What Just Happened?

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The glare of the bright lights hurt my eyes.  As I lie there my heart was racing, I couldn't focus.  My head seemed detached from my body. It felt like I was in a dream.

On May 5th at 6 p.m. I checked myself into Sharp Memorial Hospital.  Nurses started taking vials of blood, a chest x-ray, an EKG, a MRI and then the long wait for the doctor on duty in the ER to see me.

I watched Survivor and the Mentalist out in the waiting room earlier in the evening.  Then in my room, I had plenty of entertainment from Jay while I waited some more!

They had air-flighted people in who had been in a bad automobile accident right after I was admitted and the rooms began to fill up with the normal cuts, scrapes, coughs, vomiting woman, sick baby crying, all waiting to be seen but put on the "back burner" (the nurses said) until the crash victims had been taken care of...I didn't mind waiting, they needed help more than we did at the time.
  

I was one of the people waiting to find out what was wrong with my me.  I had lost my balance, couldn't focus, my neck hurt, my heart was in tachycardia, nausea came in waves.  Blood pressure was 160!  After 6 hours and a lot of tests and questions, I finally saw the doctor who then ordered a CAT Scan of my head.  "Sly" wheeled me down the hall for a ride through this machine!!!

They still didn't know for sure what was wrong with me except I seemed to have Vertigo.

Around one a.m. I was watching info-mercials!
I've gotta get one of these!!!

Finally the radiologist read the scans, gray matter was all in tact and my brain looked fine.  All blood work came back excellent....I'm very healthy was the doctors report. No heart attack or stroke, no high blood pressure...it had dropped down to 130 by now.  And no diabetes.  Thank God!  That was such a relief.

I clearly didn't focus this picture!  I wasn't seeing too well at the time!  I had my iPhone with me so to keep myself entertained I took a few pictures!  This is Jacquelyn, my RN,  who spent the majority of the night with me, and told me to try a little trick when I was finally ready to be discharged around 2 a.m.  I should lay my head on the edge of the bed and begin to go from side to front, to other side and back in a clockwise fashion to try and dislodge the particles in my inner ear that may have caused my problem.  And, if it didn't work, try doing it counter-clockwise in the same fashion.  I  tried it and actually started to feel better.

This morning my head and neck still hurt but my vision is getting better and I feel so much better than I did last night.  And the nausea is finally gone!  Hallelujah!

What a way to spend an evening with so many nice people!  Sharp was awesome.  Thank you to Dr. Rinebolt, my doctor, the technicians and radiologists, nurses and the girl with the warm heated blankets!

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