Since I was in the ER yesterday, I took the chance to entertain myself by asking questions and watching the process.
This afternoon, as I was being escorted to the pharmacy, the technician said they had “3 Code Blues” at once last night (Thanksgiving). Now, being a good punk rock, that brought up memories of the TSOLsong, which couldn’t be the Code Blue that the hospital was referring to. Wiki says “Code Blue” is generally used to indicate a patient requiring resuscitation or otherwise in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest.
Now, when I walked into the ER last night about 8:00pm complaining of a sharp stabbing pain in the front of my right chest, I’m not sure if this triggered one of the Code Blues? They did have an EEG on me probably less than 2 minutes later in one of the front evaluation rooms. It wasn’t a heart attack, BTW, and they dialed back the urgency a few notches once the EEG was done.
Those fine folks did wheelchair me into one of the real ER rooms within a couple of minutes. Did all my vitals, asked questions while it felt like someone was stabbing my right nipple area with a red hot knitting needle every deep breath, just about every body posture and when I coughed. I knew to mention the 2 round trips I had flown over the past 3 weeks to china and to taiwan. So, they had to rule out blood clots. Xray, which indicated the blood clots rather than pneumonia, then the MRI . MRI was wierd as they injected me with a dye that caused my entire body to flush hot in a split second and lasted at least a few minutes.
Doc said “congratulations, blood clots in both lungs. Good thing they are non-lifethreatening. Threatment to start immediately.” I requested a chance to take a whiz before getting down to saving my life, and they said “we can’t let you go to a restroom, but here’s a nice container.” Actually, the nurse was really nice and asked if I needed help. She also said to call her Nurse Rachet if that made me feel better. 
then pulled the privacy screen.
I tried to just roll over for a good angle but remember that red hot knitting needle in my chest? Gah, after what seemed like I’d been stabbed about 50 times, I managed to stand up but knocked the empty receptical to the floor. I called out “excuse me, I need some help nurse…Rachet” She picked up the container, gave it to me and went back to the station in the hall. “He just needed readjustment not a hand.” :o
They started the Haparin (sp?) IV and I asked how about something for the pain? “So, tell me Mr. China Guy, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it?” “11 when I move or breath.” “Well, I’ve got some good narcotics for you.” And did they, shesh, I’ve never shot smack but that stuff gave me an idea of what goes on. Whatever they gave me hit about 2 seconds later and I was floating!
ER to hospital bed took about 3 1/2 hours. If it’s not clear from the above, the entire staff was quite helpful, patient and professional. Everyone asked if I had my turkey dinner before coming in and seemed genuinely happy that I did. Most of them had had family dinners early and then come into work. They explained that the after dinner rush on holidays is when things get real busy. People over eat, drink, have accidents, whatever, and it’s a busy night.
This morning, the nurse said if I was up for self injection with a really teeny tiny thin needle, I could probably go home today. Otherwise, 5 more days in the hospital with an IV. I’ve never injected myself but I really hate having an IV. So, did a ultrasound early in the morning to make sure there were no additional clots hiding in my legs. That was negatory.
My wife and 3 kids showed up and we all waited for the Doc and the check out process. I injected myself, had a good chat with the quack, got a box of drugs and home by 1:00.
Be careful on those long flights to get up, walk, do the leg stretching exercises, etc.
So, would mine have been one of the three code blues or do you have to have more symptoms?