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Re: Heh.
Posted By: Blown-Upp <blownupp@gmail.com>	Date: 11/24/06 12:56 p.m.
In Response To: Heh. (Louis Wu) Yah, I guess the electrode in emergency room thing really did it :-p Glad to know it's nothing more than a really shit cough though, things could always be worse :( : Thanks to everyone who sent notes yesterday - apologies for scaring anyone. I : had meant the news post to sound flippant; apparently, a lot of you got : worried I was dying. : I'm not dying. I did, however, learn a really useful fact for getting : treatment in an emergency room... if you tell the admitting nurse that : you've got chest pains, MAN to they ramp things up in a hurry. : So here's the deal: I got pretty sick in early October... I came down with : pneumonia. At its peak, I spent over a week sleeping (literally) more than : 20 hours a day, and even when the fever broke, and I could move around a : bit, I was still pretty weak. I was coughing a lot - my doctor worried : about whooping cough, which apparently saw an outbreak in this area this : year, but he'd already given me a series of antibiotics; he'd done what he : could to kill it. I got extra sleep, drank lots of fluids, didn't exercise : too much - eventually I'd get better, I was told. : Wednesday night, after dinner, I started to feel some pain in my chest. It : sort of felt like heartburn, except I don't really know what heartburn : feels like - it was just a pain in the area that people on those Prilosec : commercials rub before they've taken their pills. :) It was way too high : to be stomach-related, : in my opinion; it was up above my sternum. I drank some Maalox, which I found : in our medicine cabinet (that stuff is NASTY, how do people drink it?), : with no result, and took a couple of advil (also no big result). It was : uncomfortable, but not horrible... until I lay down. : At that point, it hurt in the front, it hurt in the back; I couldn't get : comfortable, I was having trouble breathing. It felt like I'd taken a line : drive to my chest. I took a hot bath, I tried lying on the floor, nothing : seemed to give me a way to position myself in a way that didn't hurt. : Finally, at midnight, my wife had had it. She told me we were going to the : emergency room. I was pretty sure it wasn't a heart attack; there was no : tingling in any limbs, I'm actually pretty healthy, and my heart's pretty : strong... but I didn't know what it WAS, and neither did she. : The car ride sucked - every bump on the road made it worse. But about 10 : minutes in, I started to feel better. It wasn't clear if it was because I : was sitting up again, or because of the cold air, or what... but it hurt : less, and I could breathe again. : We got to the hospital, walked into the ER, and I stepped up to the attending : nurse and said 'I've got these weird chest pains...' : Man, did they move fast. They slammed my ass down on a gurney, and 30 seconds : later I was in a room with 6 medical people. Folks were slapping : electrodes all over me, snapping things on my fingers, one woman had an IV : in my arm before I even knew she was there... wow. I guess ERs take heart : attacks pretty seriously. (Last summer, I took my son to the ER for a : broken arm; he'd fallen off his bike. We sat in the waiting room for 4 : hours before they took us back... and then when they did, we sat on a : gurney in the hallway for another hour, because they couldn't find us a : room.) : The EKG was fine - taking the electrodes off was the worst part. (I'm a : little bit hairy, I guess.) They sent me for a chest x-ray - lungs were : totally clear, no scarring. (This was good news; I worried a little, : because pneumonia can leave permanent effects.) So what caused the pain? : Whooping cough. I'd been coughing so much, I'd pushed my ribs out of whack, : and strained the muscles that overlaid them. Those muscles also overlay my : lungs... so it hurts to breathe. (Joy.) : They sent us home around 2, with prescriptions for heavy-duty cough medicine, : and percocet for the pain. (They gave me one in the hospital, but other : than that, I haven't touched 'em; it's not THAT bad, and percocet's pretty : strong stuff. The cough stuff I used, though.) We got home around 3 (had : to stop at the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions), and hit the sack. : THAT'S why I didn't get up in time for updates yesterday; by the time I : got out of bed, there were only 3 or so hours before our guests were going : to start arriving, and there was a lot still to do. : So: I'm healthy, mostly. Whooping cough is sometimes called 'the 100 day : cough' because that's how long the toxin it creates hangs around, even : after you kill the bug that causes it - so I've got another month or so of : this wonderful cough to look forward to... but my lungs are clear, my : heart is fine, and I didn't even overdo it on turkey yesterday. I'm sorry : for scaring anyone - that was unintentional. I thought it was sort of : silly to go all the way to the ER only to find out I had a strained : muscle... but even sillier that we learned you could get instant service : just by complaining of chest pains. (Next time I cut my finger, I'm saying : it's chest pains.) : Thanks again to all who sent kind words.

