The time just seems to fly by and yes, the temperatures remain unseasonably warm. Despite the warmth there is a lot of illness out there. I just spent the past three days of the Christmas weekend working in pediatric urgent care and we were swarmed. It was hard to get a handle on the number of patients we were scheduled to see who had pneumonia, bronchiolitis, severe vomiting, high fevers and so on. We cover the phones and could never catch up with the volume of phone calls either. Many people called from out of town, as if we could actually do something for them from our practice.

I was concerned that I would not be able to work as hard as I am accustomed to working. Apparently an email went around work telling everyone that I had been in the hospital. This was true but not very confidential. Last week I was driving along Rt. 128 with Miss NB after an afternoon of unsatisfactory shopping. All shopping falls into this category for me in recent years so I was not surprised or downcast. I was rather shocked, however, that all Loehmann’s stores had closed in Massachusetts. Loehmann’s reminds me of my mother’s bargain shopping forays.

We were about three quarters of the way home, in Waltham, facing very bright sunlight when suddenly I began to feel very strange. Standing outside myself and wondering what is going on is something I can easily accomplish. I wondered why I had this terrible headache out of the blue, and even worse than that, why I was feeling as if I was going to pass out followed by having intense chest pain. I told NB quietly that something was very wrong and I had to pull off the highway. Luckily we were in the righthand lane, near an exit, with an industrial parking lot immediately after we exited. A lot of credit should go to NB for keeping her head because it is a rare day that I’ll admit something is wrong. In fact, after feeling a little better, I resisted her requests to take over at the wheel in order to get us home safely. Similar episodes and sensations occurred three times and I finally let her take me home. Meanwhile, during one of her stops she called my husband to tell him to get ready to take me to the hospital. Truthfully, I was very worried that I was undergoing a major health crisis.

Making a long story shorter, I was taken into the ED immediately, placed on oxygen, given nitroglycerine and monitored. I had labs drawn and emergency tests scheduled. I was told that when I was stabilized, I was going to be admitted to a cardiac unit for at least 24 hour observation. I hate being a patient. However, I tried to act in a dignified manner because I didn’t want to scare my family members, who were already upset. I was put in a room with a 90 year old woman and had a portable cardiac monitor placed in the pocket of a hospital gown. Soon I will have to blot out these memories.

Many tests of different modalities were done and everything checked out fine. I was told that I have enviable cardiac endurance, even after such a stressful event. Nothing jumped out as a reason for what happened after 24 hours, despite some conjectures. I actually enjoyed when the CMO of the hospital came to visit and he and NB thought of some
of the more rare reasons for syncope and chest pain. NB is able to hold her own even with the big dogs. Nursing care was absolutely abysmal on this cardiac floor and after I was first admitted, I did not see a nurse for 10 hours and neither did my roommate. We did have our vital signs done during the night several times despite being monitored. And we spent some time during the wee hours chatting and laughing. She was pretty cool.

—————————————————————————————————————————-Again I abandoned my post, mid-stream. I am happy to report that all has been well this month and I checked out fine with my primary physician except for being overweight. I just heard from a friend that she was informed of news which I had to keep to myself for this same amount of time. Strangely, Dad tells me that it was reported to him that I had been talking about how stressful this subject had been to me right before feeling ill. I suppose the mind-body connection is a very powerful force. Oh yes: it’s finally real New England cold out.

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