Category: Hospital Shenanigans

Part of having LQTS is that the doctors generally want you to have an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator)/pacemaker combo. An ICD, what they do is set a range of where your heart rate can go, some ranges are like 80 to 170, something like that. If your heart goes above or below this range you get a shock. A pacemaker helps keep your rhythm in check, what this does is it sends electrical signals to the heart. It can help speed up a heart, keep ventricles beating and not quevering. This device is incredible, just how much such a tiny little battery operated thing can do.

When I was told that I was going to have this implanted in me however, I wasn’t just hesitant about it, I flat out didn’t want something forgien in my body. I really wanted some time to be able to take it in. I honestly didn’t know exactly what this device was at the time or how it was going to change my life. I was told that they wouldn’t let me come home without it placed in. I was pissed, but I signed the consent form, because I just wanted to go the hell home. I was still coming off all the drugs, I was physically and mentally tired and here we go more drugs.

Of course, this was placed in on Friday the 13th. Luckily for me one of my friends was a nurse in the cath lab thing, she was able to come in with me. Pretty sure I got her in trouble, cause I wouldn’t shut up. Coming out of this wasn’t bad, had to keep my arm in a sling and ice it some. I totally stretched out the scar where they put in the ICD, cause I couldn’t “take it easy”.

This video is kinda long, but I thought it was the best one. Other ones were all computer generated. If you are not into surgery videos don’t watch. All I can say is wow, I have that in me!

 

 

I will never take walking for granted. It is unbelievable how quickly your muscles lose their strength. I didn’t realize how much it takes to be able to just walk. When I first started to get up and moving I had to be assisted. I had someone walking with me and a little push cart (it even had a seat). My legs felt almost like after you have had a really extremely hard workout, your legs shake and feel kinda jell-o like. I didn’t get very far, a little embarrassing but the short distance I did walk I worked up a sweat and needed a nap.

After I got disconnected from all of the IVs I walked as much as I could. Honestly, I was going stir crazy, not one to sit around and do nothing.I did enjoy being able to walk outside by myself. Feeling the heat from the sun on my body really helped my bones feel warm, my hospital room always felt so cold. I walked all over the hospital, and outside at the labyrinth that the hospital has. It was amazingly hard and exhausting to do, and I was very frustrated with myself. It’s one of those things that you know you should be able to just go, but you can’t.

It has also given me a much different perspective on people who have disabilities/illnesses that effect the way they walk. What so many can do with absolutely no thought, for some every movement is carefully thought out and possibly painful.

 

 

 

Before you read into this post, let me explain something. Going through something like this tends to bring up feelings and emotions that you never thought you had and some that you thought you had long buried away. There has been so much in my life as far as my emotions and feelings, that I kept inside. A lot of the emotions and feelings that I went through and felt were and continue to be some of the most raw things I have ever had to grabble with. For me, I think this was a starting point of acknowledging on these emotions and feelings.

The first time, that I recall being by myself in my hospital room, I lost it. I think I just finally had a chance to breath. For weeks I had tubes in me, blood work, alarms going on and off, pretty much stripped naked, and had ridiculous amounts of drugs flowing into me. MRIs, CT, I don’t even know how many x-rays, frozen and unthawed.

The gravity of what happened was slowly starting to make it’s way in. My loved ones being told to kiss me good bye, that at that first 24-48 hours, I was considered pretty much as a no hope case. Not sure I have or really will be able to understand how much this effected everyone around me.

As I set in my bed crying, I thought of how unhappy I was. It maybe selfish to have been thinking this way but it was how I felt leading up to this event. The feeling of being incomplete. I thought I had nothing to really to give my kids. Unaccomplished, I never went back to school and I didn’t think that I had real skills to be a productive person. These feelings of inequities, just created a quick sand. I was fighting and the more I fought the further I sunk down. I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. I will admit, I never knew how to express myself emotionally, except to hold it inside and not show how you felt. I never wanted to hurt anyone so I did allow for people to push my comfort zone, because like so many I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I was hurting myself. I had an enormous amount of anger that could spill out, it was easier to show than the hurt. I do really feel like years of holding in my true feelings and caring around the anger added to the stress on my heart.

This moment I think has helped me really look at my life going forward in a more positive way. Not saying I still don’t have moments that are hard or hurtful. But that I am able to view things from a different perspective than before. Also, having this low point I think has made me take a proactive approach to get what I want and where I want to go in my life.

 

I got a blood clot in my lungs and a clot in one of my legs. I do remember the pain in my chest was excruciating. I also remember one of my doctors getting pissed because the order for the pain killer wasn’t being filled quick enough. They gave me the pain killer and they figured the pain killer would make me sick, so they decided to give me another dose of Phenergan. They also figured they would find out if the Phenergan was what gave me the agitated reaction.

Oh it was, but this time the reaction was so much worse. I tried to pull out all of the lines and needles in me. I thrashed, I cursed… I probably was beyond an agitated state. I was restrained and all of the nurses, doctors left, I guess they didn’t want to deal with the madness that they helped create. My husband stayed with me, I bit him a few times. This lasted for 2 hours, and I am happy I don’t remember any of this.

You know how in those zombie movies how there is always at least on zombie that they tie up and yet it fights and still tries to bite, that’s what I imagine myself to look like.

