The Whole Long Hospital Story

As everyone knows, I thought the reason I was having trouble breathing was because I was smoking too much. I really enjoyed smoking, so it just goes to show how bad my breathing was that I quit smoking last week. It was so bad at that point that I knew I wouldn't even MISS smoking because I really, really, really was missing BREATHING. It seemed obvious to me, with my imaginary Harvard Medical Degree, that after I quit smoking, the breathing would begin to happen. The breathing? It didn't begin to happen. When I woke up Sunday, I felt worse than ever. I tried to not think about how bad I felt by doing fun stuff like rearranging the crap under the TV. You know, cable box, old VCR, XBox, Playstation, dust. I actually thought at one point, "It is PROBABLY not a good idea to be around this dust." So I tried not to breathe too much of it, which was easy, since I couldn't really breathe very well to begin with.

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My daughter and I planned to eat at Macaroni Grill for dinner and as much as I was looking forward to the Chicken Scaloppine, I couldn't seem to muster up much energy for my shower. I FINALLY dragged myself in there. Then it seemed the simple acts of getting ready, putting on makeup, and fixing my hair were just really really tiresome. I somehow managed everything and we took off. I remember sitting at the table and thinking about how boring I was being, but I just did not have any energy. We got home, Kate stayed for a little bit, I did my usual internet stuff, then went to bed around 3:00.

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I spent the first part of trying to sleep deciding that I was going to call my doctor first thing in the morning because I was really missing the breathing. I rolled around and around and kept trying to breathe and trying to cough. Slowly the idea of just going to that hospital across the highway started to seem like a good idea. Then I tried to talk myself into driving over there. No go. What should I wear? Where should I hide my jewelry in case my house gets robbed while I'm gone? I was kinda delirious I guess from lack of Oxygen. And it was POURING rain. Finally I got up and checked the internet for a cab. As saturated as the population is here, this is NOT a cab kinda place. Texans like their cars. I finally found a place, called and of course got a foreigner. He said he would be here in 15 or 20 minutes, so I ran around and got dressed, hid my jewelry, stuffed my pocket with cash, found some weird jacket that I knew I could hold over me and went to wait in the garage. I called My Sweetie in Vegas to tell him what I was doing and then tried to call my daughter. I knew that was pointless, because the girl does not wake up easily. The cab guy called and said it would still be another 15 or 20 minutes. So sometime after 4:30 a.m., I'm sitting in my fully lit garage with the garage door open, and I finally see headlights coming up the hill. They stop. Damn! Then the phone rings. Foreign voice, "I am outside your house." Me, "Uhm, no. I'm sitting IN A FULLY LIT GARAGE WITH THE GARAGE DOOR OPEN looking at your headlights 3 houses down." He pulls up. I run out. I say, "I'm going to that hospital straight across airport freeway at 121." He doesn't know where it is. It's RIGHT THERE. So I had to give him every little direction.

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I had a picture in my mind of what the emergency room would be like. I thought there would be 50 people in various forms of agony sitting around in a horrible brightly lit waiting room. At just after 5:00 a.m., I walked into a dimly lit quiet place and was handed a clipboard with a little piece of paper that basically asked my name and my reason for being there. I wrote down my name and "CAN'T BREATHE." Then I asked them where I could wait as I handed it back. She said, "Come with me." They weighed me and we all had a good laugh because they weighed me in kilos and I did not realize that. Then they took me right to a room, stuck an oximeter on my finger and promptly began freaking out. From what I could gather, if the number is 92 or lower they will give you oxygen. Mine was 84. I was very low on oxygen in my blood. Probably from the not breathing. I was so tired, I barely noticed when they put the IV needle in my arm. Then they kept coming at me with these breathing machine tube things. They did not like the reading after the first one and gave me another one right away. Altogether I had 5 of those before they took me upstairs to a room.

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It was now 9:00 and the quiet of the private room after the hustle and bustle of the ER was SO nice. Yeah although there was nothing going on when I first got to the ER, the Pace, it picked up. So I was glad to get out of there. Oh, I forgot some stuff. I had a chest x-ray while I was down there. And two different people took blood. One guy took five bottles. I think. I don't remember much about the first couple of hours in the private room, but whenever I was somewhat lucid, I would try to call my daughter again. Oh and My Sweetie called to tell me he was catching a plane home and would be there about 4:30. I finally got my daughter a little after noon, which wasn't good because I knew she had to be at work at 2:00. I needed her to get my garage remote to feed the cats and bring me some stuff. Well she took a half day from work and didn't have to be there until 7:00 p.m. so that was nice.

