I went to the ER last night with chest pain. I'm okay. It turned out to be something they call costochondritis which mean that the cartilage between my ribs was inflamed. It was quite scary though due to the fact that it was on my left side and radiating into my jaw and shoulder.
This is to be expected given that the treatment I'm on is going to make inflammations worse. I actually called DR at home which is something I hate to do. I figure the poor guy's entitled to a life outside of work, but this was one point where I really didn't feel good about taking my chances with the physician-on-call with the answering service. He told me to go to the ER. I called my neighbor to help me with my kids and she had the presence of mind to call 911 for me. The idea being that they could ascertain pretty quickly whether or not I was having a heart attack.
The ER was one of the more surreal experiences I've had. Its like the diagnosis of Lyme disease kinda threw them. Fortunately, I was also able to tell them about the pneumonia and that seemed to reassure them, cause this kind of thing is apparently not uncommon after that.
If anyone reading this is of the spiritual bent, I sure could use some healing vibes right about now.
Silent Cliff
An image from my first foray onto the Long Trail summer '06
3 comments:
I'm so sorry I was on the road.
You were brave! And our friends are magnificent.
::hugs:: I'm glad to read that you are mostly alright. Sounds really scary and awful. I will happily send healing vibes your way.
It was pretty scary. Come to find out, typically costochondritis looks an awful lot like a heart attack. The jaw pain and the radiating shoulder pain and the pain on inspiration are common for this. Hence My Friend the Nurse called 911 as a precaution.
At one point, the ambulance pulled over to try to get an IV started. Scared the bejeezus out of my friends following. One of the first responders in his own vehicle (and a friend of mine) radio'd the ambulance with "Ummm, this is C3. Is everything okay in there?"
My Friend the Nurse (hearafter known as MFN) said she had an "OMG" moment thinking that they'd stopped to do CPR
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