As funny as a heart attack

On Saturday I was sitting around trying to work up the motivation to do some housework when I noticed an odd sensation in my chest.  It was like painful pressure and a kind of tightness.  A few moments later I started to have pain radiating up my neck into my jaw and across my left shoulder and down my arm.  "Be reasonable" I told myself.  "You are too young to be having a heart attack. This will go away soon."

But then it didn't go away.  So even though I felt stupid about it I went to Jesse and suggested that perhaps we take a little drive to the ER.  You know, for funsies.  Jesse was very concerned and as soon as he finished his fantasy football trade he drove me to the hospital.

Turns out a good way to be seen really quickly in the ER is to walk in and use the phrases "chest pain" and "going down my left arm".  It also helps to be naturally pale so that the intake nurse is able to remark on how pale you look but then when you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror you wonder what she was talking about because you don't look any paler than usual and then you think about it for a minute and you feel a little sad.

I was given some aspirin to chew and then I got an EKG.  When that came back ok I had a chest x-ray to be sure my lung had not collapsed AGAIN.  It hadn't but the pain persisted.  I then had a scan using contrast dye.  When the dye was injected I panicked because I thought I peed my pants.  As I was lying there wondering how I was going to hide that the scan technician said "Oh, by the way, the dye may make you feel like you peed your pants."  Thanks for mentioning that after I had already formulated an elaborate plan to start a small fire in the lab to distract everyone from the puddle I left.  The scan looked good.

Since all my test results were normal but I was still having the pain the ER doctor decided to admit me overnight for observation.  "Crap!' was my general reaction.  I didn't even know doctors did that in real life.  It seems like a plot point on tv shows, not something that doctors really do.

I was given a room with a roommate who was deaf and kept screaming the same three questions at me over and over.  She had a stack of magazines that she kept ripping articles out of.  She had some kind of super sonic ripping powers or something because all evening long I could hear her rip, rip, RIPPING pages even though I had my headphones in as I caught up on missed episodes of the Amazing Race.

I pretty much got no sleep at night because nurses kept coming in to check on me and draw my blood and give me EKGs.  At one point my chest was really hurting and I got a nitro glycerin pill.  That didn't help.  In fact it made me feel like I was being dipped in cement.  Cement that was on fire.  Not pleasant.  The fact that it didn't work was actually good thing since it proved once and for all that whatever was going on with me was not cardiac.

After a long visit with a doctor in the morning she told me that was she suspected is that I had had an esophageal spasm.  She also thought I was having some bad heartburn.  At first I thought that was silly but then I realized that I actually have been having heartburn ever since I was about three months pregnant with the twins.  It's just that it got so much better after they were born that I've kind of learned to live with it and not notice it most of the time.  The doctor thought that I might have some irritation or damage from the pregnancy heartburn that never really healed.

So, long story short (or not short at all I guess) I was sent home with a acid blocker that I have to take for the next three months.  I didn't have a heart attack.  I feel like a giant idiot for running to the ER for what basically amounts to indigestion.  Sorry this is such a boring story.  There's really nothing interesting about a heart attack that isn't actually a heart attack.

For real fun and laughs tune in tomorrow when I have an actual heart attack as I try to figure out how in the heck we're going to pay the bill for the world's most expensive heartburn.

Three years ago today I met my best friend.
Four years ago today I got ready for my first surrogacy.

Will poop for painkillers

When I was a kid I knew that telling my mom that there was something wrong with me was always going to get the same reaction from from her. It didn't matter what the complaint was - stomach ache, headache, nosebleed, ear infection - the response was static. She would lean in close, get a serious look on her face and in a low voice ask "Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

I don't why this was her go-to question. Maybe it's something she heard as a kid*. Maybe she once had an ear infection caused by constipation and she was worried that someday the same thing would happen to me. All I know is that I was asked this same question well beyond the age when anyone should have been asking me that. When I was in middle school I brought home a note from the school nurse stating that I had scoliosis and needed to be seen by a doctor. My mother read that note, eyed me suspiciously and then said "Do you need to go to the ba-"

"No!" I cut her off. "I've pretty much got a handle on this toileting thing now and anyway I'm pretty sure no one has ever been so plugged up that it caused their spine to curve."

Once I grew up and got married I figured I would never again be asked about my bowel movements. Especially since I married a man that thought I never pooped. Once, few months into our marriage I went into the bathroom to do what you do in the bathroom and I guess I was in there a little too long. After a couple of minutes Jesse came knocking on the door to see if I was all right. I wish I was exaggerating. I don't know if her knew before that day that everybody poops.

