On not dying:

I had a recent "scare": (and it's not even Halloween!! heh, heh)

Tuesday evening, while watching District 9 (so good!!!), I felt a sharp pain in my side. It didn't really go away, but only hurted when I took a breath. Therefore, I concluded it must be a tic or a cramp in my ribs or diaphragm, and it should go away with a good night's rest.

it didn't.

The next day, when it was still hurting, I decided that it might go away if I stay active and walk it off. Not only did it not conform to this belief, the pain worsened that evening. While in the throes of pain deciding whether or not to go to the ER, I figured that since I had lived with it for 24 hours now, it could wait another 8-10 and I could get it checked out in the morning.

The next morning, I took myself to an urgent care clinic. Lesson learned #1: When you have chest pain, and say so to the urgent clinic, you immediately get a lecture on how you should have gone to the ER. oops. After about 4 hours of tests to make sure nothing was wrong with my heart or lungs, I was sent to get an "echo" done of my heart due to a slight abnormality in an EKG. After the echo results came back that everything was normal, I was told that I had pleuritis (an inflammation of the lung tissue), to take anti-inflammatories, rest, and go home. About 7 hours later. Lesson learned #2: When going to the doctor with chest pain, don't expect to go to work that day.

The pain lessened, due to the anti-inflammatories and vicodin. I went to work the next day (which was Friday). At work, my cell phone (which was on silent) rang but I didn't hear it (hence: silent), which ended up being the doctor trying to get in contact with me. He tried calling my mom (my next contact) but the only phone number I gave for her was our home phone number in Hibbing. She was at work. Not being able to get in contact with either, and seeing a potentially fatal condition, my doctor called 911. I'm pretty sure cops came to my house, but there was no one here to be sure of that. He eventually found my work number and contacted me that way. Turns out a D-dimer test that I took the previous day was not normal as he had thought, but was actually abnormal. The d-Dimer tests your blood to see if it had recently clotted- commonly used to test for PEs, or heart attacks. I was sent to the ER.

After convincing my boss that I would have someone with me and that he didn't need to drive me and sit with me (I have an amazing boss, by the way), I started out to pick up Chris who had to cancel most of his busy day for me. On the way, I called my Dad, who I had supposed to be in an airplane, who picked up. Turns out he had just gotten off the flight, was in Minneapolis, and was just looking up at the screen to see that his flight to Hibbing had been cancelled when I called. Needless to say, I picked up my Dad, told Chris to un-cancel his appointments and see me later, and headed to the hospital.

At the ER, I was treated to my first CAT scan ever. Not really an experience I would like to repeat. The CAT scan came up positive: I had a few pumonary embolisms (PEs) in my lungs. This is serious, and is often fatal, and usually only occurs in people over 40. I had it, but they had been caught early, were small, and were on the edges (sides) of my lungs. Needless to say, I was admitted to the hospital.

Upon hearing the words "PE" my mom drove like a maniac down to Minneapolis in a downpour and even got lost once, and still made it to Burnsville in about 3 hours. I'm happy she was not pulled over. Lesson learned #3: Mom drives fast in emergencies.

I was put on the "fast track" in the ER to get admitted, partially because I'd already been fully checked out by a doctor, and probably mostly because a bunch of people with the flu (by the way, if you have the flu, stay the hell away from an ER unless you're dying) were sitting in the waiting area and they sure as hell didn't want me to get that too.

Once admitted, I was subjected to poking and prodding at least once every 2 hours to make sure I was still alive. I was put on a de-coagulant and blood thinners. The PEs, as I was informed, in someone my age were either a result of pregnancy (not in my case!), genetics (no again!), or birth control. I've been on the pill for about 5 years now.

At the hospital, I was monitored constantly to make sure I wasn't going to die from the PEs, and was visited by my doctor from Thursday who not only apologized, but also gave me his cell number and informed me that his clinic was taking measures so that something like this was never missed again the first time around. I was also called by my boss who was worried about me, and I was able to speak with both my grandparents, Chris' mom (who is an ER nurse), and a few friends who had called. Chris of course was there, and was so incredibly supportive. I feel bad that I ended up destroying his first weekend off. And, of course both my parents were with me the entire time. It didn't matter, I felt like an invalid and wanted out.

That night, I tried to sleep and suddenly realized that hospitals are really houses of torture. If you're checked every two hours in the day, that doesn't stop when you're asleep. Couple that with an injection that would have been nice to pair with checking me with vitals, but it wasn't, and getting blood drawn again that would have been nice to pair with checking my vitals but wasn't, and one can easily come to the conclusion that I got no more than 1.5 hours of undisturbed sleep. The doctors and nurses even seemed surpried that I was "up and about" at 6:30 AM. What the hell? It's not like they were going to let me sleep anyway, I figured it would be better for all of us if I just stopped trying. I am now really sick of the food network.

After meeting with my doctor in the morning, I was informed that if everything continued to look ok, I would be released that evening. A nurse came in later to try to tell me that I would probably stay another day, which put me into tears. Turns out she hadn't talked to the doctor- I was getting released! Lesson learned #4: communication sucks in hospitals.

After a quick lesson in how to give myself the shots I needed, I was forced to sit and wait for everyone else to let me go. After two hours, I paged the nurse to see how much longer it would be. She asked "well, when would you like to go?" . What I want to know is why that is even a question. I told her I wanted to leave as soon as possible- did she think I wanted to hang out there all day? They're nice people, but the poking and prodding had to stop. Plus, I wanted to sleep that night.

Finally, about 6PM that night, I was allowed to leave. After a happy dance, Chris and I were treated to Green Mill pizza and I said goodbye to my parents. I'm home now, and I'm on medications that people my age rarely need to take. But the moral of the story is, that I'm better, and I'm not going to die.