A rather interesting summer…
I always used to love that time in the first few weeks of school where you had to write an essay on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”…Well, I don’t actually get a summer vacation these days, but I certainly had a very exciting summer!
Now this is going to be a long entry (sort of like that essay, but please don’t grade me on this one). Given the subject matter, I think I’ll forgo including a photo. You’ll understand shortly, and will hopefully forgive me for that – NO ONE looks good in a hospital gown. Well, maybe when you've just had your baby...but that is because the cuteness factor of the baby rubs off on you a bit.
As the 2008-2009 academic year opened, I was not there to welcome all of our new students to campus. I was also not there for the fun New Student Orientation event this summer. While our students were enjoying orientation, I was cooling my heels in the local hospital.
When driving home from work on July 3rd, I began experiencing excruciating chest pain. I managed to successfully get myself to the urgent care clinic just a mile from my house. I had chest x-rays, an EKG and it all seemed to show nothing remarkable, but the doctor was very concerned and STRONGLY suggested that I get to the ER immediately. We ran home, grabbed some clothes (as he indicated that he felt it would be likely they would keep me for observation), and headed off to the hospital.
Now I’ve never been a fan of the emergency room (are there any such sick and twisted people?), but I will say that when you enter the ER with severe chest pain, there is not much of a wait! They got me into a curtained area, and quickly had me all hooked up to about a million machines and monitors as well as an IV. The IV part is tricky as it seems I have no actual veins to speak of. Seriously. Nurses who do nothing but IVs and blood draws have occasionally been driven to tears working on me over the years. After sending me down the hall for the pleasant experience of at CT scan with the dye injected through my IV, I just had to wait to see what the verdict would be.
A few nervous hours later, I heard the doctor speaking to the head ER nurse from the desk just outside my ‘room’, advising her which patients would be likely to go home and which would be admitted. “13 is probably heading home…just waiting on her CT results”. Yes, I would be “13”. I am happy to hear that I may be going home, but also think to myself that it is really sort of a bad idea to have a patient area “13” in an emergency room. I mean, I’m not ridiculously superstitious, but I figure others are. And a lot of taller buildings don’t even have 13th floors, so certainly the HOSPITAL should respect the nerves of superstitious patients. OK, so since I’ve spent time discussing this, I suppose I should really confess that I CAN be superstitious…it is a horse person thing I guess. Just don’t ever put a hat on a bed around me, or look at me weird when I won’t take the salt shaker you are passing to me directly from your hand, but wait on you to put it down instead. And you will NEVER see me eating peanuts at a horse show! My husband met my (very superstitious) father for the first time at our World’s Championship Horse Show…with a bag of peanut M&Ms in his hand! Dad’s reaction was not particularly positive, but I finally convinced Tom that it was not him…it was the PEANUTS! But I digress…
So when my nurse comes in next, I share my thought that they really ought to do away with “Curtain 13” in their ER. She does not seem amused. With the help of painkillers and whatever else they shot me up with, I find my suggestion highly insightful and hysterically funny. Oh well. At least I was finally laughing.
A little later I hear my doc on the phone with what I assume to be the radiologist. “Really? Three of them? Wow…I guess she is a very lucky young lady. I’ll go tell her now…”, I hear him say to the other end of the line. Seconds later, he walks into my room. “Mrs. O’Donnell…do you play the lottery?” he asks me. “No,” I answer. “Well, maybe you should. You’re a VERY lucky lady,” he says. After a dramatic pause, he informs me that I am not going to be able to go home that night or probably for several days. It seems that my CT scan shows that I am the proud owner of three rather impressive blood clots in my lungs.
Although I can recall in extremely vivid detail the next few minutes of the conversation, I’ll spare you all the drama and medical jargon. In a nutshell, the three relatively large clots have blown through my heart and lodged in my lungs. I am lucky to have survived. They will do more tests, including looking carefully at my heart, to determine if there is any damage. They’ll also check to see if I have any more clots hiding anywhere.
He also tells me that I’ll be starting immediately on some medication to quickly thin my blood to prevent future clots. The nurse comes in, but I notice she doesn’t have that cute little ketchup cup with a pill in it. She has a syringe and a needle. Before I know it, she’s rubbing alcohol on my stomach. “So where does that needle go?” I ask, horrified as I realize that I already know the answer. “Yep, in your stomach. Twice a day.” She doesn’t seem concerned in the least. I am not happy. After she administers the shot, she does soften a good bit. “You are so young for this. And lucky. I know this is a lot, but just trust me that you are lucky to be here, and focus on that right now. A lot of people aren’t as lucky,” she advises.
I’m sort of the type to believe that you really only get a few major miracles in your life. My daughter is one…this looks like another. My remaining supply must surely be running low.
So the week in the hospital in the PICU (progressive intensive care unit - I know - I had never heard of it either) was not fun. There were a few highlights - the cute EMT that the nurses called in from the hallway when they could not redo my IV after several attempts, the fact that I am the youngest patient (BY FAR!) on the unit. A particularly funny thing was my daughter enjoying playing “Connect the Bruises” on my stomach from my shots. I had great hopes those would get easier, but I’m sad to say they didn’t. But they worked, and that was the important part. They found no damage to my heart (think I probably should count that as a separate miracle, but prefer to count all of this as just one so that I don’t use up any more of my supply). Scans showed no other clots anywhere waiting to break loose and create more havoc. I had lots of visits from family, good friends and my colleagues at SLU. They brought flowers and had such nice things to say. It’s funny, I remember thinking that it was kind of like a funeral that I actually got to be there to enjoy! A morbid thought perhaps, but perhaps it was the fact that all of my docs, nurses and CNAs kept reminding me how lucky I was to be alive. Trust me…when someone tells you ‘You should have died’…you really only need to hear it once. Message delivered – I’ve got it. Move on.
So I am on medical leave at the moment, but hope to be back at SLU soon. In the meantime, I am focusing on getting well, enjoying the little things in life, and being thankful for so many things.
I can’t wait to get back on campus to catch up with everyone and to meet the amazing new students that are joining our community. This year may have its challenges, but I know it is going to be a great one!