When I recently went to the ER because my post-op pain was so bad I got an x-ray to check and make sure nothing was amiss internally. The doctor reviewed it and then came to talk to me. "Well" he said with a very serious look on his face "There's some stool visible in the x-ray."

I considered pointing out to him that wasn't possible since I was laying on a table when they took the x-ray and not sitting on a stool. Before the words could make their way out of my mouth though I realized he was talking about the other kind of stool. (Is there a grosser euphemism for "poop" than "stool"? I think not.) "We'll give you more painkillers" he promised "but first we're going to give you an enema."

I felt like I was a kid again. Was my mother working in the ER? Certainly they were not suggesting that I was in the much pain because I had to poop. They couldn't think I was that out of touch my body, right? I mean, I knew that the pain I was feeling was less a "I have to poop" pain and more of a "someone made four incisions into my body and cut part of me out" pain. But the lure of more painkillers made me agree to the enema.

A little while later a woman in lime green scrubs and cat's eye glasses wandered into the room. She had the device in her hands. "Roll on your side" she said brightly "and we'll get this thing going!"

I'll spare you the details of what happened next. I will tell you though that at one point she patted my shoulder and said "You're doing just great!" I thought about saying that my ability to get an enema was one of the first things my husband liked about me when we met but then I worried that she would think I was serious and then she might think weird things about me and I didn't really feel like taking the time to explain that it was all just a joke. After she was done she left with the instructions to hold it as long as I could but to roll from side to side as much as I could. Since rolling back and forth hurt so much Jesse came and stood by my bed to help me. He helped me roll my bloated, sloshing body to one side and then would count down the seconds until it was time to roll back the other way. That man must really love me.

Fifteen minutes later I shuffled across the hall into the bathroom to do what you do when you have an enema. Jesse wanted to come in with me but I believe that the secret to a good marriage is a little mystery so I made him wait in the hall. When all was said and done I didn't feel any better. In fact I felt much worse but at least then I got another shot of painkiller.

After the enema failed to make me feel any better the doctor threw up his hands and said "You shouldn't be having this much pain! You might as well go home because there's nothing else we can do for you!" (Yes, that's really what he said.) The hospital's mission statement is "We improve the health and quality of life for the people we serve in a manner that reflects the healing mission of Jesus." I think they should change it to "Jesus! That's a lot of stool you've got there! We'll help you poop it out but if that doesn't work then we're fresh out of ideas."

I left the hospital that day a little wiser, a little emptier and a lot more certain that if I ever again have to go the ER, I'm going to poop at home first.

*I'm betting this is the cause. There seems to be a family history of poop fascination. When I was a kid I loved to look through my grandma's recipe box. Stuck right there in the middle of recipes for Glorified Rice and Jell-O Salad was a recipe marked "diarrhea". Every time I would find it I would laugh and laugh and laugh. My grandma would always get mad and yell "It's not a recipe for diarrhea! It's a cure for it!" but I wouldn't care because when you're ten years old there's nothing funnier than finding the word "diarrhea" in an old lady's recipe box.

Beat

I am exhausted and writing this on very little sleep so you'll have to excuse me if it's a lacking in my usual coherence and wit. Or whatever.

Last night Joseph was breathing kind of funny. He was just laying on the couch and panting. He told us he couldn't take a deep breath. He's had a little bit of a cold so I figured it had something to do with that but I asked Jesse to run him in to the ER just to be on the safe side. I thought maybe they would give him a nebulizer treatment and then send him home.

Yeah, not so much. Turns out the poor little guy has pneumonia and his left lung wasn't really functioning at all. My parents came over to watch Elle and I drove to the hospital while Joseph was getting admitted to the pediatric ICU.

You know, I know that he was ok and in good hands but when I walked into that room and saw him laying on that big bed looking so sick and so fragile my heart just about stopped.

The good news is that Joseph is doing a ton better right now. He's been moved to the regular pediatric unit and is feeling really good. He has spent all day saying things like "I love this place!" and "They treat me like a king here!" and "This place is like heaven to me!" and "Why don't you have a tv and x-box on a cart at home so that you can wheel into my room for me?"

The bad news is that he'll have to stay for at least one more night. He can't go home until he's been off oxygen for 24 hours and right now he's still on it. That means he'll miss the first day of school (tomorrow) and then some. And that works out perfectly! You know, what with us pulling him out of school next week anyway so that we can go on vacation.

