Thursday, February 25, 2010

A story from the Heart...

here's the story:

I was working yesterday (@Dell) answering calls. I stood up to pose a question to a co-worker. I literally took 6 steps from my desk to his, when my heartbeat shot sky high,at least 130+bpm, I had intense pressure in my head/ears, became disoriented and collapsed into a chair. I was still conscious the whole time, so they helped me up and I laid on the floor in another room. After about 30 minutes (and several vital sign tests) my BP was fine, but my heartrate was still elevated (between 100-129) and they couldn't get it down. My boss (and the nurse on site) decided that I needed to go to the Hospital, so I went to Southern Hills (don't EVER go there if you have a choice!) where I was stabbed in the arms numerous times by nurses (who seemed like they could care less), while trying to draw blood, AND get an IV (at the same time!). My arms look like I'm a junkie...it's awful. After 6-8 hours, I was put into a room on an abandoned floor (4th, used to be Labor&Delivery), in a room with little heat, no telephone, and I left my cell charger in my bag (which I didn't have with me).

They ran me through the gamut of heart tests (EKG, Stress Tests, Echogram). I was hooked up to these weird little boxes that looked like a reject Gameboy from the late 80s. Oh, they also gave me nitroglycerin, which gave me a killer headache. Doctor told me that all tests came back negative. My heart is perfectly healthy, my BP is excellent, but that I need to lay off the caffeine. Once burnt, lesson learnt. All I had to eat was some really gross hospital food, a pack of RANCID saltine crackers, and Sprite.

By the end of it all, I left the hospital around 8 pm on 2/24. Took a cab back to Dell (Dell policy wouldn't let me drive myself to the hospital), got in my car, went to Hardees, promptly ate a bacon cheeseburger to reward myself for the torture that I just endured, arrived at home, found my cat (who had been locked outside since I left for work the day before), crawled into bed and slept.

What am I doing now? Preparing to go back to work, as soon as I set up an appointment with my primary care physician.