Ya just know to not mess with the unknown

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I injured my shoulder on Tuesday. I finally decided to head on down to the Urgent Care on Wednesday morning after dropping the kids off at school.

Thankfully, the doc said that I had a pinched nerve in my shoulder. That if I iced it and rested my shoulder that everything would be A-okay. If you've ever been to an ER or Urgent Care, you know that they take your blood pressure right when you come to the back. The nurse who initially took me to the back room took my blood pressure on my left arm. Then she took it on my right arm. I thought it was weird but I didn't question it.  When the doc explained about my shoulder, he let me know that my blood pressure was pretty elevated. What's pretty elevated? 165/104!!! Yeah. Is your reaction like mine?

The doc recommended that I should purchase one of those wrist blood pressure monitors to check my pressure for the next few days. If it stayed high, he said I should go and see my regular doc. And I did exactly that. I monitored my pressure the rest of Wednesday. And it stayed high. In the 150's! I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and in my neck. My chest felt heavy. I felt a slight tingling in my hands/fingers and in my feet.

I was still feeling a bit off when the Hubs came home but I didn't say anything. The Bear had a game, so the Hubs and the Bear left for that. I spent time with the Princess and then put her to bed. the boys got home late and the Bear finally crawled into bed around 8:45pm.

The Hubs and I chatted after he got out of the shower around 10pm. I finally told him how my appointment went and how I'd been feeling the rest of the day. We sat in the office and researched my symptoms online. Our conclusion? We needed to take me to get some medical help. Now. So he woke up the kids and we got them dressed. And we headed down to the hospital he works at.

I checked into the ER around 10:30pm. They took me back for a preliminary look, took my blood pressure, blood Ox level, and did a preliminary EKG. They sent me back out to the waiting room. They called me back to an actual ER "room" soon after. The Hubs and the kids stayed in the waiting room. They finally left for home around midnight.


Relaxing in the ER was difficult. I got snippets of sleep. A half hour here. An hour there.  It was definitely not the best place to get any rest. They took some blood from me around 12:30am. Around 2:30am, they gave me four children's aspirin to munch on. Around 4:45am, the nurse gave me a blood pressure med named Lisinopril along with 2 huge potassium pills. Dang it all that the potassium pills didn't have any coating on them. The 2nd pill didn't go down the first time I tried to swallow it and it started to disintegrate. Oy! The nurse had to get me more water to alleviate the nasty taste in my mouth. Around 6:30am, the nurse took some more blood.

When the Hubs called at 7am, he asked what room I was in. I let him know that I was still waiting in the ER for the test. I told him to go back to sleep and that I'd call him when I found out anything more.

But I was still in the ER. Waiting. What was I waiting for? I was waiting for a space to open up with the cardiology team. I was actually going in to get an echo stress test due to what they found in the blood tests they ran. What sucks? Is that you're not supposed to eat or drink before an echo. So I ate dinner at 5:30pm on Wednesday. I was starving and thirsty! I'd only had about 6 ounces of water since I'd arrived.

Around 10:30am, I called my nurse to find out the status of the test. She went and checked and came in to let me know. That I was in the queue. When she asked me if there was anything else I needed, I broke. I started to cry. Out of frustration. Out of hunger. Feeling powerless. Feeling that I was ruining my daughter's birthday. I felt horrible. I finally broke down.

So when the Hubs called at 11am to find out what was going on, I was not in the best frame of mind. I tried to hold it in but my voice warbled. And he got PISSED. Not at me. At the hospital. The hospital he works at. The hospital that was failing to take care of me. He ended up calling a gal and she got things rolling.

Because I was taken up to a new room around noon. I was then taken down to take the test around 12:30pm. I then took the echo around 1pm. I was able to do the running on the treadmill without any problems. Yes. it was THAT test. The one where they hook you up to leads and see how your heart and blood pressure are doing as you exert yourself. They actually calculated a target blood pressure that I needed to reach before I totally stopped so they could take about 6 ultrasound shots of my heart. It was crazy. But I was able to do it without any problems. Thank goodness I've been walking/running, eh?


Once I was finished with the echo, I was allowed to eat. I was back in the room around 1:30pm. Thankfully, the Hubs and the kids were there waiting for me. And the Hubs went down and got me a burger and some water. It was SO good to finally eat something after 20+ hours. Can you imagine how mentally and physically stressed I felt?


But I was very relieved to be in the room with my family. The kids got into bed with me while the Hubs sat beside me. I was finally able to close my eyes and sleep. The Bear did his regular twirling of my hair as he sat beside me. It was just good to have them near me so I could relax.

The doctor came in around 5pm to talk to me about the blood and echo results. There's nothing wrong with my heart. They found nothing wrong with all the blood they drew. It's just my blood pressure. And they found that it did go down after I took the Lisinopril. So I was allowed to go home with a prescription for the lowest dose of Lisinopril that they've got. I need to monitor my blood pressure and take one dose of the pill daily.

I was discharged around 6pm. We were home by about 6:45pm. So all is well.