Didn't think I was gonna make it to see '06...
01-07-2006, 02:56 PM
#1
Didn't think I was gonna make it to see '06...
Happy New Year folks! Haven't had a chance to say hey as I've spent the last week in the CCU unit of the hospital...this is my first time home this year!
I'm copying and pasting a PM that I sent to tdrumm that pretty much explains it all...it's kinda long, but when you think that you're number's just been punched and live to tell about it, you get a little excited
Here it is:
"Hey Tom,
Long time no see...we've had quite a week. This is the first time I've been home this year...spent New Year's and the past week in Valley Hospital. Guess I'll start from the top...
Came home from work Friday Dec 30th and I started feelin kinda wierd. My teeth were aching, my chest was tight, and I basically felt like I had the flu. So I took a few Aleve and an Ambien and crashed out on the couch at about 9:30. Well, at about midnight I wake up and it feels like someone hit me in the chest with a baseball bat...and my left forearm is killing me (I had surgery on the right). Plus all of my teeth are aching unbelievably. I was at a total loss...I kinda wandered around in circles and instinctively went into the bathroom for whatever reason. I hung over the toilet bowl and started coughing, threw up once (gag reflex I think), and Teri finally woke up and said WTF??
Long story short, she calls the paramedics, they check me out, things look OK as far as they can tell, but they suggest that I go to the hospital. I didn't want the stretcher so I had Teri drive me...I'll cut to the emergency room...they did some blood tests and I have some sort of elevated enzymes that indicate I had a heart attack, and my heart's not beating right... it's now about 3:30 am New Year's Eve. They call in the on call cardio team and it was like a NASCAR pit stop....IV's going in here, getting shaved "down there", needle after needle of whatever, and a stretcher ride to operating table where the procede to do an angiogram? or catherization?...I heard it called different things. I'll spare you the details if you have a weak stomach but basically they access my heart via an artery in my groin, and go fishing...I watched it on the monitor...awake but heavily sedated.
Anyway...my arteries look great, they rule out heart attack and decide that something else caused my heart to get enflamed and release the enzymes, and hurt, and strain etc. Possibly a virul infection or something that attacked my heart...might have even been hiding out and lingering from my surgery, or it could be as simple as having a small cut and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So I end up in the CCU until yesterday as they keep pumping me full of stuff to get my heart back to normal and doing tests and keeping me hooked up to a bunch of diagnostic equipment. Dude, I had wires and tubes and electrodes all over me. And I kept having these "cardiac episodes" where the pain would come back and nail me all over again...then I'd hit a button and nurses would come running with morphine and demoral and what not...next came the test equipment to see what my heart was doing while it hurt.
About Wednesday they had my levels under control, just alot of pain. Yesterday (Friday) I was good enough to get transferred out of the CCU to a regular room, where they just have me laying around taking Motrin and steroids and a bunch of other **** that screws up my stomach (probably gonna come out of this with an ulcer). I tell the doc today that I really want to go home, just give me directions on what to do and I promise I'll do it. So with about 8 or so prescriptions and a list of instructions, I finally made it home in '06.
Kinda crazy huh! Guess what else...we found out Tues 1/3 that Teri's pregnant...I'm gonna be a daddy! It's been kinda tough to celebrate for the obvious reasons, but now that I'm home we're psyched!
The whole house issue seems so insignificant after what happend last Friday... (*EDIT****we found out last week that we're getting screwed on the house we're renting from family, that we planned to buy, and have to move quick*****) I really thought I burned a piston. And, the house deal got cured real fast. Teri's dad happened to find a place right up the block in FairLawn...a condo that's owned by a realator that's for rent. We plan to move at the end of the month, beginning of next month. Gonna rent for a bit more, get our ducks in a row, and take it from there.
Guess what...I haven't had a cigarette in a week (since last year)...safe to say that quitting smoking right now is the most obvious no brainer I've ever had. Diet isn't really an issue...just have to watch what I eat until I'm done with the heart meds...nothing spicy, no caffeine, etc.
Sorry to ramble on, but needless to say...man I don't even know what to say! I'm glad to be home, and glad to be alive, and glad that I'm gonna be a daddy!!! I'm a bit wiped out, sore and hurtin, but I'm probably seeing things clearer than I ever have.
So what's new with you? Thanks for doing the recon on the house for us, that's really nice of you. I'm gonna go back and check the PM you sent me just for poops and giggles....I was just itching to shoot ya a PM about everything...