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Basically my day so far had been doze for a few minutes, have someone wake me up to do something, doze, repeat, repeat, repeat. I was so happy to see Kate at around 1:30. She hung around for a little bit and then made a list of stuff I wanted/needed. I was REALLY happy when she got back. And she brought my Snoopy! She tried to read to me from my Norse Mythology book and couldn't pronounce any of the weird words so we laughed about that. She was a real trooper and stayed until My Sweetie got there. She was quite the uhm, well interrogator with every single person that entered the room, "Why are you doing that? What does THAT do?" and so on. Once when someone was drawing blood, she was making all sorts of comments and then said to me, "I'm glad you're not looking AT THAT." I said, "Oh, I NEVER look." I think they were all happy when she left. She's my little bulldog.

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My Sweetie showed up and was all out of sorts. He came straight from the airport from Vegas. And was very worried about me. I tried to fill him in on everything and we realized I had not heard back about the chest x-rays. Every person I asked told me to ask my nurse. When the nurse was all "I wouldn't know..." I said. "Then why did everyone else that works here tell me to ask you?" I was getting a little bit irked. She came back about an hour later and told me my chest x-ray was clear. I was SO relieved. I was terrified I might have lung cancer. Hell, I FELT like I had lung cancer. I sent him home to check the cats and to get MORE stuff that I wanted, like MY pillow. Then I sent him home again to relax for a bit and eat. Then he came back to watch Leno with me. Except he slept the whole time. I sent him home.

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I knew the next breathing thing would be at 1:00 am, so I decided to stay awake for it. I watched bits and peices of all the late night shows and even stood next to the bed and did some leg stretches and plies. I figured that after the breathing medicine I would be exhausted and have a nice LONG sleep. At 1:06, a lady walks in and says, "Mrs. Geewits! You are still here? Do you remember me? I gave you 5 of these last night in the ER?" I said, "Last night? It's still all the same day to me. But it's nice to see you again." At 1:30, it was all over. I looked at the clock and thought, "Aaaahhhh. NOW I will sleep."

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At 2:35, my IV alarm went off. It was loud. It woke me up. I wasn't happy. My very efficient, but not so friendly nurse had that bad boy changed out in like 3 minutes. Yay! back to sleep. 3:05, a guy walks in and says he needs to draw blood. I said, "What's it for?" He said, "It's routine." I said, "Routine as in part of the hospital experience is to be awakened at 3:00 a.m. to have blood taken? Then you just throw it away?" He didn't like that. So I just grabbed my Snoopy and said, "Okay." NOW, I was thinking, I will get that sleep. I dozed off. The door opens, the PCT says, "Your heart monitor stopped transmitting and they need me to change the battery and check the leads." I said, "Maybe I don't breathe when I'm sleeping." So she poked me all over checking the leads and changed the battery. I closed my eyes. The door opened. She says, "They're still not reading it." Poked, left came back, changed the battery again. I closed my eyes. The door opened, a guy and the PCT came in. She said something like "He's from mission control." or something because I really, really needed some sleep and was having a hard time paying attention. Anyway he did something to the box, called his home planet and everything was fine and they FINALLY left. I don't know what time that was, but when I woke up again at 6:30 ALL BY MYSELF, although I felt like I had swallowed several razor blades, I actually felt almost good, like I had had some actual sleep.

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The nurse came in about 10 minutes later and then I thought, "Hell, 'The Today Show' comes on in 10 minutes, I'll just stay awake for that." I dozed off for a bit, then at 8:00, the respiratory therapist came in. She was saying all sorts of stuff that I didn't understand but I did catch that THIS particular round would take 24 minutes. I said, "It's 8:00. Don't they serve breakfast between 8:00 and 8:30?" She casually glanced at the clock and said, "I think so." So all I could come up with was, "Well I guess I'll be eating cold eggs." I started the breathing thing, she left, and five minutes later, in came my breakfast. I got to look at it for a good 15 minutes. I ate my breakfast and became a crazy clock watcher. I knew the doctor would be by between 9:30 and 10:30 and all I wanted to do was GO HOME. Then the nurse came in and gave me a shot IN MY STOMACH. I was all, "What the hay? I'm going home!" She knew that but it was something, oh yeah, a diuretic to get the rest of the fluid from my lungs. Man that shot hurt WAY more than the other ones (I'd had one in my shoulder and one in my "love handles"). My Sweetie got there around 9:20 and we took turns watching the clock and dozing. The doctor finally came in, YAY! She said, "I notice you are kind of shaky. I take it you haven't had any alcohol since you've been here?" I said, "No." She said, "Well we can keep you here to monitor you and give you some Librium." I said, "I did NOT come here to stop drinking beer. I came here because I couldn't breathe. I want to go home."

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I got my VERY BEST sleep then, because I was waiting for something and everyone knows I have Waiting Narcolepsy. I was so happy when I signed my last paper and packed my last thing and had my clothes on. I was REALLY HAPPY when I got in the car and was HAPPIER STILL, when I got back into my house. I slept so well last night without the IV and the oxygen tubes and being able to roll over on my sides. But I love all of those guys because I'm starting to breathe again.