Well, here we go again…wondering if this is going to become an annual October ritual. Last Tuesday morning, I got up and wasn’t feeling too good, scratchy throat, mild fever, cough, sniffles, ya know, common cold stuff. As a precaution I took one of the rapid covid tests. 15 minutes, negative. Good. So I settled in for the next couple of days with some aspirin, and a few Nyquil and Mucinex cocktails. Started turning the corner Friday afternoon, coming back to life. Saturday canceled my classes at the airport, but felt well enough to go out, had to get kittie food. Got home tired from lack of activity this week and rested.
That’s when it happened. Dun-dun-dun.
About 10 o’clock I started feeling very anxious, heart was racing. Checked the pulse oximeter, O2 was good but resting pulse was 118-120. It had all the smacking of the m.o. of my most recent heart attack. It got me concerned, so as a precaution I got up to take a nitro pill. Breaking out in a cold sweat, I passed out on the floor at the foot of the bed. Or rather, passed in and out for the next 10 minutes, trying to get things stabilized. People our age, though, know all too well the meaning of “gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now.” And so it was. I figured I could make a dash to the bathroom pretty quickly, mustered the energy to pick myself up and simultaneously drop trou. Made it just in time, received myself just in time. I was focused so hard on the task at hand I had my eyes closed. Upon opening them I found massive amounts of blood everywhere, my arms, clothing,half my bathroom floor, and certainly not least of all, the commode.
So there I’m thinking, “Am I going to pull an Elvis, and expire here on the commode, or make one more college try to get to the phone on the bed?” I elected to have Elvis remain undefeated. And made a lunge to the bed to call 911, which I did.
Benji was sitting on the bed, we had been cuddling, and he seemed to be a little put off by the things that were occurring.
After seeing all that blood that tossed me into a full-blown panic attack, and after an almost insufferable wait the ambulance arrived. I was very weak and had to be moved, the EMTs were two fairly sleight ladies, so they had to summon burley backup. Yet while we waited, these Florence Nightingales, calmed me down, assured me my heart was functioning normally, and to slow my breathing. That fear lifted, I began to calm down but was still very weak from blood loss.
Upon arriving at the hospital, a great tem of ER doctors attended to me, got a preliminary history and went to work. Now, I was extremely cold, as the only clothing I was wearing just a pair of blood-soaked boxer shorts and black socks, which they promptly relieved me of, and generously replaced by hospital slipper socks and matching hospital gown.
Then came the poking, groping, fluid removal, fluid replacement rituals. Then they all evaporated.
Not a soul for an hour, until my nurse came and casually mentioned I tested positive for covid.
I’m relieved the damage is not cardiac related. Just wanna know what this shitty little virus thinks it’s up to.
And so, onward with the scientific experiments…
[a few days later]
So here’s the skinny:
First off, sincerest thanks for the well wishes, concerns, and especially the prayers for me over the past couple of weeks. I’m home from the hospital and feeling much better.
I thought I was having a heart attack because the symptoms I was experiencing were identical to those I had during my last heart attack. My heart was fine. The extreme weakness, profuse sweating, incomprehensible chills, shortness of breath, etc., all were because I was in shock.
Thanks to the unreliability of the Covid rapid test, I thought I was treating a bad common cold. Not realizing that one does not have much of an appetite while under the influence of the virus because of impaired decision-making, I was very weak, barely having eaten in the prior four days.
I wasn’t hospitalized because of the virus. Rather, it was a case of my unintentionally self-inflicted actions. I grew up, as many of us did when running a low-grade fever and cold symptoms by treating ourselves with aspirin and cough medicine, more or less. What I did not consider, however, was that I’m all grown up now and have been dealing for the past seven years with ulcerative colitis.
And large doses of aspirin and ulcerative colitis do not play nicely with each other. At all. And of course, one who carries a cat by its tail gains so much more information than he who merely speculates. *(no animals were harmed in the writing of this post).
The hospital stay was challenging to say the very least, although each and every one of the nurses who attended to me were absolutely angels, so compassionate, and sadly too frequently so underappreciated by employers. I’ll spare the details for now and jump to the ending…I need to talk with some folks first before relating the rest of the story.
For the moment, though, the bleeding has stopped. I’ve been home resting since yesterday and feel fine. Saving energy for tomorrow night’s performance, watching things carefully, and will be following up with my regular GI doctor in the days to come.
Thanks again for the care, share, and prayer offered by all y’uns (you know who you are), especially the dearest ones who called daily to check on me. And most especially to my buddy Rick Olaguer, who acted as my personal livery and delivery service at the drop of a hat, for the lift home at the end, and for bringing me something to wear home and chromebook and phone charger during my incarceration.