Snowmageddon in St. Louis -- Sloppy

We pick up the story the following morning. By the time we had to check out of the Hampton in Chesterfield, the snow was turning into rain. That makes all the difference, because now we were simply dealing with wet roads. We were able to make our way to the Saint Louis University campus, then head back west to the Delmar Loop area of St. Louis, a district of shops and restaurants that reminds me of Grand Avenue in St. Paul, although with one difference; there are no Chuck Berry statues in St. Paul:

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Meanwhile, I'm still thinkin'

Had the temperature dropped, as generally happens in the Twin Cities following a big snowstorm, things would have been much worse. We were generally able to get around, especially since many of the good citizens of St. Louis were still hunkered down. We headed back to SLU and got the rest of Fearless Maria's things unpacked, then headed to our hotel, near Union Station. It's a great location and the building itself dates back to the early 1900s.

Old school

They don't build 'em like that any more. It was a much better day.

Snowmageddon in St. Louis

Well, that was a hell of a weekend. We went to St. Louis to drop Fearless Maria off at Saint Louis University. You may have heard about the snowstorm that hit the area over the weekend. It was tough out there. Really tough. I've clipped a map to set the scene:

MoDot hostage situation

The main road shown is I-64, which begins around Wentzville, Missouri, about 20 miles to the west. We arrived at the area about 6:00 p.m., heading eastbound. Our car was located about where the 64 logo is shown on the left of the screen. It was snowing heavily and traffic was stopped.  Absent any information from the Missouri Department of Transportation about road conditions ahead, we assumed it was a temporary delay. It was not. The road was closed up ahead. We did not know that. We turned on the local radio, hoping in vain to find out information about our particular situation. Instead, we got Cardinals happy talk on KMOX. By about 6:45, we had edged to the area around the off-ramp, but we were in the middle lane and could not get over. By this time, we'd started downloading the MoDOT apps on our phones and were calling MoDOT directly to find out what was going on. We found out that the road was closed ahead. We wanted to know what the plan was to open the road. Apparently there was no plan. Since I was behind the wheel, I couldn't call ahead to our hotel, but Fearless Maria was able to reach the hotel and cancel our reservation.

By 7:30, we were under the overpass. Still, no movement. Stuck in the center lane. The snow continued to fall. Nothing. No communication. Eventually, I was able to find an open space and get over to the right lane. By 8:50, we were at the merge point from Boone's Crossing to the highway. We were able to turn the car around and then go back up the on-ramp. We saw hotels (not shown) on the right side. We were able to pull into the parking lot of the Hampton Inn property. They had no rooms, but they were hoping there might be a cancellation, and offered us the opportunity to stay in the lobby. I did that, while Fearless Maria trudged through the snow to find a restaurant. Just about everything had closed, including the Brick House Tavern (shown on the map), which is next door to the hotel. They pointedly refused to get us food. Maria met a customer leaving the Brick House, and he told her that there was a Raising Cane's down the street that was still open. Mrs. D was able to find her way over there and get food and bring it back. By 9:50, the night manager at the Hampton had found us a room and our ordeal was over.

We were fortunate, actually. MoDOT was prepared to leave people out on that highway all night long; we learned the next morning that they were doing "wellness checks" on people stranded in the area, bringing them water and perhaps a snack, but weren't doing anything to get the road cleared and people off the highway. Eventually things cleared in the morning, but had we not been able to sidle our way over to the right lane and go back up the on-ramp, we'd have been out there all night. The poor schmucks who were stuck past the merge point, who knows when they were freed?

The next morning, the roads were cleared sufficiently so we could continue our journey and get around the area. There's more to the story and I'll pick it up tomorrow. Let's just say this -- MoDOT is a clown show.

Events are again in the saddle

Not much content on the blog lately. While there are any number of things to discuss, I don't imagine I will be writing about them for a few days. I'm hoping to return to regular blogging soon.

I would throw out one thought that I read recently. Condescension is not persuasion.

Quick update

Had my stress test yesterday. Should have the results in the next few days. No one seemed too alarmed.

Saga -- Part Four

It was about 7 a.m. when we left the hospital. My wife drove the car out of the parking ramp onto Thompson Street, then turned left onto Grand Avenue. The sun was about to rise, but it might as well have been midnight. Sheets of rain were hitting the windshield. As she prepared to turn from Grand Avenue onto Smith, my phone let out an alert.

“What’s that?” my wife asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ve never heard my phone do that before. Let me look.”

It was a warning from the National Weather Service – Ramsey County was under an urban and small stream flood warning. A severe thunderstorm was moving through the area. Heavy rain would fall throughout Ramsey County and localized flooding was possible.

I thought about our house, about 20 minutes away. While it's been a mostly beautiful summer, we’d had a number of torrential rain storms over the course of the year and water had overwhelmed our gutters and downspouts, causing a small amount of water to leak into the basement. We’d been able to avoid major damage, but this storm didn’t look promising. We are getting things repaired, but the problem remained.

