Wow … I can’t believe I haven’t written in this blog for more than a week! That must be a record!
Well, if you are a reader of my other blog, Tricia’s Musings, you’ll already know that my husband spent some time in the hospital last week. That’s one of the main reasons I haven’t been writing in any of my blogs this week.
Last Friday, while at work (in the hospital) Chris started to get some chest pain or rather a strong pressure in the left side of his chest. He also felt dizzy and disoriented. This has happened before. Back in 2004 Chris was getting the same kind of symptoms and by the time he made it to the ER triage desk he passed out right at the nurse’s feet! At that time they admitted him and did several tests to see if he had a rare heart arrhythmia called Brugada.
The symtoms and his ECG that he had in 2004 and has had occasionally since that time – including last Friday, all point to the heart arrhythmia, but the doctors couldn’t induce a heart arrhythmia when they did a special test called EP studies.
So back to last Friday … Chris had heart related symptoms and made his way to the ER. He was admitted after seeing one of our best cardiologists. As it turns out his cholesterol was high – both the good and bad cholesterol and his triglycerides were extremely low. So they decided to do an Angiogram on Monday to check to see if he had any blocked coronary arteries. So even though Chris was pretty much symptom free after the one incident on Friday afternoon he had to stay in the hospital until the angiogram was done.
As it turned out his coronary arteries were perfectly clear and the test showed no heart abnormalities. So we’re back to square one – he still has these weird episodes, but we don’t know for sure if it’s his heart that’s causing them … even though he has permanent electrocardiogram changes.
Luckily the hospital is close by as I spent Friday through Monday walking back and forth from home to hospital to visit with him. I also brought him one of our nice pillows from home (it’s a dense foam and it’s really heavy), all the things he might need (toiletries, undershirts, underwear, socks and reading materials) and my LAPTOP! Ahhh! Man I missed that thing. I live on my laptop, but even though Chris couldn’t get on the internet at the hospital he could at least watch the DVDs that I brought him and play some games etc.
I exhausted myself by carrying all that stuff back and forth and of course all that walking back and forth. Given that I’m not all that healthy myself what with my Crohn’s, vitamin D deficiency and worsening back pain, it took me most of the rest of the week, once he was home, to recover and kind of feel up to writing in my blogs again.
We did score a few things from the hospital. When I brought him a pillow from our bed he decided to take the cover off and use the hospital pillow covers. Since the pillow was too big he had to use two pillow covers to cover it. I was too tired when Chris was discharged from the hospital on Monday evening to remove the covers so we have them at home. (We’ll return them of course, Chris will be back to work on Tuesday and he can bring them in then.)
We also managed to get some promotional pens from the hospital. That was actually a catch, since there’s never a pen around at the hospital when you need one. As you might know I’m an ER nurse (on medical leave) and I had to have a stock of pens to bring with me to work and I had to guard them with my life as they would be “stolen” if I left one on a counter … so to actually get “hospital pens” is a rarity! LOL
So … that’s my long story as to why I haven’t been blogging this week. Chris is dong fine. He’s currently vacuuming for me! Baring any new symptoms he should be ready to go back to work on Tuesday. His groin is healed from where they did the angiogram and he’s on Cholesterol lowering medication (Crestor). I’m doing better too. Man is is ever stressful having your husband in the hospital – especially when you don’t feel all that well yourself!
I hope that you’re week has been better than mine and if you are in the North East that you are able to enjoy this slightly warm spell that we’ve been having. Our snow is all melting away and I expect by the end of the week, if the above freezing temps keep up, that our snow will pretty much be gone. Probably just in time for a new snow storm to sweep in! LOL
BTW there will be no Green Thumb Sunday post this week. I’m just getting back on track, so I’ll leave Green Thumb until next week.
