Changes Ahead

Wow! I just re-read my last post. It's pretty obvious that I am turning into a very bitter woman, and I don't like it one bit. I can only imagine that anyone out in "blogger land" who might read my posts would find it unappealing too. I know that last one was a major bummer, but I have to say - Damn! It felt good to get that off my chest! And now it's time to move forward. Let's see...well...we'll start with the news that Hubby and I got last Monday.

So, last Monday was Hubby's birthday. He doesn't like to make big fusses about his birthday. I think getting older really bothers him, although he won't admit it. I had plans to take him to the Red Wing store to buy him these $200 boots for his birthday that he's really been wanting. They're motorcycle boots. Well, don'tcha know, the Red Wing store in town stopped carrying the motorcycle boots. Hubby was so disappointed. I told him he could order them, but he insists that he wants to try them on before he buys them. I can understand that. I've done the mail order thing with shoes, and it can be disappointing and a pain in the butt if you have to return them. So, Hubby didn't get his boots like I had planned. Then he suggested that he would look for new riding boots when we go to Sturgis this year, so I told him to go for it. Meanwhile...

Hubby and I are sitting at home later that morning, and his cell phone rings. It's the base housing office. They want to remodel the houses on our street, so we have been told that we have to move out of our house no later than June 15th. I've been wanting to move for almost two years now, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind. That was strike two for Hubby's birthday too. It wasn't news he wanted to hear, let alone on his birthday. We sat at home for most of the day feeling very bewildered over this upcoming move. It made it hard to really enjoy the day.

Well , I was determined that the day wouldn't be a total waste for Hubby's birthday. We had plans to go out to dinner that evening. He had his heart set on a certain dish at a certain resturant, so I was going to make sure he got at least that much. Only problem was that I wasn't feeling too good, but I wasn't going to let that stop us from going out to dinner.

For the week prior to Hubby's birthday, I had been experiencing numbness and tingling in my left arm. As I was getting ready for Hubby's birthday dinner, the numbness started to get worse, and overall, I just started feeling really bad - just an overall yuckiness started to set in. Hubby came into the bathroom while I was putting my make-up on and noticed that I didn't quite look myself. He suggested that we not go out to dinner, but I insisted. I wasn't about to add a strike three to his day, so I finished getting ready and we left for dinner.

Dinner was good. Hubby enjoyed his meal, and we had good, light conversation. I still wasn't feeling well though, so after dinner we went straight home. We spent what was left of the night chillin' at our computers, then we both went to bed early.

Ya know, some days, no matter what you do, things just don't work the way you plan. This particular day was simply one of those days.

Through the course of the night, my yucky feeling continued to progress, to the point that the numbness in my arm started getting much worse. Nausea set in, then weakness in legs, and by the time I went to bed, I felt like complete shit. I told Hubby I was going to call the dr. in the morning to make an appointment. Then we went to bed. As I lay there, the nausea and numbness continued to worsen. Then I started to feel this warm pressure in the left side of my chest. I'm sure you know where this is heading.

At 2:00 in the morning, I crawled out of bed trying not to disturb Hubby, grabbed my cell phone, and called our after-hours care unit at the base hospital. I thought, worse case scenerio, they would be able to get me an appointment first thing in the morning. Uh, not. After describing my symptoms to the on-call doctor, I was told to hang up and call 911 immediately. CRAP! I so did not want to make that call. I also hated the fact that I would have to wake up Hubby. His birthday this year wasn't going to make the top 10 list as it was. The last thing he needed was to be awakened in the middle of the night to take me to the hospital.

Well, I woke up Hubby, because I needed to. I tried to explain to him what was going on, but he was in a stuper and really didn't understand. Then I made the 911 call, and within 10 minutes I had two police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance outside my house. Suddenly I had my house filled with people. I can't tell you how many people were actually standing in my livingroom, but I was surrounded. If I wasn't nervous before, I was definitely nervous now. Then they tell me they are taking me to the hospital downtown. They asked if I could walk out to the ambulance on my own, or if they needed to the get the stretcher. Of course I'll walk! Silly people. Well, just as I was about to get into the ambulance, my legs gave way underneath me, and they ended up carrying me into the ambulance anyway. Guess I should have taken the ride on the gurney. Silly me.

