Yes, I am back! First, I must reiterate what I have been saying for some time... I truly do hate hospitals.. The food truly sucks, and I barely had any sleep for the 3 nights that I was stuck there. I just spent the entire day today catching up on some much needed sleep.....I have been suffering over the last month at least with on and off coughing, fever, and chest congestion. It is the primary reason why I took that "week" off recently to try to work on getting myself healthy... However with the condition not improving, I had decided by last Saturday that if I was not better by the next day, I would go and see a doctor..... I must say that I am relieved that I do not have a heart condition. It was shocking when I went to a local doctor on Sunday and to have him say that an EKG reading on my ticker showed an "abnormality". That was when the fun really began...After spending hours last Sunday in a hospital emergency room where they drew blood, redid the EKG, did several chest X-rays, the doctor on duty came up to me and informed me that they found a "blockage" in my aorta leading into my heart.... I was then informed that I had to spend at least overnight with a heart monitor attached to my chest, while they waited for an opening for an "angiogram" to be performed to determine the fault and to see if repair work could be done... Lets just say that I did NOT sleep at all, and was indeed suffering from severe anxiety of the prospects of having heart problems...Luckily I did not have to wait long for the angiogram, and they wisked me off to another hospital on Tuesday morning to have the procedure performed. It was a very interesting experience where they shaved my right wrist and inserted the probe for the long tube that was to go through my body and into my heart for pictures to determine the damage.... I was relieved that the procedure took less than an hour and I was back in post operation waiting the results...The doctor who performed the procedure came to me shortly afterwards and informed me that there was absolutely NO blockage at all, and that the anomalous reading could have been due to a viral infection (Gee.. the whole reason why I went to go see a doctor on Sunday in the first place!). I then was stuck waiting for 6 hours to be transported back to my regular hospital and spent New Years Eve in my hospital bed, half asleep and still drugged up.....Wednesday morning, I received a clean bill of health and was sent home... Again, I have spent the last day and a half trying to get some sleep while still having my right hand basically immobilized thanks to the Angiogram! Only now have I finally awakened and found the time to write this report....I truly want to thank my great friend, Whitewraithe, for her support and her reports during my absence. She has told me personally that she has been intensely worried about me, and that she is so relieved that I am actually quite healthy and most probably suffering only from a viral infection in my chest.... I truly am indebted to this great lady for her standing behind me in this "crisis"....To those who were also sending me "get well" comments, I want to thank each and every one of you... You have all been trusted allies and have shown support that I have found quite overwhelming.... Words cannot describe my deep sense of gratitude...Thanks, everyone....Lets face it.... Doctors are indeed human, and wrong diagnoses do occur.... I had to give them the benefit of the doubt in this situation, and allowed the procedure to occur just to make sure that I did NOT have a heart problem..... I have no regrets about this happening, and at least it gives a good indication that all of my efforts in improving my health over the last while have paid off in having a strong ticker!Again, it is good to be back.... I will be doing my usual reports very shortly once my right arm feels strong enough (Believe it or not, I just did this entire report with only my left hand, and it took a lot of time!)....In the meantime, please take a look at Whitewraithe's work over at Pragmatic Witness, as well as those others that I do see as the best bloggers I know (listed in the left hand column of this blog).....I do have a lot of catching up to do....More to comeNTS
Source