“We’ll have to see what things look like when we get home,” I said. "I hope the gutters aren’t overflowing.”

The rain and the regular rush hour traffic turned a 20-minute drive into a 45-minute slog. As we arrived home, we could see that water was coming over the gutters, but just a trickle. The rain was coming to an end, though.

“Looks like we dodged a bullet,” I said. “I’ll have to check the gutters later on, but we need to get some rest.”

Neither of us had slept since the previous morning, so we were exhausted. We went to sleep. By this point, the medication I'd received from the hospital had kicked in and my blood pressure had returned to normal levels. I was breathing deeply and freely. About three hours later, it was 11 a.m. and the phone rang. It was the heart clinic -- they wanted to see me at 3:30 that afternoon for a consultation with a cardiologist. I wrote down the information and headed back to bed.

Not 20 minutes later, I could hear thunder and heavy rain. I put on some workout clothes and looked outside the front window of the house. Water was coming over the gutter -- a lot of water.

A few days before, we had set out a series of containers in front of our house to catch any rain water that had come over the roof. The containers were full and the water was starting to splash on the landscaping in front of our house. I grabbed the ladder from the garage, climbed up the ladder and looked up into the gutter. It was filled with water and leaves from our ash tree. I tried to fish out some of the leaves from the gutter, which helped a bit, then I carried the ladder to the downspout area on the end of the garage. The downspout was filled with leaves as well. I fished out what I could from there, all the while getting soaked by the rain, which was coming down in sheets. 

I put the ladder aside, then grabbed a pail from the garage and started bailing the water out of the plastic storage containers that were catching some, but not all, of the water. I filled the pail about 20 times and tossed the water out onto the lawn, bailing water like I would if I were on a leaking boat. That helped somewhat, but it wasn't a promising way to start my recovery. The rain started to slow a bit and I got somewhat ahead of the water that was pouring over the roof line. After about 10-15 minutes of this, the rain started to slow.

I went back into the house and turned on the computer to check the local radar. We had a brief respite, but more rain was coming. I grabbed a tarp and tried to rig up a barrier in front of the house, but the wind was howling and made it almost impossible to keep anything in place.

About 20 minutes passed and the second wave of rain came in -- this time, a torrential downpour. It took only a minute for the water to start coming over the roofline again and splashing all over the front of our house. I tried to hold up the tarp to keep the water from flowing back toward the house, but it was too much. By then, my wife had awoken and understood what was happening. She came out and helped me to hold up the tarp, but the water kept coming.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes, we received over an inch of rain, part of a total of about 3 inches of rain that we would receive that day. We alternated between trying to keep the water out and bailing what had collected in the storage containers. We could see that water was getting into the window well behind us, so we bailed out that water as well. Some water would get into the basement, but we managed to forestall disaster.

Finally, the rain slowed. We were drenched and exhausted. I had feared I was having a heart attack less than 12 hours before, and now I was still standing, drenched, but alive.

A little bit of water had dripped through the window well into our family room. We also had a little bit of water in the back playroom. A short session with a ShopVac would clean it up. The rain was over and the storm had moved on.

After I pulled off my wet clothes, I posted a cryptic message on Facebook:

A fair number of people who read that post were puzzled by what I meant. Now you know. 

About 90 minutes later, I was able to drive myself to my appointment with my new friend, the cardiologist. He told me about the stress test he was scheduling for me. I will take that test in a few days from now. I have little doubt that the stress my heart will receive from the test will not be any greater than what I had experienced. Bring it on.

Saga -- Part Three

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

Saga -- Part Two

The blood work had come back and nothing was amiss. "There are markers that we see in the blood test that indicate a possible heart attack, but we don't see them," the nurse told us. "The CT scan should tell us more. We should be able to get you in for that in a short while. We're still trying to get you into a room as well for more observation, but it's taking a while," she added.

This wasn't surprising. A big city emergency room, even if it's cleaner and less chaotic than what you see on television, is still a busy place. The public address system called out a similar message with regularity --"ambulance on the way, six minutes out." There were more patients like me in the waiting room and the staff at the hospital was doing its best to get to everyone, but I would have to wait.

That I was waiting seemed like a good sign. "If I were in real danger, they would have wheeled me in right away," I said to my wife.

"That's true, I guess," she said. She had been steady all night, never once betraying a sense of panic. We didn't say a whole lot -- this had already been a very long day for both of us and we were starting to realize that we weren't going to get an answer right away.

After nearly an hour, the doors of the emergency room opened and another nurse came out with a hospital bed. It was my turn. "We have a room now for you. We'll have you go there and we'll be installing an IV port so they can put the dye into you. "Have you ever had a CT scan?" the nurse asked.

"Yes, I've had a number of them, and several MRI tests as well," I replied. "About eight years ago, I had surgery here for a pituitary adenoma and they took a lot of pictures then."

