The story behind calling in sick

Thursday night, I was relaxing (or so I thought) with a Buffy DVD. Around 11:30 p.m., the fingertips on my left hand started tingling. Then tingling and numbness spread up my hand and arm, briefly through my left foot, and into the left side of my face, including my lips and tongue. I was probably more scared than I’ve been in my life, and started thinking furiously about whether or not to call 911. I have a habit of not jumping the gun on most things, so instead I went to the computer (on, of course), googled “signs of stroke,” saw that numbness was the number one sign, and dialed the phone that I had in my hand the entire time. I thought briefly about driving myself to the hospital, because it’s quite close, but all I could think of was that if I was having a stroke, and I passed out behind the wheel, it’d be even worse. I decided not to risk it.

While I was waiting for the EMTs to arrive, I packed the brand-new (much smaller) purse that I’d bought for Wednesday’s job interview. I packed my healthcare information card, my wallet, ID, a brush, and my keys. I wanted desperately to go upstairs and get a couple of things from the bathroom, but again, I was worried about walking up the stairs and passing out or losing locomotion too suddenly to do anything but fall. So I didn’t. But I did pack a book. (Patricia McKillip, Ombria in Shadow, one of my favorites.)

By the time the EMTs got here, my blood pressure was in the 150s over 90-something. It’s usually pretty dead-normal range. I’ve never had any blood pressure problems, in fact, which is why I was so shocked and nervous. But my father’s brother had a stroke, my father had high blood pressure, and my paternal grandmother–whom I look exactly like–was found dead on the kitchen floor one day, probably from a stroke. So I said yes, take me to the hospital when the EMTs asked, and spent Thursday night in the ER near a very noisy desk, connected to a machine that kept track of my heart rate, my respiration, and my blood oxygen content (that’s the one I thought was temperature, as it was 98 or 97 consistently). When I grew bored because they kept waking me up with their hospital noises, I’d play with the machine by changing my breathing. And learned quickly how to reattach the damned cables when I wanted to turn on my side and they fell off and made the machine start beeping.

Oh. And I learned to loathe, with a deep and lasting hatred, the IV stuck in my arm. They never put me on an IV drip, but they wanted that quick drug conduit just in case. After they drew blood, they only used it for dye for the MRI Friday afternoon.

I have more marks on me from the connector patches than the victims of the aliens from last season’s Invasion. They drew blood far too many times (the last time being five o’clock this morning), and may I say, I hope I never have to stay overnight in a hospital ever again.

I didn’t really fit where I landed, no matter where they put me. I didn’t have a stroke, but they had to treat me like a potential stroke victim, right down to giving me the “Life After Stroke” brochure, featuring a pleasant-looking sixty-something woman on the cover. (No, I’m not nearly that old, stop even trying to think that.) They gave me a liquid-diet breakfast first, followed by a real breakfast fifteen minutes later, and then put me on the Telemetry floor so I could have an annoying heart monitor attached to me for the rest of my stay. Wouldn’t let me take it off even after the doctor told me to go home–as long as I was on that damned floor, I had to keep it on, right up to the moment Woman with Wheelchair came to take me to the door.

The upshot of all my tests is that contrary to what you’ve heard, my brain is perfectly normal. It was an anxiety attack, apparently. I need to get back into an exercise routine and do other things to eliminate stress from my life.

I think I have to stop obsessing about the war.

I’m going to ease off for a while. I tried not watching the news for a long time last night, and discovered true inner peace while watching Monk.

Yes, I’ll still cover the major news. But I need to concentrate on some other things right now. Particularly a job. I had an interview, not a job offer, last week. Time to get back to work. Financial stress is not good for me, either.

Anyway. One more post to write about my hospital stay and I’m done. It’s going to be titled, “Things I learned in the hospital.” I wrote it this morning while waiting to be released. I wrote it the old-fashioned way—on pen and paper. I feel so—archaic.

Thanks for the good wishes. They were and are much appreciated. But geez, Jay, I feel like you wrote my obit there. I’m not dead yet, Blogson. Not by a longshot. I’m not even wounded, really. Well, okay, I am covered with holes from needles and spots from monitor patches, but still—doing just fine, thanks. Tig’s out on the patio, pinging me from time to time (Mrowr-rowr? Mrowr-rowr?) and Gracie is alseep on her tissue paper bed.

I’m going to watch my soaps. Didn’t have the time to watch them in the hospital yesterday. The nurses kept interrupting me for blood draws and other annoyances. They really need to get their priorities straight.