My Exciting Ride in an Ambulance

Here's the latest exciting thing to happen to me this week... I got to take a ride in the ambulance to the hospital emergency room!

About 8:30 AM or so, I was sitting at my computer sipping tea (just waking up really) and suddenly it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I was short of breath and figured that wasn't an entirely good sign... So I did the sensible thing (not wanting to be found rotting on my floor two weeks later) and called 9-1-1. And sure enough these nice looking young guys and a gal paramedic came over and took my blood pressure and connected me to the EKG thingy with the sticky bits/leads (which hurt like heck to pull off, let me tell you!). I guess they weren't too pleased with what they saw, because they stuck me in this chair to get me down the two flghts of stairs of my apartment building and then I got put onto a stretcher (in the rain!) and slipped into the back of the ambulance.

Now, is that ever a weird ride... You're on your back and your traveling backwards and they are sticking things into you the whole time. Ugh! I have a big bruise on my arm from the IV. Anyway, I got shunted off to the ER and got even more sticky bits attached to me. And I waited and waited about three and half hours and they take blood out of your other arm (ow!) and they take samples of other bits of you and they connect you up the "beeping machines". But I guess they figured I was okay, and so they let me go around 1 PM and told me to go see this doctor by Monday at the latest. So I made an appointment for Monday morning, being the good girl that I am. ;)

Now, here is the even more exciting part--I am wearing nothing but my nightgown and slippers! (Fortunately I'd grabbed my little bathrobe too going out the door.) I couldn't argue with the paramedics and get some clothes on first, as I was tied up to their EKG machine with leads and cables. So at 1 PM, the nurse says "You can go home." Well, I didn't drive myself there and I'm essentially undressed, so public transport (in the rain) would be a bit dicey, and they don't have any volunteers who can give you a ride home they said. But I did reach my dear friends Joyce and Jerry at home by phone, and they came over and picked me up, bless their hearts. They are truly lifesavers.

Better yet, I had a job interview about 25 miles north of here at 3 PM. I told Joyce I just wanted to get home and get in the shower and quickly get ready to go up and talk to this lady about the job at a women's drug rehab center. She and Jerry volunteered to drive me up there and back so I didn't have to stress out on the driving. (And I think I did okay on the interview, too.) They are double angel lifesavers in my book now!

So, that was my exciting day with the ambulance trip and being undressed and waiting for a ride in the ER waiting area, and then doing a job interview. Don't let anyone tell you that I'm not a trooper and I don't want to work.

And I’m fine really, just a bit tired now. I will be a good girl and go to the doctors Monday and let you know what they say.

Prayers and good healing thoughts and wishes welcomed!


UPDATE: I got my latest blood work back this week, and they say it looks "fine". I'm not vampire or a shapeshifter of any kind. The test results didn't say I wasn't an alien abductee or I didn't have a weird sense of humor, however. My blood pressure still remains high, unfortunately, and it makes me feel fatigued and winded.

I had an echocardiogram and it went swimmingly. In fact, I think the human heartbeat sounds surprisingly a lot like the roar of the ocean in places. Would that make me akin to a beached whale, I wonder? Anyway, they slop cold gel all over your chest and then press the sonogram wand into your sternum and then into your left side of your rib cage very hard, over and over again, to record the activity in there. And that hurts!! My poor left side still felt bruised the next day.

But there is a heart in there, I can tell. (Yep, no sign saying, "This space for rent." Fooled you!) It's sort of black and white grainy with the occasional red and blue energy pulses on the screen. I have no idea what's up with it, and the nice lady who jammed that wand hard into my side didn't tell me anything. If there's anything incredibly exciting happening with it, I'll let you know. Otherwise, assume that it's an okay heart for an alien abductee with a weird sense of humor.