An Abdominal-Pressure Event

Sunday evening, I had Tony run me down to our local Urgent Care Center because I was having some uncomfortable abdominal pressure just around the top of my rib cage, which had been building steadily throughout the day.

They wouldn't see me because they don't do abdominal stuff there, but had me fill out a form nevertheless.

We left and headed north to the local hospital, during which time I considered just going home and calling my regular doctor in the morning.  But Tony insisted on the hospital, so I wound up in the ER where they were compelled to begin assessing me for a heart problem.

Upon arrival, my blood pressure was something like 200/100!  Holy cow!

Blood was drawn, urine sample provided, and nitroglycerin applied through the skin (brings down blood pressure in a hurry; brings on massive headache in a hurry).

Had a chest x-ray.

Everything was okay, except for some mildly-elevated levels of pancreatic something-or-other.  No one seemed too concerned about that--just told to keep an eye on it.  (Not sure how to do that, exactly.  Blood work, I guess.)

That necessitated a CT scan, but nothing was observed there.

Still not satisfied, they admitted me to the hospital.

I had my blood pressure and temperature taken approximately 52,000 times.  I received two shots in my belly so that I wouldn't get a blood clot.  The first shot left such a huge bruise that I thought, for sure, the shot actually would cause a blood clot.

They asked me if I wanted a flu shot.  I said yes, but I never got one.

Everyone I spoke with asked me all kinds of complicated questions, which I couldn't answer clearly because I was in some kind of hospital fog.

I was provided with a living will form.  A Catholic woman came to see me and asked me if I wanted to receive Communion and if I wanted her to pray with me.

This morning, I had one of those treadmill stress tests, which I passed.  And somehow at the same time I also had an echocardiogram.  Also good.

Then they let me go.

Now I have loads of "follow-up" appointments to make and keep.

And because they think the event was probably related to some gastrointestinal problems, I must now get the various scope procedures to rule out ulcer and colon issues.

Gas prices went up 10 cents/gallon during the 48 hours I was at the hospital.  How did that happen?

When I got home, I felt like I had been gone a month.

That is all.

 

Comments

[Pam Jones]

Oh Anne. I'm so sorry to read this. My hope is that you have had an experience with The Great Technological Machine that drives our current health care system. What I mean is that over the past 50 or so yrs, scientists have developed hundreds, thousands of high-tech ways to scan the body, analyze the body, probe the body, but the medical conclusions reached after all the scans, analyses, and probes are over is usually something benign like "you had a big stomach ache." I don't question that the scans etc quite often find something treatable, but more often they don't. Medical ethics demands that someone in your situation be given all these tests---I would of course want any friend or relative to have them. But I know in my gut that they often don't answer any questions. The human body is sometimes simply too complicated to be understood by machines and scans. (I meant all of that to be reassuring...re-reading it makes it sound negative.) I'll be calling you soon to get a voice-to-voice report on your health. And to schedule our face-to-face report.

[The Complaint Department]

Pam, I burst out laughing when I read your take on my diagnosis, "You had a big stomach ache." That's basically what happened. I guess they couldn't let me go until they were sure I wasn't having those vague "female" heart attack symptoms--liability rules, in the end. The whole business was so, so surreal but it gave me something to write about, after all, so I should be grateful. It was kind of like going undercover! I can't remember the last time I was in a hospital overnight--it has to be several decades now. And, honestly, I felt sicker after I left than when I arrived, overtaken as I was with some kind of hospital "vagueness."

All is well, now, and I'm coming out of the fog!

[Miz S]

HONEY! I had no idea! And I'm reading your entries backwards at the moment. I'm guessing the blood pressure is why you are doing the walking thing? Good for you.

They don't want to put you on blood pressure medication or anything?