Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Sickie-Poo

I had a little spot of cardiac arrythmia last week that caused me to trade in my "health care provider" hat for a "health care recipient" one for a few days. Lori and I spent several luxurious days on the Telemetry unit having my recalcitrant heart monitored. I discovered that I very much prefer being the fully clothed smarty-pants at the end of the bed to being the poor schlub in a hospital dress in the bed.

This totally disproves the theory that I'm a heartless bitch, by the way. I do indeed have a heart, and like so many of my other parts, it flipped me a big "fuck you" finger and decided to pursue it's own agenda. And really, if it's agenda had been to beat in a fairly rhythmic way, I'd have been okay with it expressing it's individuality at my expense. Organs are like children...you're lying to yourself if you think they'll be obedient 100% of the time.

On the bright side, Lori stayed with me the whole time. She even shared my skinny hospital bed with me without causing any overt scandal. Also I got to wear a fetching hospital gown and jammie pants, thus providing repeated opportunities to bitch at Lori about "laying on my dress"...which cracked us both up.

We also got to enjoy 10 hours of the CSI Miami marathon on A&E, which gave Lori ample time to perfect her impression of David Caruso, who she describes as being a graduate of the William Shatner Acting Academy. It took her about 2 episodes to perfect his mannerisms, and maybe 15 minutes to figure out his weird staccato overemphasized speaking style. So now if David Caruso dropped over dead, Lori could step seamlessly into his role.

"The part of Horatio Caine is now being played by..."

When you're stuck in the hospital for cardiac monitoring, you take your laughs where you can get them.

So...although the cardiologist doesn't know why this started, I had a cardiac stress test that showed no abnormalities (heartless bitch is NOT an abnormality), so he sent me home with a prescription for beta blockers and a promise to follow up in a couple of weeks.

And although it was a pain in the ass to be stuck in the hospital, Lori was sure entertaining. I don't think too many people get released from the Observation unit with sore abs from laughing so much.

It's official: Lori is fun. There's not anyone I'd rather be stuck on a desert island with. And maybe MelonKiwi. And a book. And Sirius radio. And maybe some cold beer and chips and salsa...

1 comment:

Kwach said...

There's nothing quite like a good arrhythmia scare to make you ... well ... scared.

I was doing okay with all the wires and EKG leads and O2 sat monitors and being roused every four hours for the phlebotomist to draw another round of cardiac labs. I was even doing okay with Ev gasping for breath like a carp and saying, "Feel my pulse! It's so weird!" (Which, indeed it was ... beat two, skip one, beat three, skip one, beat six, skip one, beat one, skip one ...)

But they did me in when they took her away for an echocardiogram, treadmill stress test and stress echo, and then failed to return her for THREE AND A HALF HOURS.

I'd nearly convinced myself they'd done her in and were drawing straws to decide who had to come back and tell me ... and then they returned her.

It's a good thing she passed all the tests and got the news that her heart will last forever ... even with a Calypso beat ... because I know FOR SURE I don't ever want to lose her. Three and half hours was quite enough.

Kwach