But I tell ya, this is one hell of a nice room. Private, wood paneled, premium cable, wireless access and very nice staff here. It’s the Heart Wing of the hospital all my doctors are affiliated with.
Oh, you want the story, huh?
So Tuesday night I woke in the middle of the night with those sweaty chills, you know the feverish, fluish ones? I managed to fall back asleep and in the morning, I felt mostly better. Kind of fatigued, but not bad all in all.
Wednesday I was unexplainably yawny.
Thursday I noticed that whenever I did anything as simple as walking up a flight of stairs I was gasping for air. Now keep in mind, part of my regular workout at the gym is one of those escalator looking step machines. I regularly pound off 30 minutes on that thing at a pace enough to get me up 140 floors or so.
So this was weird.
I felt pretty weak Friday, but had flashes of feeling ok. The three of us and a few other people went to Soldier Field for a practice night event they do every year. I walked up two flights of ramps to get to our seats and thought I’d keel over right there.
Saturday I made a point of doing nothing and decided this morning to head to immediate care down the road - not an ER just a branch of the hospital to handle walk-ins.
Want to know how to jump the line at an ER or IC? Say the words “shortness of breath”.
Since then I’ve been: chest x-rayed, CAT scanned, poked for blood with the thing still sticking in my arm, heart monitored, had that clippy thing on my thumb and had to pee in a plastic pitcher.
They have ruled out: a heart attack, blood clots on my lungs and pneumonia.
Yay I think, or not because it seems to me that all the other options might be more bothersome.
In the morning sometime I’ll have a stress test (“unless I think you wouldn’t be able to complete one” - truly encouraging words to hear from your cardiologist), and probably some kind of ultrasound. I dunno, it’s all mystifying. I ask a lot of questions, which is why I say they’re so nice here.
The Wife is here, Kid’s on the way and to be honest I hope they leave me alone pretty quick because I don’t want to sit here feeling like The Sick Guy. Also, sitting here with no distractions is kinda nice. If I can I’ll pop in later, I’m not sure how late I can stay up or play lights out.
Funniest thing so far: Someone knocked on the door of the lady next to me a while ago. Mean Voice from in the room says “WHO?”
“Breathing therapy”
“Go away, I don’t want that today!”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m breathing!”