Oh well. The important thing is that my boy is ok. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets to come home tomorrow. For now though my mom and Jesse are each going to spend a couple of hours with Joseph so that I can get a little sleep before heading back for the night.

Last night I twittered that Joseph was going to the ER and I got so many kind and thoughtful responses. Thank you to each and everyone of you who twittered back. Your kind words meant the world to me. Twitter, healing the world in 140 characters or less.

Advice my mother never gave me

When you were a kid did your mother ever say to you "Always wear clean underwear in case you get into an accident."? Mine never did.

That's why yesterday when I got dressed I thought nothing of putting on my oldest, rattiest pair of underwear.

It's funny then isn't it, that as I climbed into the ambulance last night after our car was rear-ended at a stop light my first thought was "Oh no! Everyone is going to see my grundgy underwear!"

Long story short, everyone is ok. Jesse is ok, the kids are ok, the baby is ok, the car is ok, the 21 year old that hit us probably learned a valuable lesson about not paying so much attention to your car radio when you're pulling up to a stoplight, I have a pinched nerve in my lower back that a couple of days of rest and painkillers should take care of and despite being seen on the labor and delivery floor and the emergancy room, not s single person saw my ratty underwear. And now they're in the trash.

Good times, good times

You know what's fun? Spending the day watching 3 kids under the age of 3. You know what's even more fun than that? Being 2 minutes into your day of babysitting and finding yourself up to your elbows in a poopy diaper with a baby screaming at you in the background and a kind of urgent sounding message being left on your answering machine. You know what's even more fun than all that? Listening to that message (after you've gotten the kids cleaned up and calmed down) and hearing the voice of the school nurse telling you to come and take your kid into the ER because they got their head cut open during a freak accident on the playground.

Thank goodness for mothers. I called mine up, she came over to watch the babies and I drove to the school to get Joseph. He had a small cut on his head that just wouldn't stop bleeding. I guess he was standing next to a little girl on the playground when she started to twirl a jumprope around. The handle swung around and hit Joseph right on the head. You know, a tiny little cut on the head can bleed a lot. The poor kid had blood on his jacket, his shirt, even on his jeans.

I took Joseph to the emergency room and 5 hours later we left with one teeny, tiny little stitch. He was so brave. I was so proud of my boy. First off, I was so proud of the way he handled the 3 hours that we had to spend in the waiting area before we even got a room. He was so good that two ladies sitting near us came over to tell me what a great kid he was. One of them even bought him a snack from the vending machine. (This made Joseph comment that from now on he's always going to be good in public so that more people will buy him treats.) Second, I was amazed at how brave he was when he got the stitch. He whimpered a little bit but he laid very still. I think he handled it better than I did. I had to look away and concentrate very hard on not passing out.

So we go home and the kids I was supposed to have been watching have been picked up. My mom leaves. End of story? No. Two hours later I'm lying on the couch, moaning in pain and breaking out into a cold sweat.

Out of nowhere I developed this massive pain in my lower right abdomen. I couldn't stand up straight or even move without making it much worse. Jesse insisted that I go the the ER. Like hell! I just spent 5 hours in that place. I was determined that I was not going in. I'll admit that I also had a fear that the pain was being caused by gas and if I went in to the ER they would take one look at me and tell me to go home and fart.

20 minutes later I'm sprawled out on the kitchen floor and crying. My mom came back over and Jesse and I went back to the fricken ER.

Long story short: I got some lovely painkillers that made me warm and happy. And a little nauseas. An unltrasound revealed that the pain didn't appear to have anything to do with the baby. We got a really neat picture of the bottom of the baby's feet. (That kid has got a massive big toe.) We found out that the baby is growing fantasticly and is actually measuring a week ahead of it's due date. A doctor with the beadside manner of an oyster told me "It's too early in your pregnancy to monitor you to see if the pain you're feeling is contractions. Even if it is contractions it's too soon to do anything about it so if you're going to lose the baby, there's nothing we can do about it." Gee doc, thanks. I beg my very nice nurse for another shot of painkillers and he gets it for me. I go home a little after 2 AM and sleep.

Today I feel just fine. No pain at all. I'm chalking it up to the fact that sometimes bodies do strange things and sometimes pregnant bodies do even stranger things. I was told to follow up with my own doc this week but he's out of town until Monday. I have an appointment with him that day anyway so I'm not going to go in and see anyone else in the meantime. I think the instructions to see my regualr doctor were kind of pass the buck tactic on thepart of the ER doctor. He couldn't find anything wrong with me (probably because it was just gas) and he decided to be all "Well, I think what's going on is .... Hey! Look over there! It's a monkey!"