"Well, this won't be as extensive as all that," the nurse said with a smile. "The CT scan will only take about three minutes. They will put some dye into your veins to see what's happening and then take the scan."

I was wheeled into the imaging area of the hospital and saw the machine. It was familiar, but had been updated and was, for the most part, open sided. "Well, this isn't an MRI tube," I said.

The nurse in imaging laughed. "No, this isn't nearly as bad as all that. We are going to put some dye in your IV port. It will feel warm, and then you'll feel like you need to pee, but you won't really need to. Can you make it up onto the bed?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. I managed to do that with a little difficulty, then it was time to enter the scanner. The familiar feeling of warmth and then slight burning was there, just as they predicted. And as they'd promised, it was done within a few minutes.

"Okay, we're going to take you back to your room now," the nurse said. "We should have these read in about 30-35 minutes. The emergency room doctor will see you then and let you know what's next."

So it was back to the room. My wife was waiting. They put me on the monitoring equipment and tested my blood pressure. It was still quite high, over 175. "We'll be giving you some medication to get that blood pressure down," the nurse said. "It's very effective."

"I hope so."

"It is. How is your breathing," she asked. "It looks better."

"Yes, it does seem to be better," I responded. "I'm trying to rest, but I'm not particularly good at this sort of thing. At least I'm trying not to yell at you like some of the other people do."

The nurse laughed. "Yes -- we hear all sorts of things in the emergency room. Sometimes the patients don't like me very much."

"Well, we like you," I said. "Don't know if that counts for much, but I want you to know that."

"Thank you. The doctor should be here in a few minutes."

Next -- the doctor arrives and the results come in.

Saga -- Part One

I came home early on Wednesday and went to the dentist for a routine cleaning, then I went home. Not long after that, I started to feel, well, a little off. We have a standing phone call with the Benster every Wednesday evening and we discussed his latest adventures, then we had a quiet dinner. I then went downstairs and turned on the presidential debate.

As the evening went on, I could feel that something was wrong. I started to perspire and, as the evening went on, it became more difficult to breathe. When my wife came down and we watched the news. She looked at me and could see that I was laboring.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. Do I feel warm to you?" I responded.

She put her hand on my forehead. "No, not really."

"I feel warm. I've been sweaty and I don't know why," I said.

As the newscast went on, I was starting to have difficulty breathing. "Something's not right," I said.

Upstairs, my daughter was getting ready for bed and had just retired for the evening when we came up the stairs. At this point, I was having difficulty breathing and getting frightened. My family has a horrible history with heart disease and while I wasn't having any chest pains, something was clearly not right.

"I think I need to go to the doctor," I said.

"Urgent care is probably closed now, so we're going to have to go the hospital," my wife said.

"Yep."

"Okay. Let me get my keys."

It's about a 20 minute drive from our house to United Hospital. As we were going along, my brain was going into overdrive. This can't be happening. I have so much to do. I have to reject fear, but how do you do that? I tried to pray, but my mind was racing so fast it was difficult to focus. As my wife took the turn from 280 to 94 east into St. Paul, lightning flashes were visible and vivid in the eastern sky.

We got to the hospital. "Can you walk to the door?" my wife asked.

"I think so," I responded. "Go park the car and I'll meet you in there."

I found a triage nurse. The modern emergency room is a lot more corporate than what I remembered in the past. The nurse was sitting at a work station with a computer, but she had a blood pressure cup nearby. She started getting my information and then took my blood pressure. It was over 200.

"That's very high. Are you experiencing any chest pains?" she asked.

"No, not really, but I'm having a difficult time breathing."

"We'll get some blood taken right away. We'll also give you an EKG. We'll be able to see if you're having a heart attack pretty quickly. Have a seat and we'll have someone out to see you right away."

By then, my wife had walked in and I sat with her. Within about three minutes, they had taken blood and done an EKG. The EKG looked normal. But things weren't right. "We're going to get you a chest x-ray and a CT scan," another nurse told me. We have to get your blood pressure down and we can do that, but we need to find out what's happening."

"If I'm not having a heart attack, what would be causing the difficulty in breathing?" I asked.

"I don't know. It could be a number of things. It could be a pulmonary embolism. The X-ray and CT scan will be able to tell us that," she said.

Pulmonary embolism. Two of my least favorite words. A pulmonary embolism is when a blood clot formed elsewhere in the body travels through the body and reaches the lungs, making it impossible to breathe. My father died in the hospital because he developed a pulmonary embolism during his recovery from surgery. These days that rarely happens, but a pulmonary embolism can develop in a variety of ways.

I had taken a tumble over the weekend, while walking in the darkness of the vast expanse of land at Eastview High School. We'd been there to see my daughter's marching band compete and the only available parking was about a third of a mile from the stadium. I hurt my ankle a bit and got a few scrapes, but other than being sore the next day, I thought everything was better. Could that have caused a clot to form? I would have to await the answer.

Next -- a long night in the ER.