(no subject)

[senoritafish]

I guess I never posted about this here at LJ. We had a bit of a scare on the last day of September. I got up at 4:30 am as I had dock sampling that morning and runsamuck sat up at the same time and said he felt like someone was trying to shove a fist through the right side of his chest. He also felt an extremely strong sense of forboding. That sounded ominous to me, so I looked up heart attack symptoms and, sure enough he had a few more, as well. He was very uncomfortable, and I decided not to take chances and called a co-worker to fill in for me, and we headed for the emergency room. The doctor thought he was ok, but wasn't 100% sure and ordered an overnight stay in the hospital and a stress test in the morning. As it turned out, they said he has the heart of a 30-year-old - but his lungs are about 50 years older (which we already knew - that's the usually reason for an emergency room visits).

I took the kids by for a visit as he was stressing out just being in the hospital.

HB Hospital
Huntington Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
30 September 2009


He was in a room with two other people; one, a guy suffering from asthma as he does, who checked out the same afternoon. He told us he'd been walking to the pharmacy to refill his rescue inhaler prescription and actually collapsed on the way there. Something I worry about too, when the insurance will only cover one rescue inhaler a month, and runsamuck sometimes uses it up after a week or two. He occasionally has to "borrow" one from his mom; I'm not sure whether hers covers more per month or she just doesn't go through them as fast, but refills them monthly anyway (smart if you can do it).

Part of the reason he was so stressed was the other guy in the room. At first I though he was elderly, but after while realized he wasn't nearly as old as he seemed. He was very out of it and moaning and talking to himself constantly; the sides were put up on his bed but every once in a while he'd try to get out of it and nearly fall down. He once pulled the IVs out of his arm. When we were first admitted, he was lying there uncovered, diaper and all, right opposite John's bed. We closed the curtain, but then John was left without any way to pass the time until I brought him some books and magazines; the bed curtains went in front of the TV mounted on the ceiling.

I felt bad for him, as no one came to see him, nurses and social workers would come in and shout instructions at him that he obviously wasn't capable of understanding. He must have had a lucid moment when I heard the doctor ask "And how many years has the heavy drinking been going on?" He was talking and moaning most of the night as well, so John wasn't able to sleep much. Finally, as we were being discharged the next day, they wheeled his entire bed out of the room to some other location. I can only hope he recovered.