Whatever. It's all good. I'm fine, Joseph is fine. That's what's important.

I'm beat

I was at the emergency room until 2:30 AM last night and now I am just beat. I went shopping with my mom last night and right before we went back home I went to the bathroom and discovered that I was bleeding. Only this time, instead of the brown blood I had been seeing there was bright red blood. Eek! I went home and called the stupid fracken nurse line and they told me to go to the ER right away.

My mom came back to the house and took me to the ER (and then stayed for a long time because she is wonderful and lovely and I don't mention that often enough) and they brought me into a room right away.

One ultrasound, one bloodtest, one urine test (urine collected via cathater, ugh) one internal exam, two bags of IV fluids, two pain killers, two containters of cranberry juice and several hours later they gave me my diagnosis. The doctor says I have a subhemochromialsomethingorother hemmorage on my uterine lining. It's not as bad as it sounds. There's just a small spot on my uterine lining that's bleeding. The good news is that this is something fairly common and that in my case the spot is very small. I have to stay off my feet today and follow up with a regular OBGYN (getting an appointment has proved to be a real pain in the ass so far) to see what the have to say. Hopefully this bleed is so small that just a day or two off my feet will allow it to heal.

I was really scared when I saw that bright red blood but I'm feeling a lot better now. It helps just knowing what's going on. And all things considered this is a really minor bump in the road. I tried to get ahold of the guys last night but they didn't answer their phones and I didn't want to leave them cryptic, scary sounding messages. I'll call them again today now that I know more.

Funniest thing about the whole ER visit was that I ended up talking for a long time to one of the nurses. She told me she had always wanted to do a surrogacy but that she had never known where to get started. I told her all about my agency and about how the transfer itself works and about a bunch of other stuff. She asked me for my agencys name and phone number and then for my name and number too. I was thrilled to give it to her. I hope she calls my agency. They just stated a referal program and I could get $500 if she ends up working with them! Even if she doesn't though, it was still really neat to talk to someone who was so interested in the whole process.

Anyway, I'm going to go now and continue to try to make a flippin' appointment with an OBGYN. Then I'm going back to bed to rest and relax and take it very easy.

A helpful hint

Here's my hint for you if you find yourself having to go to the emergancy room for a migraine headache: Try to be a pregnant woman.

It's the best advice I can give. Let's compare shall we? In a normal situation you might go to the emergency room and have to wait an hour for a room even if there's only one other person in the waiting room. After you get your room you'll be left alone for two hours until you are finally forced to buzz the nurse and ask if anyone is going to see you. After they let you know they've forgotten you they might send in someone who seems to think you're wasting their time. They will promise to go talk to a doctor. You'll never see the doctor unless he comes in to question why you're even there in the first place and to snottily suggest that you're problem's really not as bad as you think it is. After a few hours more you might get some medication and you better hope and pray that works because if you ask for more then you start to get the look. (The look implies that you're really a junkie and going through all this just to get an extra drop of morphine. This is fun.) After many, many hours you might have gotten a little relief or you might have just given up and wandered out.

Now compare this to what happens when you go into the emergency room when you're eight months pregnant. The triage nurse calls you almost right away to check you out. When she notices your belly she says that they're sending you upstairs "just to be on the safe side". Even when you explain that you're only there for a migraine she insists that you go. She asks if you'fe been having any contractions. You say you have because you're 8 months pregnant. When you go on to explain that you've been having bad back pains the nurse gets a strange smile on her face and cannot rush you upstairs fast enough.

Once upstairs you get a private, big room and attentive nurses. Your belly gets two monitors strapped to it so you get to hear the baby's heartbeat (and hiccups!) and see your contractions on a little print out. (That part is kind of cool.) The nurse immediatly gets your own doctor on the phone and they figure out a plan. Within an hour of getting there you have had pain meds and something to help with your naseau and the nurse has brought you something to eat. You get more pain meds when you ask and then you even get enough to get the baby to go to sleep and as an added bonus the contractions stop. If you buzz for the nurse someone comes in almost right away and doesn't make you feel like you're bothering them. When you're still having some pain they call your doctor again and then (here's the really amazing part) they discuss your options with you! You're sent home with more pain meds, a pill to help you sleep and a back-up plan in case this doesn't work. It's amazing. Then you get to sleep for about 16 hours and then you feel a lot better.

So yes, if you can do it I suggest only going to the emergancy room when you're in the proccess of being a woman who's 8 months pregnant.