When I am out of breath you know something is Wrong

My journey with cellulites (infection of the tissues below the skin) has taken a journey in to the world of pneumonia. The treatment of cellulites took me on a wild and crazy journey through some exotic and not so exotic antibiotics. Two drugs that really work on the condition probably came the closest to doing me in... Kflex, and Septra. clinamyician stopped the spread of the leg infection but did not stop the infection. Leva something which started the mad run on March 6 had little effect. The whole thing came to a crashing conclusion Tuesday night while visiting my home doctor I was experiencing shortness of breath, and continued high temperature (forth week of that), rash and dizziness.

He strongly recommended that I see an emergency section of a major hospital that night. We thought we were going to St. Agnes in Fresno.. but we were strongly encouraged by other members of the family to go to a bigger facility that would have more options for diagnosis and treatment. Since most of my family lives in the South Bay.. Stanford was chosen. It was midnight as we entered the doors. My symptoms were taken and I made the grade from the triage nurse into the cue rooms. Staffing was one nurse for every 3 patients and one doctor for every 6 patients. A battery of tests were ordered and an Iv portal was established. No small task considering I have blood vessels that are very hard to tap.

The first results of the blood test revealed that I had an enzyme count that was out of compliance for heart issues or lung issues.

I blood test was then taken from both arms every hour and compared to the one that was out of shape. I was laying down in high adreline discomfort the entire time.

At 2 am it became obvious that was indeed to be admitted and Sue and Linzi headed off to look for a hotel.

At 2:30 I received a chest x ray, and at 3:30 am I received a CT scan of the my body from the neck down. In the process of injected the "contrast dye" into my system, the connection to my IV broke open and spewed dye from my arm above my head on to my head and shoulders.

The call as out for a nurse that reconnect the IV. He arrived and reestablished the one that was there. The assistant found a needle nosed pliers and cranked it back on and they revisited the CT scan again.

I was told that everything was fine with the scan and no spots were seen. This was not true. On my release (16 hours later) spots were found on the lung (start of pneumonia a spot was seen of my kidney (need to pursue) and a bit of water was discovered on my knee (I twisted my knee a week ago).

As daybreak came. I was sent, as were others to the "clinical decision" rooms. Here the service breaks down. nurses are not often seen. No doctor showed up to any of the 6 patients that were there the entire day. If you needed anything you were encouraged to use the call button. Otherwise nurses were there only to take blood and ocassionaly reset you up to the monitoring equipment. No information was provided as to what was going on in your behalf. This is the outer Mongolia of the emergency ward. I was not offered any food or drink until after my echo cardio stress test at 5pm. Apparently I was waiting for this test.

Finally it was my turn for this. They took my gurney (narrow as it was) with me in it up one floor to the echo lab. I was wheeled in. The techs there but me on there own guney and told me that i was not going to use the treadmill. My target was 139 heartbeats and they would chemically induce this level and then check my heart. They checked the action of my heart and then they dropped the chemical laden with adrenaline into my system. I could feel my heart begin to rise in beat as if I were jogging, but instead I was lying flat on the gurney. The lights were low and on the orange side of the spectrum. As I approached 130, they handed my a couple of balls, one of them soft and one of the hard. I squeezed the balls until I reached their appointed number. They looked at my heart and I was okay. It would not go back to normal as quickly as they wanted it to. I got 3 shots in my IV to slow it down over a 35 min. period of time. Still it was up there and irregular. The cardiologist looked it over and said that by the next day I would be okay and that they had one of these every month. He also said that I should remember the name of the person that did this to me and we practiced her name. This made the tech pretty mad.

I was wheeled back to the ward and my family took turns cheering me up. They finally decided to give me the pulse lowering drug in a pill. It worked and at 10 o'clock I walked out of there.. unaided by any hospital staff.

What an ordeal.

I am glad to be home. Thanks to all my family for stopping by and cheering me up. It sure made it easier to survive.

Love
Pat