At least there was an elevator to get me down to the ground. I would have really sounded like a patient needing some new lungs if I had to actually walk from where I was parked. Once on the ground it was about a football field's length to the entrance. It was all uphill, so yeah, I was a little out of breath. It was so nice, at 11:00am or so, there were only 4-5 people waiting to be treated. I think because I have insurance, they treat me like royalty. This is the second time I go in which I am walked in immediately. I checked in, the lady gave me a mouth guard thingy, like I'm Michael Jackson, and I hate it as soon as I put it on. I asked to go to the bathroom, a little worried I might have to poop there in the waiting room, but I am way past my time to be home. I just peed and released a couple of little farts, hoping they wouldn't be heard.
I came out and they were already looking for me. They plugged me in to an actual EKG machine and the nurse or tech looking at the thing asks very bluntly "why are you here?" "Uh, the nurse practitioner said my heart is beating erratically from 43 beats to 78 beats a minute, and my oxygen saturation is low." " She also told me I would probably be dead by the weekend if I ignore this." I mean she was adamant that I even needed an ambulance to get here, I kept telling her I felt fine." The tech said it looks normal. She then unplugged me and took my vitals. Within a minute or two, I had a room, she told me to call my Wife and whoever else that I would be in EB12. I asked her if I would be long or if I could still make work tonight. She said "no, you'll be here awhile doing some tests." I wouldn't plan on working.
In the room, I was plugged into another EKG machine and my arm was checked for blood pressure and my finger had another measuring device. The doctor came in and said "I remember you, with the hole in your leg." "Yeah," and we talked about that for a minute. The doctor spent a couple minutes looking at the EKG machine and determined I have PVC, Premature Ventricular Contraction, an irregular heartbeat. He said it was fairly common and nothing to worry about. He also mentioned that the little machine the nurse practitioner is using sees a very small view of the big picture, so something like an irregular heartbeat looks like erratic heartbeats, there's a limit to what she can see, but what I see, looks ok. He said I needed to consider doing a sleep study to get a cpap machine so I can breath better in my sleep.
He then said "we will release you in a couple minutes." I just had to make sure "I'm not spending the night here?" He laughed and said "no, there is nothing else for us to do to you. I called my mom and dad who were just about getting to the outskirts of Crystal City. I told her to turn back, if they wanted, I was being released to go home and everything was alright. Never one to pass up an opportunity, my dad got on the speaker phone to tell me "loose weight, you are super fat." "Yeah dad, I know." Wife was already nearing San Antonio, I told her it was all a false alarm, she thought about heading back, but I convinced her to take a couple days off, when she said she still had like 11 days of Personal Time. I got a little angry at this "chingado Woman! You can't take a couple days off after my big scare and you have technically more days off than what you get in a year? Wow." She said "fine, I'll stay home tonight, but I might go back to work Friday morning." I said "nah, you're staying and spending time with your sick baby who has strep and monitor me so I don't die this weekend as the NP said."
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