So I haven’t been working for the past almost three weeks now. Been on Short Term Disability and I return to work tomorrow, Saturday. Nice calm day to return.
On December 16th, right before I was supposed to start work, I had some heart attack-like symptoms. I kept having these strange hot flashes and dizziness and I just very strange. Not wanting to take any chances, I had a supervisor call an ambulance for me. Paramedics came pretty quickly, and right on the spot they hooked me up to a field EKG machine. Nothing on the machine showed up anything relevant. They put me on a gurney and pushed to the Ambulance where they began to ask me all sorts of fact-finding questions.
I was a bit miffed by the fact that they had such a hard time poking me in a vain to get some fluid into me. But I came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t their fault. Ever since I began taking my beta blocker medicine, Atenelol, my blood pressure is VERY low. Which also means I barely have any veins to show on my hands or inner arms. So ensued the poking and prodding. The EMT finally poked me in the arm and said “Yep, that looks good” and began the drip. From having worked in a hospital before, I noticed that the liquid wasn’t really moving, and I didn’t dare say anything lest the paramedic started using me as a pincushion again. It was just a saline solution anyway.
When I got to the hospital, I naturally told them about the faulty poke the guy had given me, and after three nurses unsuccessfully poked me, the doctor who would be seeing me did it herself, after a few tries. What I don’t understand, is why they insert the needle, then try to wiggle it around inside trying to find the vein. Insert, miss, pull out. But oh well. I then had to sign a bunch of paperwork, and then a male nurse took a few vials of blood for testing. In the meantime I had calmed down and my side effects were gone. I was rather feeling somewhat normal. They came back later and said that the tests were negative and they would take more blood in a few hours.
As I carry a “man purse”, I always have my camera with me, so I took this poor shot:
So then I took a little snooze and waited, then they drew more blood. A few times through my stay in the ER, I occasionally felt some discomfort, but nothing to worry about. And again the tests were negative. This is then when I asked the doctor what could cause me to have these symptoms, if it was really a false alarm? To which she couldn’t give me an exact answer. I had to rephrase my query three times, but all in all she “didn’t know”.
Around eight o’clock I was released with a paper saying “Nonspecific chest pain.” So once again no real answers. The next day I called into MetLife insurance company and filed for Short Term Disability, and I called the Heart Institute of New Mexico to get the earliest appointment for a cardiologist; which would be on January 9th.
I guess I’ll find out someday whats actually wrong with me.
Bull signing off.
