Post script to hospital

Having spent about 5 hours dazed and very tired being poked to find a vein for blood, or listened to electronically by many gadgets, and then X-rayed and CT Scanned...I was mainly grateful to finally get a room in the hospital.  But that didn't mean I'd necessarily get any rest.

Finally I did sleep, most of the Monday following my midnight trip to the Emergency Room.  And finally I recovered from the use of morphine which did not one whit to lessen my pain with each inhalation (the symptom which prompted my 911 call.)  Two different vials of morphine were plunged into me, and I began swimming underwater, and the pain was also swimming there with me.  The morphine then gave me 3-4 hours of dry heaves.

The pain on inhaling might have been related to pluerisy, except I had clear lungs.  Continually my lungs were ok, and my heart was ok.  Many strips of ekg papers were studied.  My blood pressure was sometimes high.  I did take aspirin before calling 911, and they gave me some nitro under my tongue on the way to the hospital.

Sometime before dawn I either just was so exhausted so I no longer felt the pain or something must have been given in the IV solution that worked.

I only wanted to share this ordeal, which led to three days in the hospital, as a motivation to be more cautious about chest pain.

Pneumonia has been treated.  Never had a fever, but the Dr. said the CT scan showed that was what I had.  I've had at least 3 antibiotics by now.

The most effective relief came from Tylenol at the beginning of the day, or when I was really tired.  I continued to cough throughout my stay, and the staff finally realized that my own treatment using Mucinex was the best answer for that.  That didn't mean that I always got it when I needed it.  Same for the Tylenol.

I was tested for the flu.  I am so relieved that wasn't the problem.  I was also tested for MRSA, a really bad infection that resists most antibiotics.  Again not positive for that.

I received a belly-shot daily to prevent the formation of blood clots.

And now I spent last night thinking about the new chest pain.  I'm going to keep on walking around doing my own life tasks this time.  I'm not going to take my tender ribs to any specialist who immediately wants to treat my heart.  If I pass out at any point, then I guess this history is going to be of interest to my medical providers.  Probably not, because they will again be chasing my heart and lungs to fit into the diagnosis that the books have.  I have a feeling deep in my gut that I never have, and never will, fit into anything in the books.

By the way, whoever writes things into books leaves out a good percentage of symptoms which people have.  It's called treating the "average" condition...not the extreme ones.  Remember learning how a bell-curve describes what is average...that a lot of things fall on the opposite ends of average.  Oh well.  I've never desired being average.