First of all – the Sunday before Xmas Mom came down with a “cold.” She came to our house the Thurs. evening before Xmas and coughed a whole lot. On the 23rd, Kevin was suddenly sick with her “cold.”
I did my best to keep my distance, and we didn’t do any celebrating at all on Christmas day, and then the Wednesday after Xmas, the 27th, the cold struck me. The next night Afib started and it was not going away and then it turned into tachycardia, rapid heartbeat, and it wouldn’t go down.
I called a telenurse who had me try a couple exercise to bring it down which didn’t work and she said I should go to the ER and I said do i have to and she said it wasn’t good for my heart to beat that fast. It was about 11 o’clock at night by then and I didn’t want to make Kevin take me so I enlisted Mom, who is a night owl and is rarely asleep before two.
We got to the ER and they took me right in; they don’t make you wait around if it’s heart-related. I had to lie in the hallway in the ER, didn’t get a room, but that was OK. They gave me drugs in an IV to bring my heart rate down and I was home by 3:30. Not too bad for the ER. Plus Mom did an excellent job of driving me and hanging out all that time.
Oh, but wait – when I first went in the nurse did a quick Covid test on me and as I was getting ready to leave I asked, “so the Covid test was negative, right?” She replied, “no it was positive.”
!!!??? Good lord. If I hadn’t asked, was she going to mention that? The first time I had Covid, last December, it felt like the flu with chills and a fever and flu-like symptoms but this was all about a cough and feeling like it was a cold. Except for being exhausted.
So, no New Year’s celebrating either, although we wouldn’t have done much anyway. I finally tested negative on Thursday the 4th but continued to have no energy and I took many naps. Plus it made sense to me that the Covid would have caused the Afib. I really don’t want to get Covid anymore, please.
After doing almost nothing I finally felt pretty good last Wednesday, the 10th; I gave a massage, I went to give blood because I hadn’t done it in a while, I stopped by Schnuck’s and bought some brown rice sushi. Everything was good.
Kevin and I were watching “The Darjeeling Limited” that night and my stomach started feeling crampy. And then it got worse and then much worse and then, nausea, throwing up. Ugh.
Food poisoning, obviously. This all started around nine and when I realized it was food poisoning I told Kevin to go to bed, no point in sitting around watching me be sick. But then the pain was worse…and worse…and I couldn’t take it anymore. I called out “Kevin?” but he was already fast asleep. I staggered into the bedroom and woke him up so he’d call the telenurse because I didn’t have the strength. And guess what…back to the ER. Good grief. As Kevin drove me I felt worse and worse and barely made it in the door at the hospital and as they were taking my vitals my hands were both like claws and I couldn’t move them and the nurse kept saying sternly “you have to take deep breaths” and I was desperately trying to calm down but it wasn’t happening.
Back in the hallway in the ER, and it was probably an hour til they finally inserted an IV and started the drugs. First it was morphine which did nothing and then they gave me stronger drugs and then more drugs and meanwhile I was lying there moaning and groaning. Even though the ER was very busy, so busy that I had to lie in the hall, I was the only person making aruckus. Everybody else was very quiet, and when nurses or whoever walked by nobody would make eye contact with the crazy moaning and groaning and writhing old lady.
Also, because I had given blood and then thrown up a few times I was so parched, parched like I’d never been parched before. My tongue felt like it was sticking to the roof of my mouth and I told Kevin I’d give him a million dollars if he got me some water.
No water cause they had to do tests of course, and I finally had a CT scan. A big ordeal but they got it done.
After a while the very nice doctor who had been attending to me said I had a kidney stone. What??!! But I had Covid and I gave blood and I had sushi…none of that was the problem? Nope. It wasn’t even a very big kidney stone – they range in size from 1 to 10 and mine was a three.
I don’t even want to think about how much pain there’d have been if it had been any bigger. My pain during the night went to an 11. I don’t want any more of that, thanks. Also I feel that going the ER two times less than two weeks apart is way way more than enough. I want to be very healthy again, please.
I must be all better because there are so many kitties to attend to! Poor Lester was limping on Saturday night and still limping today so we took him to the vet and he’s going to be fine.
Here he is at the beginning of the month as little Lemondrop balanced on the edge of the railing. She’d never done that before.
I wish this was clearer, but can you make out the deer at the other side of the fence? Riley is always very protective of the yard and doesn’t like it when those bad deer get too close.
And one more blurry nature photo – here’s a big eagle that we’ve seen the past couple weeks. Actually there have been as many as five.
Meanwhile, we’ve been plunged in a horrible deep freeze for the last several days and enough already. I feel awful for our poor outside kitties but I think their house is protecting them pretty well.
Whew. That’s all I gotta say. Well, except that I feel that hopefully the year has nowhere to go but up.
Simply G.