December 11th started like any other day. It was so ordinary, in fact, that I can't give you any details about the first part of the day. I got up, brushed my teeth, and got ready for work. Nothing significant happened during my work day and I can't tell you what I had for lunch. I know that I was very busy. Winter is a very busy time at my job and I was doing 3 jobs at the time. I was working a lot of over-time. I guess you could say that I was a little stressed, but I don't think it was too much more than normal. My husband had quit his job in November so my income was all we had. That is why I volunteered for the over-time. I thought I had everything under control.
I got home from work a little after 5 o'clock and we made and ate dinner. I do remember that we had spaghetti. I decided not to do any over-time (I do my over-time from home). I was relaxing in my chair watching T.V., this was about 6:30. The pain started in the center of my back and it was just a dull ache. It felt like my back was out of place. I kept moving around in my chair, trying to get comfortable. The more I moved, the worse I felt. I got up and stretched and that didn't help either. I figured I would just have to deal with it. I have had back problems for a long time so I didn't think much of it. I had a twisted vertebra in that area about a year before and I just figured it was out of place again.
After about 10-15 minutes, pain in my left arm started. It started in my wrist and was extremely intense. It was just a ring a pain around my wrist. That is when I told my husband that something wasn't right. He asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and I reluctantly said, "Yes." By the time we got our shoes and coats on, the pain had started around my elbow. I now had 2 rings of pain, 1 around my wrist and 1 around my elbow with no pain in between. We only live about 5 blocks or so from the hospital so it didn't take long to get there. There was no snow on the ground and there was no frost so we didn't wait for the car to warm up, we just piled in and left.
The hospital staff was very quick to see me. I told the receptionist in the E.R. that I was having chest pain and pain in my left arm. She said to have a seat and a doctor would be right out. I would say the doctor was out in under 5 minutes, which was not quite fast enough for my husband. I could see the worry in his face, but I still didn't think anything really serious was going on. I did my best to reassure him that I would be fine. The doctor came out and took my vitals in lobby. My heart rate and oxygen levels were good and he took me back to get an EKG right away. I was then taken to my own curtained area in the E.R. The doctor said my EKG was fine and he started the usual line of questioning, what were you doing? how would you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10? do you have any history of blah, blah, blah? The usual questions you get whenever you go to the hospital. The next test was a chest x-ray, normal. Then they did blood work and got a urine sample. The pain had stopped and I figured it was due to my gallbladder or something and wanted to go home, but they wanted to run more tests.
By this point it was getting pretty late so I sent my husband home with our son so he could get some rest. At around 11 o'clock they decided to send me to get a CT scan. Surprise, surprise, that was normal too. I remember flagging the nurse down around midnight to find out what was taking so long. I felt fine and just wanted to go home. Like I said, work was crazy busy and I didn't want to leave anyone hanging. The nurse said I could leave, but I would be leaving A.M.A (against medical advise) so I toughed it out. I figured they would have answers soon and I had already waited this long. I started to drift off to sleep around 1 A.M. and that is when the nurse told me that my blood work came back and my cardiac enzymes were elevated. She said it could be a sign of damage to the heart or an infection. They were going to keep me overnight to monitor me. She didn't act concerned so I wasn't worried. I got to my room around 2 A.M. and drifted off to sleep pretty easy. I was awakened around 4 and again around 6 for more blood work and vitals. Needless to say, I didn't exactly rest.
In the interest of not going on forever, I am going to end this post here and start another one to detail what happened the following day. I hope you will all bare with me while I get through the rest of the details. I am not trying to ramble on forever, but I want to fully describe what happened.
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