclusive other than I'm anemic. But I have learned a great deal of things from this experience:

1. Most importantly, that I need to take better care of myself. My weight has always been a very private, personal struggle for me and it's very hard for me to even talk about it. I always felt it was more important to take care of everybody else. But with the new year I was done wasting time so Andrew ordered us a treadmill last week as part of our goal to become healthier this year and I was really looking forward to starting on it and getting in shape. I guess this little health "scare" was the push I needed to help me realize that my health is very important and there are 4 little ones that desperately need their mommy.

2. That I have got to relax and not let so many things frustrate me or stress me out. Life is way too short.

3. That whatever the salary is of emergency room nurses, it's not enough for what they deal with on a daily basis.

4. That there are some very scary, wacky weirdos out there. I saw quite a few of them all night long as I sat awake in the ER.

5. That Summerlin Hospital is way overcrowded and I'm sure they'll be happy when the new hospital opens.

6. That an ambulance ride is very bumpy and uncomfortable.

7. That the code to the equipment room in the Summerlin ER is 7-1-1-4.


P.S. I want to say a big thank you to those people who helped out in my time of need. A big thank you to Mom and Carolyn for coming to the house and taking care of everything and everybody. Thank you Janette for driving carpool for me and arranging a dinner for my family and for your friendly texts on my cell phone. Thanks to Andrew's law partners for understanding that he needed to be with me at the hospital all day and for their concern on my behalf. A thanks to you Ashley Marx for bringing my family a delicious dinner on such short notice. And thanks to those who called or texted my husband wondering if I'm okay. I'm very grateful for all of you!!


Now hopefully I won't experience any more chest pains...at least until the medical bills come in the mail :)