Message Index

Heh.	Louis Wu	11/24/06 10:38 a.m.
Re: Heh.	Spartan Jag	11/24/06 10:42 a.m.
Re: Heh.	Teh Cubed	11/24/06 10:52 a.m.
TFFT *NM*	Stuntmutt	11/24/06 10:55 a.m.
Re: TFFT	dogsounds	11/24/06 12:00 p.m.
Re: Heh.	DMDyet	11/24/06 11:00 a.m.
Whatever, didn't even notice you were missing. *NM*	One of Bungies mindless bitches.	11/24/06 11:10 a.m.
I was looking forward to getting his monitor. *NM*	Blackstar	11/24/06 1:32 p.m.
neato	Max Power (aka- dewbe)	11/24/06 11:15 a.m.
Re: Heh.	Recon#54	11/24/06 11:30 a.m.
Happy you are feeling better	Kaboris	11/24/06 11:36 a.m.
Things looked a little 'Hairy' for a second there.	c0ld vengeance	11/24/06 11:39 a.m.
Re: Things looked a little 'Hairy' for a second th	3Suns	11/24/06 2:31 p.m.
Re: Heh.	ckamp	11/24/06 11:39 a.m.
Re: Heh.	ckamp	11/24/06 11:40 a.m.
Re: Heh.	Hawaiian Pig	11/24/06 12:44 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	11/24/06 2:14 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Jillybean	11/24/06 2:17 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	11/24/06 2:25 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Jillybean	11/24/06 2:27 p.m.
Re: Heh.	scarab	11/24/06 11:42 a.m.
Re: Heh.	Ross Mills [subnova]	11/24/06 11:42 a.m.
You wuss!!!	Jillybean	11/24/06 12:15 p.m.
Re: You wuss!!!	CHAOS1212	11/24/06 12:21 p.m.
I think that was sarcasm. *NM*	Argodaemon	11/24/06 12:29 p.m.
Jilly + insult at Wu = lol *NM*	Peptuck	11/24/06 12:42 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Hawaiian Pig	11/24/06 12:41 p.m.
Re: Heh.	Blown-Upp	11/24/06 12:56 p.m.
Heh. Glad you're ok! *NM*	Eastbeast314	11/24/06 1:51 p.m.
Donchu EVER Scare Me Like That Again!	Mintz	11/24/06 1:55 p.m.
I feel you, Wu.	mr_mcmurder	11/24/06 2:56 p.m.
That is a highly awkward souding subject line	Echoes	11/24/06 3:17 p.m.
Good to hear all's well *NM*	Fury Three	11/24/06 4:37 p.m.
Aaaaw	BOLL	11/24/06 5:16 p.m.
Re: Aaaaw	The More Deluded	11/24/06 5:48 p.m.
Re: Aaaaw-caution-swede hug :O	vshields ash	11/25/06 12:22 a.m.
Re: HBO: A little bit hairy, I guess.	Sep7imus [subnova]	11/24/06 6:00 p.m.
Re: HBO: A little bit hairy, I guess.	jman571	11/24/06 7:24 p.m.
feel better :) *NM* *NM*	Zattack89	11/24/06 11:03 p.m.
Glad you're fine, Wu.	Bs Halo rks	11/25/06 7:00 a.m.
Re: Heh.	maxthehedgie	11/25/06 5:59 p.m.