We continued to wait. Every 10-15 minutes or so, the blood pressure cuff attached to my right arm would start up again, taking another reading. The numbers remained too high. It was now approaching 4 a.m. The emergency room doctor arrived, with the nurse and with a woman furiously transcribing every word of the conservation.
"Well, we've got some good news for you," the doctor began. "We've looked at the CT scan and we don't see any evidence of a blockage, so you're not having a heart attack."
"That is good news," I replied. "So what is going on."
"We don't know, actually. We're going to have to get your blood pressure down and I've got some medicine to do that. That's the easy part," the doctor said. "What we need to find out is why this happened. Have you ever had a stress test?"
"No."
"Well, you're going to get one. We'll have that set up for you. Can you walk on a treadmill?"
"I've been doing it for a while now -- I have a membership at Snap Fitness and I use the treadmill when I go," I said.
"Well, good. The test will last about 3 hours. We need to find out what your heart is capable of doing and then we'll be able to figure out how to treat things going forward," he said.
The nurse then gave me two pills to take. "We're going to have you stay here until your blood pressure starts to go down," she said. "My shift is done, so there will be another nurse coming in to check on you in a little while."
I wanted to rest, but that wasn't coming easily. The second nurse came in. She told me she was from Pittsburgh and we talked about going to baseball stadiums. I've never been to Pittsburgh, but it's on my list of parks to see. The blood pressure cuff started up again. The number was lower, but still not where it needed to be.
"If we can get your blood pressure down below 140, you should be ready to leave," she said. As she said this, the cuff began to deflate.
"Do I get my 'get out jail free' card?" I asked.
She laughed. "Not yet, but soon."
By this time, it was now approaching 6:30 a.m. My blood pressure was now at a normal level; the medication had worked. I had instructions to see a cardiologist later that afternoon. It was time to go home.
As we walked to the car, we could see that it was raining heavily. That would matter quite a lot later that morning, but for now, it was time to go home and rest.
Next -- the rain keeps coming
3 comments:
the stress test sucks on a treadmill, but its a ride you wont forget when given intravenously. i've been through both.
May you do what I did when a pulmonary physician put me on one back in high school; max out the speed on the treadmill.
(I was running sub-10-minutes for 2 miles at the time, and took the stress test to show West Point that my asthma wasn't hurting me too badly.....they passed on me anyways, which just might have saved the lives of a whole platoon or battalion if my asthma had come up at an inappropriate time, I think)
Reminiscent of my experience 10 years ago: http://thenightwriterblog.com/2005/08/04/night-in-the-emergency-room/
Ultimately my situation turned out to be a muscle strain brought on by poor office chair posture and letting my left arm rest on my chest while I read. Of course, we didn't get to that revelation until after I'd had my time on the treadmill and other devices in the coming weeks.
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