Shelby's Life and Whatnot

So Where have I Been, Anyway?

In an exciting flashback to the hellish year known as 2002, I have spent a large part of this week in the hospital. Don't worry--everything's fine.

Monday I had severe stomach cramps related to that exciting time of the month, and in the evening I woke up from a nap and went to take some more ibuprofen. Pills and glass in hand, I headed to the refrigerator to get some water and then took a nose dive. I mean that literally. All I remember is the sound of the glass shattering on the floor, the edge of the counter speeding toward my face, and coming to sitting in a pile of glass with Kevin holding me up trying to keep me from laying down in the glass which I apparently really wanted to do. I had totally passed out, smacking my nose on the edge of the counter (rounded, thankfully) on the way down. I was completely disoriented with a bloody nose, so Kevin got me to the bed and called 911. Off I went in an ambulance (no lights or sirens) to the closest hospital.

Where I stayed from Monday night through Thursday night. Fun! I had basically every conceivable test known to mankind and it was 100% NOT heart-related. Phew! It also wasn't a seizure, thanks to a rather unpleasant EEG brain scan. They attach electrodes to your head and I though they were going to glue them like they do for a sleep study. Nope, they have little pins on the ends and they just poke them into your skin. Nice. When he took them off he blotted my head with a towel and tiny spots of blood came off. Extra nice.

I had an ICD interrogation (completely silent--no activity) and an echo, which actually showed an improvement in my heart function, which was good news. I even had a stress test, where they used a drug to dilate my blood vessels instead of making me run on the treadmill. That was interesting. But again the results were completely normal--no coronary artery disease.

The verdict was that the cramps were menstrual. I have NEVER had anything like this before and am frankly terrified that it might happen again, so I have a follow up appointment with my gynecologist on Wednesday to discuss my options. After ruling out just about every other possibility, we decided that the fainting was a vaso vagal response due to the pain, possible low blood pressure, and a falling heart rate (but not enough to be picked up by my ICD--that would have to be below 40 bpm which is really slow).

All in all I held up rather good emotionally during the visit, unlike my last visit where I went completely bonkers. The hardest part, as usual, was waiting for all of the tests and for the doctors to show up. So anyway, that's where I've been lately and I'm SO glad to be home and in my own bed with my beagles.