Halloween 2011

Looking at Facebook and reading everyone's blogs has me sort of wishing I had cute kids to take and post pictures of. Alas, I do not. And this year, my Halloween was quite the un-auspicious event. Halloween started and I happened to look at the clock then at the boyfriend and said, "Oh, it's Halloween, happy Halloween. How long do you think we'll be here?"

You see, at that moment, I was lying on a bed in the ER, bruises already forming on my arms from both successful and unsuccessful attempts at drawing blood, heart rate monitor beeping when my HR dropped below 50 (which it pretty much did every couple of minutes), blood pressure cuff tightening and loosening around my arm, and IV tube pinching my poor little vein. All this while I was trying to get a good breath of air without hyperventilating.

For some really ridiculous reason, Sunday evening, I started getting really light headed, got a headache and felt as if I'd had the wind knocked out of me. After laying down and watching "Psych" didn't help and my breathing got more and more belabored, the boyfriend took me up the street to an InstaCare to be checked. (I will say that not being able to breath is the surest way of getting seen very quickly!) After verifying that I wasn't having a stroke and having blood drawn (after two unsuccessful attempts at getting a vein to not roll) and having a chest x-ray, they decided that I was fine and probably just having an anxiety attack. But, since I was obviously not breathing well and in obvious discomfort, the attending doctor decided to send me over to the ER, one hallway over from where we were.

I was wheeled to the ER by the x-ray technician (it was a slow night for her over there) and immediately surrounded by nurses hooking me up to an EKG, drawing blood, attempting to get an IV tube in, and checking my pulse and blood pressure. Due to the fact that the other nurse had already tried a couple of veins, their choices were somewhat limited and then because I wasn't breathing well, the veins were revolting against anymore intrusions. Thankfully, that was finally taken care of and we got to wait. And wait. And wait. A doctor came in and did an ultrasound on my heart-- which was actually pretty cool. Eventually, after getting a drug to calm my breathing down, I relaxed and was told there was nothing wrong with me and that I should call my primary care doc in the morning, set up an appointment for a few days out and I should be better before I had to go in an see her.

Being the cautious man that he is, the boyfriend strongly suggested I call in sick seeing as how walking from the car to the house wiped me out and teaching might not go so well for me. I acquiesced and called in. I spent all of Monday in bed. I literally slept for most of the day. When I did get up to get water or something, it took minutes and minutes for my breathing to settle down and then I took a nap. I called my doctor and she told her assistant to tell me to just go back to the ER, which I didn't want to do after just getting out, so I slept some more and waited for the BF to come make me dinner. He came over after work, made chicken soup and buttermilk biscuits (from scratch). We ate and watched "Dial M for Murder," an old Alfred Hitchcock film.  I went to bed around 10pm.

And that was Halloween 2011.