My trip to the emergency room ended up to be a two day stay in the hospital. [Oh, can I just tell you - chewing aspirin is NASTY! And nitroglycerin squirts under the tongue are even worse!] My blood pressure wasn't looking too good, which is actually very unusual for me. I have always been told that my blood pressure is really good for an overweight 40-something smoker, but not this day. Then they did all kinds of EKG's on me, and eventually hooked me up to a heart monitor.

Over the course of my two day hospital stay, I endured several chest x-rays, more blood samples drawn than I care to count (We all know how much I hate needles. They drew so much blood that I actually have track marks in two of my veins. No shit.), three shots in my stomach (yeah, please explain that one, right? They were giving me blood thinners and anti-blood clot meds that apparently could only be delivered through the stomach), an anti-depressant (because in a previous life I had an anxiety attack), pain meds, muscle relaxers, high blood pressure medication, and more x-rays and EKG's. Then, to top it all off, I had a stress test which I failed miserably, which was then followed by the fabulous (not so much) experience of having an angiogram done.

Let me tell you about an angiogram. An angiogram is where they inject a dye into your heart through the main artery, via a small incision in your groin area. They tell you that they are going to give you a medication that will make you very relaxed - to the point that you won't remember a thing. Uh, excuse me...bullshit! So, yeah, I was relaxed, but I remember the whole thing. Especially the part where they tell you, "you are going to feel a warm sensation in your chest", when they inject the dye. Uh, bullshit again! Warm sensation? Not. The moment they started injecting the dye, I felt it. And "warm" is not the proper adjective I would use here. As soon as they injected the dye, I felt an instantaneous hot flash from my groin to my neck. By the way, when I say hot flash, I mean, HOT flash. It feels almost like someone torched you. Thankfully it doesn't last very long, but I couldn't help wondering if the top of my head was smoking from the experience.

At the end of my two day excursion, here's what they found. First, I didn't have a heart attack. Thank the Gods! Second, it wasn't an anxiety attack. Third, the arteries running to and from my heart look good - no blockages in sight. But then comes the bad news. Apparently, one of the chambers of my heart is not playing nice - not pumping like the rest of them. I also seem to be having issues with random heart tremors. Like my heart all the sudden decides to go nuts for a few seconds, whenever the hell it feels like it. So now, they want to hook me up to a portable heart monitor while I'm at home, to see if they can pin-point what is causing these issues.

I ask you...haven't I had enough this past year? Someone...Anyone...hear me now: I'm D-O-N-E! If I never see another hospital the rest of my life, it would suit me just fine! What the hell? I enter my 40's and suddenly by body decides to go to shit?! It's just not right. I swear it's this place that I'm living. If I don't make some changes soon, this place is going to be the death of me, truly. We won't even get into my so-called "love life" right now. I need a break!

Then there's Hubby. He has been on high blood pressure medication for at least the last 5 years. Yesterday he had a migraine, which was brutal, and he still had it this morning when we got up. For at least the last year, it seems like several times a week he gets headaches. I've been asking him to please make an appointment about it, but he puts it off and just accepts the headaches as a part of life. I guess this morning was the turning point because of this migraine, so he saw a doctor about it today.

When he got to the doctors office, the first thing they did was take his blood pressure, which turned out to be 174/114. If you know nothing about blood pressure, let me tell you, that's bad. That's very bad. The doctor told him if they didn't get his blood pressure down, he could have a fatal stroke. As it is, one of his brothers had a quadruple bi-pass at the age of 36. His father also had a quadruple bi-pass in his 60's. There's some unusual family genetics at work here that causes heart problems for the men in his family. I know that heart disease can be genetic, but this genetic thing in Hubby's family is an unusual one. They carry a unique gene that makes their blood thicken, making the blood pump slower than most. That, in and of itself, is a problem, and when you add that to possible heart problems, it really complicates things.

So now Hubby's dealing with a worsening issue with his blood pressure, and I'm dealing with a whacky heart issue myself. I believe it is time for both of us to make some severe changes in our lives, if we are ever going to make it to old age. Mind you, I've been saying this for a while now, but I believe Hubby finally realizes that I might be right. We simply can't go on living like this.

There is a lot more I want to share, but it is almost 1:00 in the morning and I'm tired, so off to bed I go.

Nighty-night. xoxo