In all seriousness, I just want to thank everyone who had to deal with me at this time. Oh geeze, I am pretty sure I would have done the same thing. I would have actually slapped myself also, I am not a raging dick.

On top of the cardiac arrest, for whatever reason my kidneys decided to stop working. So the natural thing to do with someone going into kidney failure is to put them on dialyses. But amazingly my results got better by the morning and that is one thing that wasn’t added to the growing list of things going downhill for me.

When I got my breathing tube, which I don’t really remember, I started puking. Not sure if was just from all of the drugs and things in my system or what. I doubt I had anything in my stomach to throw up. My family knows I am a puker. If I try to read anything while in a car I throw up. Someone hocking up a loogie, will make me throw up in my mouth every time, I think that is from my older brother holding me down and doing the thing where you hock up a loogie and let it hang from your mouth until it gets super close to the person who is being held down’s face and then suck it back up… Super gross!

Anyway, I just kept puking, I was threatened that the breathing tube would be put back in if I didn’t stop. So they gave me Phenergan which is used to help prevent vomiting and nausea, it can also be used as an antihistamine. So, there are some reactions that come along with this. For most people they become drowsy or just go to sleep. But some people have a much different reaction…

It put me in an agitated state, so bad that I was thrashing around. At that time the doctors were not sure if the Phenergan was the cause for this reaction. But it wouldn’t be the last time they would give me it.

 

Long QT Syndrome. Yeah, I have never heard of that until the doctors diagnosed me as having it while I was in the hospital.

What is it? Well the best way that was explained to me is, “your heart is like a house, for you the structure is good. But like a house  with electrical problems some people can have some electrical shorts. Your heart has an electrical short and it cuts out from time to time. If your heart can’t fix this “short” then there is a possibility of it stopping.”

But really it has to do with your rhythms.  There is an interval called the “QT”, and people who have the syndrome can have a longer  QT interval.

Really reading about this made me think, of all the times I would just be sitting, in a classroom or while I painted, nothing super active or even stressful and I could feel my heart “flutter” and race like I had been running. I told my mom when I was a kid, sure she thought I was making it up (I was a very imaginative kid), and who would think their pretty healthy kid would have heart issues?

I think before I had my son, I finally went to a doctor and explained to them what was going on. I was getting tried of the “fluttering” feelings and the fainting feelings. They did a thyroid test and some other blood work. Basically after all of this I was told it was most likely in my head. Of course I was upset, and was like forget it, it really wasn’t worth it to push.

Lesson learned, we all know ourselves and most of us are in tune with our bodies. If something isn’t feeling right, you need to keep looking. I often wonder if I had pushed and gotten an EKG, would they have found the Long QT syndrome, I could have bypassed the whole sudden cardiac arrest.

   People who survive from a cardiac arrest are incredible. If you really think about as soon as someone’s heart stops time is ticking against them. Cardiac arrest, is considered to be the most emergency you can get. On average a person who go into cardiac arrest only have 6 minutes to live if the condition goes untreated. According to Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation each day in the U.S. survival rate is 10% and in children is only 5%.

Transweb.org has really good information on what happens to the brain when it is deprived of oxygen; after 1 minute of not breathing brain cells begin to die, survival is still high; 3 minutes, serious brain damage is likely; 10 minutes, many brain cells have died and recovery is unlikely; 15 minutes, recovery is virtually impossible.    

 The time averages  that I found for an ambulance to reach an emergency ranges from 6 minutes up to 11 minutes. There are reasons from traffic, to poor communication from dispatch to the Ambulance Company, other emergencies, and distance. So you can image that the chances of help coming in time are very low. Surprisingly, there is also no government mandate on ambulance arrival times.

From what I was told, I was deprived of oxygen somewhere between 5 and 8 minutes. There’s not a real accurate time that I have been given on just how long. Defiantly no one was keeping time they were focused on saving me. There was also miscommunication to the EMT’s on the call that was placed from my teammates to get help for me. Thank goodness that the EMT’s got there and took me to the hospital. It’s just crazy how things can unfold so quickly, and am very thankful for everyone who was there.

 

 

One memory I do have, is I am pretty sure my friends were in my hospital room talking. I remember saying “you can’t kill a cockroach.” And I don’t know if I said this out loud or if I was just thinking it, but all I could think was “this was the only time I could ever really use this saying”, and giggled. Of course I would say something ridiculous. Not sure how long after I woke up that I said this, but such a typical thing for me to do.

My friends made the most amazing poster for a fundraiser they did for me to help pay for my medical bills. I love those girls!

Even when they woke me up, I still wasn’t really with it. They put so many drugs into me, it was quite a cocktail. Not sure how long it was before my short term memory caught up. I know I repeated many of my  questions. I honestly could not remember. You wake in a hospital and you have no memory on how you got there or why the hell your even there.

I know my husband was asked the same questions over and over by me and on top of it he had to make decisions he thought he would never have to make. But he finally had enough and said “you keep asking me the same question and I have answered it like a hundred times.” I felt shut down, that I couldn’t grasp what was being said to me. I felt like a child who always asks why, why, why. Finally the parent just has enough and looses it. I know it wasn’t meant to be that way, but it did make me feel more isolated.