Ok, here's what happened:

My tummy started hurting Thursday night but it wasn't horrible so I just went to bed.  When I woke up, my chest hurt like I had a gas bubble that I couldn't burp out.  I was off Friday since I'm on a compressed work schedule so I just hung out around the house.  I started feeling much better.  When I went back to bed Friday night, my chest started hurting again even more.  I sat up for a while and tried to burp.  I didn't burp, but felt better until a laid back down.  I figured it was some kind of heartburn so I blew it off again.  Late Saturday, I called PQ at his work and told him I should probably go to the hospital since my chest was still hurting and I was having trouble breathing (he had been trying to get me to go since day one).  We decided to wait until Sunday morning and go to the Urgent Care Center so we wouldn't have to wait in the emergency room.  So after another painful night, we went there.  

The UC center is awesome.  They took us in almost with no wait at all.  An older woman doctor that had a Hispanic accent and was an uncomfortably close talker took all my vitals.  She then told me it could be my heart and I should be admitted to the hospital to be on the safe side.  So I got to have a fun and wacky ambulance ride to St. Anthonys hospital.  The doctor at the ER took my vitals again including an EKG.  He said that I had just had a heart attack or was currently having one.  Then they gave me a Nitro pill.  It gave me a REALLY bad headache and I almost passed out.  PQ was there and he was kind of freaking out.

So they took me to the Cardiac ICU and started doing more tests.  My lungs had built up some fluid since my heart wasn't pumping as much as it should (that's why I couldnt breath right), so they decided to dehydrate me.  They gave me something to make me pee, but I was not allowed to get out of bed.  I learned how to pee in one of those plastic urinals that look like a bent milk carton.  At one point in the ICU, I had to pee really badly.  My room curtain was wide open for the world to look in.  Just as I started urinating into the bottle, some visitors of another patient decided to have a nice get-together in front of my room and started chatting away.  It really made it hard to go.  It wasn't even visiting hours, so they shouldnt have been there anyway, but I was too tired to yell at them.  Some people are idiots. A nurse finally chased them out.

They did more tests including an ultrasound on my heart.  This lady put a glob of grease on this round probe then proceded to jam it forcefully into my left titty.  It hurt and made my manboob all tender.  Eventually they decided I had pericarditis which is an inflammation of the sac around the heart.  It causes all these symptoms from the tummy ache to feeling worse while lying down.  It can be caused by lots of things such as viruses or allergic reactions, but is often a symptom of a heart attack.  My EKG didn't show most of the signs of a heart attack, but to make sure, they sent me to the Catheter lab to have an exploratory catheter and to put in stints if they found any clogs.  Some random nurse shaved my junk and then several other people became friends on a first name basis with my junk as they sterilized and stuck things into my groin.  I'm not sure why they have to go through the groin since that is not even close to where your heart is.  Well, everything turned out fine.  No clogs, drips, errors or anything.

I went to a regular room after that and spent one more night for a total of about 48 hours in the hospital.  It looks like I did not have a heart attack after all, and I should fully recover with no permanent damage to my heart.  Hurray!

What I learned:

  • Hospital food sucks.  Its not just a rumor.  Icky.
  • After a while you get used to urinating in bed and even miss the convenience a little after you've quit.
  • If you're sick enough, you don't care if strangers are looking at your privates.
  • It's really embarrassing to have to tell everyone you didn't have a heart attack after you told everyone you did.


The End.

HB