The Other Side of EMS
I tried rewriting this four times. I didn't like the way any of it sounded and whether or not I post this is really up in the air.
Initially I wanted to write about the car accident we had coming back from the woman with broken ribs. Both were fairly non eventful calls although I debated a chest decompression on the broken rib lady (didn't do it as positioning her alleveated the problem) and got to break a window to gain access to a minimally responsive head injury victim.
But when I got back to the firehouse I decided it was a good idea to feel dizzy and almost pass out for no apparent reason. My partner, BC, an intermediate put me on the monitor to reveal SVT at around 150, my 12 lead showed a bit of non specific T wave flattening. A 16 guage went into my Left AC and against my strenous objections I was transported to Concord Hospital by my partner and an off duty firefighter called back on rapid recall....to deal with me.
Now for those of you that follow my blog, all two of you :) You will remember that I have been suffering from kidney stones off and on for the past several years. A little gift, shall we say, from my mother. You will also remember when my mother became a patient of mine in the middle of one of her two STEMIs. So with a family history of kidney stones, which I now have, my partner was worried that I also inheritted mommy's heart problems.
I had been drinking water all morning in an effort to speed the passing of my little friend so its possible that the frequent urination may have altered my electrolytes to a level that caused me to slip into SVT. Its not that uncommon but younger people don't usually have the issue. Its also possible that I had a low grade kidney/bladder/urinary tract infection that could have played with other levels and threw me into a funky beat.
So all in all on the ride into the hospital, in my own ambulance, I was not that concerned that it could be a real cardiac event. Instead I thought that they would do some tests and tell me that my electrolytes were off and give me a bag or two of Ringers to make up for it. Instead all of the tests came back clean.
Now don't get me wrong having tests come back as negative for a heart attack, negative for issues of any kind is very nice. I like being healthy and I'm glad that I'm staying that way. I would like to know why I almost passed out and why I started vommitting. I want to know why my T waves are flat. Itd be nice to know what the hell happened.
But after laying in the hospital for eight hours, and being called a horrible patient by the nursing staff.....no one would show me my EKG strips and they took the monitor out of my room so I wouldn't look at it. I did however take my pulse a few times to see that at rest I was hitting 130. A couple of times when I got up to urinate my pulse would bounce back up to 150. The doctor, a cool guy who reminds me of the medical examiner on CSI New York, (he's got those awesome glasses that split at the nose bridge) has no idea why I had my issue. I'm cleared to go back to work, which is awesome because if I had to sit around I'd probably go insane. I just hope it doesn't happen again.
Their only real though on what could have happened involves possible swelling of my inner ear cannals. Or a foreign body such as a pebble or a piece of glass (from the car accdient) that some how lodged its way in there. They put me on Anti-Vert, a medicine that counteracts the effects of vertigo and so far has worked fairly well. Because of the sensation of vertigo, i.e. falling off of a high elevation, the body can sometimes be kicked into strange activity. But there is no real way to test for vertigo other than telling a doctor "I feel like I have vertigo."
The sensation was, in fact, so strange that I didn't even know what to call it. I can only describe it as feeling about six inches behind myself as though everything is rushing past me. It didn't affect my driving or my job performance as it hasn't happened behind the wheel or on a call.
Knowing its not a cardiac issue is nice but not knowing what it is, well thats a bit irksome. It's not that I'm annoyed at a lack of diagnosis, but would have preffered one in order to treat it and prevent reoccurence.
Initially I wanted to write about the car accident we had coming back from the woman with broken ribs. Both were fairly non eventful calls although I debated a chest decompression on the broken rib lady (didn't do it as positioning her alleveated the problem) and got to break a window to gain access to a minimally responsive head injury victim.
But when I got back to the firehouse I decided it was a good idea to feel dizzy and almost pass out for no apparent reason. My partner, BC, an intermediate put me on the monitor to reveal SVT at around 150, my 12 lead showed a bit of non specific T wave flattening. A 16 guage went into my Left AC and against my strenous objections I was transported to Concord Hospital by my partner and an off duty firefighter called back on rapid recall....to deal with me.
Now for those of you that follow my blog, all two of you :) You will remember that I have been suffering from kidney stones off and on for the past several years. A little gift, shall we say, from my mother. You will also remember when my mother became a patient of mine in the middle of one of her two STEMIs. So with a family history of kidney stones, which I now have, my partner was worried that I also inheritted mommy's heart problems.
I had been drinking water all morning in an effort to speed the passing of my little friend so its possible that the frequent urination may have altered my electrolytes to a level that caused me to slip into SVT. Its not that uncommon but younger people don't usually have the issue. Its also possible that I had a low grade kidney/bladder/urinary tract infection that could have played with other levels and threw me into a funky beat.
So all in all on the ride into the hospital, in my own ambulance, I was not that concerned that it could be a real cardiac event. Instead I thought that they would do some tests and tell me that my electrolytes were off and give me a bag or two of Ringers to make up for it. Instead all of the tests came back clean.
Now don't get me wrong having tests come back as negative for a heart attack, negative for issues of any kind is very nice. I like being healthy and I'm glad that I'm staying that way. I would like to know why I almost passed out and why I started vommitting. I want to know why my T waves are flat. Itd be nice to know what the hell happened.
But after laying in the hospital for eight hours, and being called a horrible patient by the nursing staff.....no one would show me my EKG strips and they took the monitor out of my room so I wouldn't look at it. I did however take my pulse a few times to see that at rest I was hitting 130. A couple of times when I got up to urinate my pulse would bounce back up to 150. The doctor, a cool guy who reminds me of the medical examiner on CSI New York, (he's got those awesome glasses that split at the nose bridge) has no idea why I had my issue. I'm cleared to go back to work, which is awesome because if I had to sit around I'd probably go insane. I just hope it doesn't happen again.
Their only real though on what could have happened involves possible swelling of my inner ear cannals. Or a foreign body such as a pebble or a piece of glass (from the car accdient) that some how lodged its way in there. They put me on Anti-Vert, a medicine that counteracts the effects of vertigo and so far has worked fairly well. Because of the sensation of vertigo, i.e. falling off of a high elevation, the body can sometimes be kicked into strange activity. But there is no real way to test for vertigo other than telling a doctor "I feel like I have vertigo."
The sensation was, in fact, so strange that I didn't even know what to call it. I can only describe it as feeling about six inches behind myself as though everything is rushing past me. It didn't affect my driving or my job performance as it hasn't happened behind the wheel or on a call.
Knowing its not a cardiac issue is nice but not knowing what it is, well thats a bit irksome. It's not that I'm annoyed at a lack of diagnosis, but would have preffered one in order to treat it and prevent reoccurence.
posted by Nick Stabile at 10:04 AM
2 Comments:
Well shit. I know a couple of people that have been transported on their own stretcher, and I hear it sucks. Glad you're feeling better.
Stopping by to say hi and tell ya you can add one more reader to your list. :)
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