July 21, 2004
Then the Floodgates opened
1/17/97
Alone at home, I woke around 9 and had something small to eat and water to drink, and then I started feeling the dizzy nausea weakness difficulty breathing thing that started invading my days earlier that week. I paced from bathroom, to chapstick, to drink, to outside for fresh air, and round and round. What do I do, who do I call, this isn't anything I can name, this is crazy, what do I do, I can't keep on like this, who do I call.........and at 12 noon I panicked. Mom, Dad, and the doctors office were all off to lunch as of 12. Our neighbor the nurse still wasn't home.
Instinctively I called the backline of our office and my dad picked up, and put me on speaker phone while he was with a young affluent client (talk about humiliating). The minute I heard Dad's voice I started crying and telling him I didn't think I could breathe and I thought I would be sick and I didn't know what to do. He told me to hold on and talk to the client for a minute...how embarrassing, i tried to pull myself together. Then Dad's back on the phone and said he called 911 and could I go unlock the doors for the firemen. I freaked, ' no, I don't need that, that's crazy, and crying more'.
The firemen arrived and Dad headed home. Dad had said something about asthma because my mom and daughter had it and I mentioned not breathing well, so there was one fireman that got irritated that I wasn't asthmatic. Though I was obviously in a state. They checked me out, the irritated FM kept telling me to breathe through my nose and quit crying because I was dehydrating and hyperventilating. The others checked pulse, bp, and hooked me up to their oxygen monitors and heart monitor. My neighbor Jim, who was dying of lung cancer, came over and held my hand. the FM basically decided I was having a panic attack and that when my dad got home they'd leave me in his care.
Then they got the response from the closest hospital on the ekg & O2 & bp and were told to bring me in. I know my bp was 200+ over 100+ because Mom saw it on the monitor, she arrived at the hospital as we did. They gave me O2, and an IV drip with ativan, an antianxiety med and compazine for the nausea They did xrays, and they kept me about 4 hours and sent me home with directions to follow up with my internist and take compazine and ativan as needed. An anxiety attack, they wrote, so I continued to feel sick and crazy all weekend.
Again shoulders and arms hurting, tune in later for more.......
Hugs!
Posted by Judy on July 21, 2004 03:44 PM