In the hospital they asked several questions. I filled out papers and even answered some more questions while they took my blood pressure. The high numbers on the blood pressure machine, and my temperature, made them hook me up to an EKG immediately in a room next door. They placed sensor pieces on my legs, my chest area, and my stomach area. I had no idea what they all did, but I did know on the shows that speak med speak an EKG, or a Electrocardiography, reads the heart through those sensors and it is based on the heart beat and the muscles of the heart. Read more about EKG's here.
I still do not remember what my blood pressure was. I do know that it was not as high as it was when I was having my son, Mr. D., now that was high ladies and gentlemen. I was so very close to having some kind of attack with those numbers. Thank goodness having the baby stopped that! Moving back to the EKG and the hospital. Once they did the EKG they switched over to me moving into another section of the E.R.. I sat in the E.R., on a stretcher with wheels, near the Nurse Desk, while people moved back and forth with whatever they had to do there for over 20 minutes. I was hurting. I was sweating from the pain, hunched over, and occasionally I know I moaned because when the pain hit, from a deep breath or something else, I was dying from the pain. I now understand and can define the word agony.
Finally a nurse came. She fussed and cussed like a sailor at me sitting in the walkway like I was. She moved me toward a room, then stopped, realizing it was already occupied. She sighed and moved me back to where they had me, and gave me a robe. I had to remove my clothes then and there, in the narrow walk space between holding rooms of the E.R. and the Nurse desk. All I could think of was the men all around there and ugh..I had to do what!? It makes me grin even now. I put this big floppy robe on me first, with her help, and making a tent like shape around me we moved everything off of me without even flashing one inch of skin. Praise be the intelligent and caring Nurse! Once we did that she covered me up, placed my clothes and things in that typical drawstring hospital bag that crackles and crinkles, and said she would be back because she wanted to find me a doctor and a space to get into.
I think by that time I was used to the pain. I wish I could say I never did get used to it. But I am used to it. I still have the pains every now and then. Moving back to the Hospital: I had a breathing pattern for when the pain came. I figured out how to breathe very, very slowly and it would not hurt as badly. It was tolerable. When the nurse came back she was ready to take me to a nook in the one end of the E.R., but another nurse showed up. He took charge and immediately had me across to another section of the E.R., telling the lady I was his now. She smiled and moved on. I still don't remember her name. I will always remember her kindness.
The male nurse was just as kind and he was hooking me up to all sorts of machines. The sounds reminded me of when Little A was in the hospital as a baby. The bloops and beeps of the machines reading her vital signs. I had the same things on me. When he clipped the glowing finger reader on my hand I almost cried. I felt my heart clench from the emotion of the memory, and being tired, and in pain, and sick...it all just hit me at once, and the machines went off all willy nilly, and he was asking me to breathe and calm down because of my blood pressure. The pain was so, so damn strong when I got upset. It took a lot to breathe slowly and get myself back on track. Once I did everything was getting back to whatever is "normal" for me. The machines calmed down. He was happy, went out to do some orders for me, and came back with pills to take for my blood pressure and then to give me some hospital socks. Of all things. Socks. But they made my feet feel better. How odd. Something that simple making things feel better.
In this large E.R. room I was hooked up to machines reading me. The curtain was closed. I could not see any activity but I could hear so much of it on the other side of the fabric. I heard talking. I heard some laughter. I smelled food. I smelled medicine. He arrived again, and I do not even know how long he was gone, and checked on me, looked at my arms for IV's, and then headed back out. I spent nearly seven hours in that room. People came back and forth with different duties. I got an IV put in. Medicine was started on them. Blood samples were taken. I got an x-ray around my chest. Then more blood was taken. Eventually I was given some morphine for pain. It did not do a thing. I was so unsurprised by that. I finally asked what was going on. The nurse told me that I was being held in the E.R. till the doctors could figure that out. Oh. Yay.
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