Hyper as anything...

July 24, 2009

Hello everyone. Back home after being taken to the emergency room by ambulance on Monday. Since there have been lots of questions, I’ll give the details here. If you want to skip the details and get to the point, I’m better at this minute, but the docs have no clue what is wrong, and are treating me like an episode of diagnosis x or mystery diagnosis on the cable channels. I’ll send another email when I know more than that.

As for the details…I had significant muscle weakness and felt pretty strange all over and barely managed to call 911 on Monday morning. When the folks got here they heard my slurred and slow speech and the fact I couldn’t really move myself and started asking where my drugs were. ??? They thought they were onto something when they found powder on a cutting board next to a pill bottle. Then they figured out it was written from coastal animal hospital for my cat and the powder was from where I had been trying to cut a pill into tiny pieces for him. Hey, I tried to tell them I wasn’t on drugs except for a nitro tablet I took 45 minutes earlier. They got me to the emergency room eventually and I spent about the next 12 hours baffling the doctors with the weakness and heart pain, etc. They finally admitted me due to an abnormal echocardiogram and stress test from the week before. The EMS guys saw that my drug screen came back clean when they brought in another patient and then and kept coming back to check on me so I’ll have to go say hi when we figure all this out. Once they knew there was actually something wrong they were sweet guys. Guess they get a lot of pill poppers around here.

So far I have a cardiac ejection fraction (amount blood pumps out of a chamber) of 40%. A healthy person averages 58%, with the low being 50% so they are pretty concerned my heart muscle is so weak. They have also continued to confirm I have some sort of tachycardia, which is a rapid heartbeat. If I stand up it goes to 100+ beats per minute, and shoots up to 140+ beats with any exertion, which includes brushing my teeth or curling my hair (that was my record of 173. I always knew trying to look good took a lot of energy but geez). I also have sporadic muscle weakness to the point I can’t really speak or move among other things. Kelli said it’s like watching lettuce wilt. Nice. So far, I have a pulmonologist who said my lungs are fine (Yay), but can’t explain the shortness of breath or trouble breathing as I describe it, a cardiologist who said things are not fine with my heart, but that my heart looks extremely healthy and the problems are not stemming from the heart. No plaque or anything what so ever which means I do not have to go on a low fat diet and will continue to use butter and eat bacon. I now have an endocrinologist who has joined in the bloodletting at the hospital and caused me to hide my arms under the blanket every time I think I hear the lab cart coming down the hall. I’m not kidding. All of his tests have come up negative, so he ordered several more as there were a few open veins left and will have a bunch of other results coming in next week. One of his tests is the reason I’m home, though. They gave me a bunch of something to make my adrenal glands make cortisol and it was like a switch turned on almost instantaneously (though he said the test didn’t show anything he was looking for). I really haven’t stopped chattering since 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I’m hoping the rush will wear off soon so I can sleep, but am so excited I feel the best I’ve felt in weeks. Unfortunately, like Kelli asked, it’s just a bandaid over what is really wrong and they don’t know what has happened, but they are happy to let me get home to rest ( and shower, hellooo) before more testing next week. They have also called in a neurologist so I’ll basically be having the most thorough and expensive physical of my life. Chip is just threatening to bring out the leaches and have it over with.

So Kelli will be staying with me in case I digress and have to go back. They want me back on a chest monitor if the chest pains become significant again or I have trouble breathing again or I get really weak like before. Can’t drive in case one of the episodes comes back. The endocrinologist will have all of his results back for my appt. late on Thursday and they will also perform (finally, and I MEAN finally) a scan on my thyroid to check for a nodule to ensure it isn’t hyperthyroid. Not sure when the neurologist appt. will be. The brain MRI already came back fine and confirmed that other than my weird personality, all is well up there. If these last two specialists can’t figure it out, they will most likely send me to the National Institute of Health or the Mayo Clinic. They are baffled as of yet, but I remain hopeful the medication will hold off the worst of what was going on and I can stay home until they figure it out. The good thing is that after 7 weeks of being sick and 5 weeks of jumping up and down and saying I was getting really sick, they are finally listening and have assured me that the first two folks who told me it was stress and the next two who told me it was muscle cramps were wrong. Nothing like breaking in new doctors in a new town with something so weird.

I really appreciate all the help and words of support and prayers and helicoptering Chip and I have received. I couldn’t have gotten through the past 7 weeks without Chip. He has been my absolute rock and God truly blessed me when he sent Cupid down our way. I’m also grateful for kelli coming down and helping out and Mom being on stand-by. I am in great hands. Kelli is my little Chihuahua (cute, barks, AND bites when needed) while Chip is my bulldog (pretty quiet but when he bites he might not give your arm back). The docs think it’s funny, but get the point. Shout outs also to Susan for picking up our great big box of vegetables from the farm (the carrots are my fav) and Darlene’s zucchini bread. It is divine and the basket of goodies were perfect. The chapstick was a brilliant idea. You and Sherm’s visit were wonderfully distracting from my roommate and her quest for her shoes (my 4th roomie wanted her socks, I kid you not). And thanks, Candy, for the email. Who knew you could send a personal email to the hospital and have it delivered.

Signing off for now. Haven’t slept since Wednesday night. Where was this stuff when I was studying for finals…