...when your only conversation topics are about illnesses, aches, and hospital stays.
Back to the worst day of my life. My last hospital outing was one week in the local hospital, and then a transfer to the big regional medical center for three more weeks before they released me for the first time. Four weeks of continuous ECG monitoring and a defib box installed between both places, and never a single mention of AFib the entire time. Two days later, I was back in an ambulance for an hour down to the regional medical center again after passing out cold twice.
There was a huge category 5 hurricane heading for the southeast coast on my first day back in the hospital, and as luck would have it half of my family relocated to a coastal community down south a few months before. Not one of them had a clue about hurricane evacuations procedures. I got a phone call from my sister that day, saying that her moron husband wanted to go 5 miles inland (swamp) and find a motel to ride out the storm. I immediately booked two 4-star pre-paid hotel rooms for a whole week up in Atlanta for them on my credit card, before the evacuation panic ensued and filled all of the rooms.
Their state decided to start evacuations at 6:00 AM on my day three. The afternoon before, I told my sister that she and her moron husband needed to pick up my mother a few towns away by 3:00 AM -- and put at least 200 miles behind them by sunrise at 6:00 AM. If they didn't get ahead of the evacuation traffic, they would be stuck for a day on the road.
My day three started with an early morning trip to the cath lab, where among other things I got to "ride the lightning" trying to get my brand new case of AFib back into rhythm. No-go on that. When I got back to my room on the normal floors at 9:30 AM or so, I grabbed my cell phone and called my mother to ask her how far they were away from Atlanta. She was still at home waiting to be picked up, because my sister's moron husband wasn't ready to leave his house yet! The cellular system down there was so jammed after that from panic evacuation calls where it was nearly impossible to call anyone. The other guy sharing my room kept his TV on CNN all day with the volume cranked, so I had to suffer through the news showing evacuation traffic jams with no way of knowing where my relatives were or if they even left home!
My wife came down to visit for an hour late that afternoon. As she was leaving, one of the cardiologists that I'll refer to as Dr. Doom cornered her in the hallway and told her that I was dying. We'll overlook the malpractice suit because I *intentionally* did not sign HIPAA release forms for my wife, but now I've got a missing family in an approaching category 5 hurricane AND an emotionally destroyed wife who came back to my room crying that I'm going to die! I got her calmed down enough to drive home, but knew that she needed someone to stay at our house overnight for emotional support.
Coincidentally, this was our dog's birthday...and my in-laws just love their grand-dog to bits. As soon as my DW left the hospital, I called up the in-laws and asked them to pick up a surprise birthday cake for the dog and spend the night at our house supporting their daughter. Unfortunately, my DW beat the in-laws to our house...and almost shot them when they unexpectedly pulled into our dark driveway for the surprise party. In the words of Steve Jobs, but wait, there's more!
The other guy's TV was on CNN with the volume cranked until 3:00 AM, with non-stop coverage of the hurricane making landfall and flooding everything. I still had no idea where my family was, had a wife at home distraught to the max because she thought that I was dying, and was still quite energized from the cath lab procedure and riding the lightning while totally awake. While I was grateful that one of the nurses turned off the other guy's TV so that I could try to sleep, the reason why she was in the room was because his ECG went crazy and they had an emergency on their hands! His blood pressure dropped to near zero, and the overwhelmed night shift doctor was calling for all kinds of tests and medicines until 7:00 AM when they wheeled him out of the room bound for either the CCU or the morgue.
Although this is now day four, I hadn't slept so it's still the same day for me. My DW showed up before breakfast, and spent the day with me. I told her a watered-down version of what had happened the night before, and Dr. Doom stopped by doing his rounds and added another pill to my daily list. When I tried to sit up for lunch, I felt dizzy and flopped back down. I told my DW to call a nurse, who noticed that my blood pressure was dropping. As I was getting loopier by the minute, I realized that I was having the same symptoms as the guy in the other bed a few hours earlier. In my delusional state, I started calling out all of the tests and medicines that the overnight doctor tried on him as if I were the doctor! The last thing that I remember was a nurse doing a manual BP measurement and getting 38 over "I can't find the bottom" before waking up that night in the CCU with *nine* different IV bags hanging over my head, no TV, no DW, and no cell phone to check on my family! I'm sure that the floor nurses upstairs had a good laugh at my expense for calling out the tests like I was a doctor or something.
To recap, ride the lightning, missing family in category 5 hurricane, distraught DW who was told that I was dying, almost shot in-laws, guy in other bed apparently coding out, and being as close to dead as I care to be due to an adverse reaction to one tiny pill. Like I said, the worst day of my life...by far!
My birthday was a week later, and I was still in the CCU. This was when my relatives were all flying in to say goodbye, and I threw my CCU ice cream cake birthday party to cheer everyone up because of Dr. Doom's HIPAA mistake.
Oh, did I mention that I am still too stubborn to die? Get off my lawn, Dr. Doom...and take that premature death certificate with you!!!!!
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