I am Back!
It has been a long and winding road, filled with potholes and other debris, but I am now once more back among the somewhat healthy. To say that this has been an experience straight from Hell is putting it mildly. What began November 5th as slight problem breathing, quickly escalated to an asthmatic bronchial shut down which kept me in full respiratory distress for a thirteen hour period. Three days later as I am sitting on my antiseptically clean hospital room, which was technically called a cardiac monitoring unit, as all patients wore a small heart, lungs, etc., monitor which constantly transmitted readings to a processing unit. I was just about to take a bit out of a lunch time turkey sandwich when my chest begins to flutter. Oh great, I, muttered, this was not going to be a good thing, it never is and I was correct on that assumption. Things were all acting a bit strange, the chest fluttering, my throat was on fire and I see two nurses walking into my room in slow motion. I knew that was not among the normal things in life, so I was not really shocked when I saw my Doctor following them pushing the cardiac crash cart. Perhaps it was the slow motion nurses or the sight of my Doctor pushing that cart, after all, has anyone actually seen one of the heart needles they use? My frail and still recovering body shudders even thinking about them, but I recovered and it turned out I was now in Ventricular Fibrillation, which according to Merck Manuals, is not a good thing. Here is a small excerpt, "Ventricular fibrillation is a potentially fatal, uncoordinated series of very rapid, ineffective contractions of the ventricles caused by many chaotic electrical impulses." Here is the full link in case anyone is interested in further reading. My cardiologist wanted to try a few days of medication specifically designed to correct an abnormal beat. After four days, it was evident that was not going to work out, so they wheeled me up to the heart lab, knocked me out for a few hours and stopped my heart. This was the normal cure and once started it took on its familiar old beat. The major problem with spending ten days in the hospital, with the severe medical problems that I was undergoing was my muscles were not being used. In fact, they had all atrophied as we quickly discovered when I attempted to take a walk under nursing supervision and quickly fell upon my butt. Now I was off to a rehabilitation center where they would access my medical problem situation and design an exercise routine to meet my needs as well as getting my body working once more. I learned quickly that when a physician tells you that you are going to a rehab center, (nursing home) and you inquire how long it will take, they are going to look you in the eyes and lie. Yes they are, they will tell you, "Oh, just a few days, just enough to get you walking once more." That translated to four and one half weeks of extended therapy, but I was now all better and went back home, or so I thought. I will finish this in a few days with the allergic reaction from hell. Yes, I was allergic to myself. I had so much fun.