Talk to you soon man! (glad to be around to say that!)
-Billy"
I'm copying and pasting a PM that I sent to tdrumm that pretty much explains it all...it's kinda long, but when you think that you're number's just been punched and live to tell about it, you get a little excited
Here it is:"Hey Tom,
Long time no see...we've had quite a week. This is the first time I've been home this year...spent New Year's and the past week in Valley Hospital. Guess I'll start from the top...
Came home from work Friday Dec 30th and I started feelin kinda wierd. My teeth were aching, my chest was tight, and I basically felt like I had the flu. So I took a few Aleve and an Ambien and crashed out on the couch at about 9:30. Well, at about midnight I wake up and it feels like someone hit me in the chest with a baseball bat...and my left forearm is killing me (I had surgery on the right). Plus all of my teeth are aching unbelievably. I was at a total loss...I kinda wandered around in circles and instinctively went into the bathroom for whatever reason. I hung over the toilet bowl and started coughing, threw up once (gag reflex I think), and Teri finally woke up and said WTF??
Long story short, she calls the paramedics, they check me out, things look OK as far as they can tell, but they suggest that I go to the hospital. I didn't want the stretcher so I had Teri drive me...I'll cut to the emergency room...they did some blood tests and I have some sort of elevated enzymes that indicate I had a heart attack, and my heart's not beating right... it's now about 3:30 am New Year's Eve. They call in the on call cardio team and it was like a NASCAR pit stop....IV's going in here, getting shaved "down there", needle after needle of whatever, and a stretcher ride to operating table where the procede to do an angiogram? or catherization?...I heard it called different things. I'll spare you the details if you have a weak stomach but basically they access my heart via an artery in my groin, and go fishing...I watched it on the monitor...awake but heavily sedated.
Anyway...my arteries look great, they rule out heart attack and decide that something else caused my heart to get enflamed and release the enzymes, and hurt, and strain etc. Possibly a virul infection or something that attacked my heart...might have even been hiding out and lingering from my surgery, or it could be as simple as having a small cut and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So I end up in the CCU until yesterday as they keep pumping me full of stuff to get my heart back to normal and doing tests and keeping me hooked up to a bunch of diagnostic equipment. Dude, I had wires and tubes and electrodes all over me. And I kept having these "cardiac episodes" where the pain would come back and nail me all over again...then I'd hit a button and nurses would come running with morphine and demoral and what not...next came the test equipment to see what my heart was doing while it hurt.
About Wednesday they had my levels under control, just alot of pain. Yesterday (Friday) I was good enough to get transferred out of the CCU to a regular room, where they just have me laying around taking Motrin and steroids and a bunch of other **** that screws up my stomach (probably gonna come out of this with an ulcer). I tell the doc today that I really want to go home, just give me directions on what to do and I promise I'll do it. So with about 8 or so prescriptions and a list of instructions, I finally made it home in '06.
Kinda crazy huh! Guess what else...we found out Tues 1/3 that Teri's pregnant...I'm gonna be a daddy! It's been kinda tough to celebrate for the obvious reasons, but now that I'm home we're psyched!
The whole house issue seems so insignificant after what happend last Friday... (*EDIT****we found out last week that we're getting screwed on the house we're renting from family, that we planned to buy, and have to move quick*****) I really thought I burned a piston. And, the house deal got cured real fast. Teri's dad happened to find a place right up the block in FairLawn...a condo that's owned by a realator that's for rent. We plan to move at the end of the month, beginning of next month. Gonna rent for a bit more, get our ducks in a row, and take it from there.
Guess what...I haven't had a cigarette in a week (since last year)...safe to say that quitting smoking right now is the most obvious no brainer I've ever had. Diet isn't really an issue...just have to watch what I eat until I'm done with the heart meds...nothing spicy, no caffeine, etc.
Sorry to ramble on, but needless to say...man I don't even know what to say! I'm glad to be home, and glad to be alive, and glad that I'm gonna be a daddy!!! I'm a bit wiped out, sore and hurtin, but I'm probably seeing things clearer than I ever have.
So what's new with you? Thanks for doing the recon on the house for us, that's really nice of you. I'm gonna go back and check the PM you sent me just for poops and giggles....I was just itching to shoot ya a PM about everything...
Talk to you soon man! (glad to be around to say that!)
-Billy"
