Sunday night at 4 am, I called an ambulance to our main trauma center where I had had my two operations 6 days ago. I was so dizzy. My daughter had just left that afternoon. I was wobbly a bit then...but we thought it was due to two robotic surgeries at once with a long anethesia time..Be patient everyone said...you have had a trauma to your body.
Well, more trauma was awaiting. The ambulance rides were like a rollercoaster...getting me in, getting me out, deciding that that ambulance was the wrong one, so another was called...OMG..Since I was post op just a few days , the ER took me right in..Then the excitement of a big city ER started: car accidents, fights, shootings, fevers...etc...etc... I waited 12 hours in that ER....an experience to behold....First of all, the nurses had pink hair, body piercing and tatoos....OK...I do not mind.....It was just not what I had expected in the big ER. Big city culture shock. Old lady culture shock. And, to me, all the staff looked 12.
While I waited, tests were run...heart scans, chest CAT for post-op blood clots, bladder scans, 25 million blood pressure checks, blood tests,, OMG....Meantime, my surgical incisions hurt and I was overwhelmed. The hospital was completely full, ER patients lined the hallways, were put into former storage rooms, where boxes were stored, and the basement....The staffing was perfect, the space was just not there.
All staff were pleasant, smart and efficient. My experience was an A plus one.
I was sick. I arrived at 4 am and at 4 pm, I received a holding room...a tiny but room on a floor.` More BP tests, more name and bday giving...more Oxygen.
I did not want my friends and family bothered, so I did not tell them. Meantime every test..heart and lung, post op incisions...all wonderful...everything wonderful...except for the blood pressure. I never had a problem with that before....Well evidently post op, it was decided I needed BP meds and either I did not hear it or did not believe it so I did not take them..
In the morning I sent my doctor a text. She looked into the hospital system from her computer and the numerous BP squeezes and said my BP was erratic and to take the meds. I then told my family who did not take kindly to this new state of affairs, especially Emily who had just then returned home to Portland Oregon. Good thing I called her because soon after that, the nurse at my apartment complex decided it was her job to call her. It was a scare. I will never keep that kind of secret again.
End of story...or maybe just end of this part of a chapter...I am now stable on BP meds, well hydrated and exhausted. I came home this afternoon with my sister's help. Grateful I did not have a stroke or the many other issues that come with a 75 year old under stress having high BP I feel amazingly well...Again, friends and family stepped up and held my hand and my heart.
At the hospital, it was decided that a 75 year old woman should not drink Diet Coke for breakfast, so I was put on IV fluids for dehydration. It was kindly suggested that I cut down on foods that affected BP..That would be ALL my favorites....of course.
Once home, I picked up the discharge papers to discover that, my hospital stay was not considered an admittance, but a two day outpatient holding experience, thus Medicare and BC/BS may not pay for it....Well I will just wait and see, because I have had every single test in town on every part of my body. The good news is that I am healthy...Oh, wow, your heart is great, oh, wow, your lungs are great....
Hopefully your pocket book is great too..
This will have been one heck of an experience if not only did I have to ambulance to town, but now pay for it too.....
And so it goes...both shoes dropped to the floor. But I have survived.....again xo
