"Ecclesiastes 003:007 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;"
Last Thursday (10 June 2004), I took a CPR course at work. This was combined with a first aid course which emphasized the doctrine that falling to the floor unconscious is a serious event and should lead to a hospital visit. They also emphasized that a symptom of shock is "cold clammy skin". (i.e. cold sweat)
I went home and one standing in front of my couch when I suddenly realized that I wasn't breathing. Everything went a dark gray and I remember thinking "I'd better start panting or I'm going to collapse." The next thing I knew, I realized I was sitting on the floor and felt a sharp pain over the base of my skull. I looked around the room and from the appearance of things, it looked like I had fainted and struck the folding TV tray; the stuff on it was stead over the living room. Something had hit a table lamp next to the couch and it was on the floor.
I was having trouble breathing and couldn't stop deep breathing. I tried my asthmatic inhaler to no avail. I tried the old "breath in for 5 second, hold for 5 seconds and breath our for 5 seconds". (I still thought that I was simply hysterical and not suffering from a lung problem.) When Kathie got home, I talked about everything else first and mentioned in passing
that I had fainted. She was very upset. (I'll explain why in a few sentences.)
I called my MD's office and both he and his nurse were out of the office. None of the other Md. or Nurse Practitioners had openings. I was advised to go to the Emergency Room and go to the Family Practice room. We did. A nurse asking my symptoms asked "are you a diabetic"? I was rather startled and replied "yes". A couple of minutes later, I asked "why
did you ask if I am a diabetic"? Her reply: "what happened to you was a classic diabetic action".
I had been thinking of telling my Mother that I had fainted, had trouble breathing and went to the hospital. That business of "classic action" reminded me that my Mother is a highly skilled RN (albeit retired). She would undoubtedly realize that I'm a diabetic and I have been trying to avoid her finding out. So, the letter I eventually wrote was nicely sanitized
of any diabetic related information.
What had upset my wife and would have really upset my Mother is something that I had blocked out: the day before my Father died of congestive heart failure, he had gone to the bathroom and after leaving it said "I just fainted". Ok, so, he was a type 1 diabetic, had been a 2-3 pack a day unfiltered cigarette smoker for about 35 years and had had a triple bypass years before. He was far less healthy that I am! But, that
is no excuse when you consider the comparison!
They checked my blood oxygen level and found it to be 68% normal. No wonder I was out of breath.
They then took me back to an examining room, put me on O2, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my right arm and then left me there for a while. About a half hour later, the second nurse to see me "handed me off" to a third nurse, wrapped a name tag around my right wrist and kept scaring me by talking about "checking me in". To me, that sounded like a "room with[out] a view" for the night. They
finally reassured me that I wasn't going to be a "house guest for the night". They took a blood sample and left.
The MD finally arrived and we had a long talk about my symptoms. Dr. Johnson said it wasn't heart related but needed to see X-rays. They offered to wheel me to the X-Ray room in a wheelchair and I politely declined this offer. The X-Ray tech was a fine young man with a Caribbean accent. I could understand maybe 60% of what he said. (My wife said one of the nurses complained bitterly about the difficulty of understanding this young man.)
Dr. Johnson explained the images on the two X-Ray images and said I had pneumonia.
After that, it was just a matter of getting a very large shot in the butt and going to a local drug store to buy the medicine (ZITHROMAX
TAB 250 MG). I then went out to work, filled out and turned in a leave [of absence] request form and showed the acting boss the "Medical excuse form". The "medical excuse form" was an order for me to stay at home, rest and not exert myself. It was a good thing that I had this as my acting boss didn't seem to happy at having to authorize my time off. He is one of those fellows who never gets sick and doesn't believe in missing work for merely being sick...
As an aside, I wonder why my acting boss, who is scheduled to work 8 am to 4:30 pm, was still there at past 8 pm?
Then, it was home to take the first two pills, pain killers for headache and body pain and drinking lots of water.
When I have an upper respiratory disorder and cough a lot, I strain my vocal cords and end up with laryngitis. So, my mother called the evening of Sunday, the 13th and asked about my voice. I told her it was pneumonia and she got quite upset. I reassured her that the prognosis was good and I believe the Do.
This was just confirmation that I should keep my mouth shut about this. I know folks who say with sincerity "We all have our crosses to bear". Well, the knowledge of "my" diabetics is my "cross to bear" and is now something my wife and her father bear; it is not a cross for my Mother to bear. She has had to carry too damn many crosses of
her own...
This is probably going to be about the longest of my diatribes.
Verbosely yours,
Michael
P.S.: I suppose it would not hurt to leave my last name as the folks who know my writing style will correlate name and style easily. But, being secretive by nature, I will leave it one of life's little mysteries...
PS2: I wrote this in Word proofread it in Word; I didn't check what Word changed the final time I used the Word proofreader and it replaced "X-Ray" with "Ray". What a system!?!?!?!
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