StudHombre and I are stunned.  I am asking why and StudHombre is trying to get a little more info than the standard “it’s a blood clot”.   We finally get our answers when we get to the ICU. 

The nurse tells us I have a saddle pulmonary embolism. This (very large) clot goes and lodges itself at the bifurcation of the pulmonary artery and obstructs lung blood flow. Saddle embolus can cause almost instantaneous death.  Talk about close calls.   Apparently the squeezing chest pain I felt was when it passed through the RIGHT SIDE OF MY HEART!  Talk about close calls!

Thus they feel I need to be on complete bed rest and constant monitoring by medical staff until it is going away.  I guess if I was up and moving around I would possibly dislodge the darn thing and die.  Really?? No kidding?!

 I have to be on 2 or 3 kinds of blood thinners.  One of which is a shot I had to receive in the stomach.  I can honestly say I’d rather chew on broken glass than have to have another of those shots.  Everyone in the curtained off are could hear my profanity laced vocal exclamations when I received the first shot. And the whole time I was in the hospital I got them every 12 hours.  In addition I have to take Coumadin, a common blood thinner, in pill form.  This according to the very nice doctor is the main ingredient in RAT POISON!  He then says “…the therapeutic threshold is very narrow…”  Lovely eh?

To make me feel better the nurse kept telling me, as she gave me the shot from hell and small doses of rat poison, that I was very lucky to be alive.

 So very lucky.  Lucky, lucky me.

 Back to the ICU.  So sure what’s a couple of days of rest and relaxation? 

Complete hell that’s what.  The ICU here is all windows except for windows to the outside.  And the toilet is just curtained off.  There is no phone, no radio and no TV.  You are not allowed to receive flowers and only family can visit.   When they say complete bed rest they mean complete bed rest.  I could not move out of bed not even to go to the bathroom.  If I wanted to roll over or adjust the nurse would assist so that I didn't run the risk of dislodging the clot.  I am hooked up to a heart monitor and vital signs machine.  I have my blood pressure taken every 15 minutes.  I am on oxygen.  I have this thing hooked to my finger that read my oxygen saturations.  I am starting to feel like a Borg recruit.  OR Frankenwoman.

To make things even better is that all the other patients were about 70 years old and having triple bypass surgery and were practically comatose.  And there I am 31 and bored out of my skull.  And just to add insult to injury a really great looking male nurse named Philipe (had an accent and was just beautiful) came in especially to put in a catheter (so I could pee in a bag).  At this point I wished I had died.

Two and a half days I was there in the ICU.  Two and a half days without a shower.  Two and a half days of near lethal boredom and finally  they said I was out of immediate danger so I could go to the regular hospital floor.  The first thing I did was take a shower.  Never in my life did a shower feel more wonderful.  The regular hospital room had a radio, cable TV, a phone AND a DVD player!!!  HUZZAH!!!

Then they said I’d be there for 2 or 3 more days.  

 Just when I thought I was feeling better.

Again I was stuck on a geriatric floor (literally StudHombre's, mine and your ages added together would still be 20 years shy of the old farts in there).   So I am sure the boisterous visits from my friends and family were not appreciated by anyone but me.  I was still bed resting but they said I could go for short walks.  After a couple of days I am convinced that I am really fine and I really should go home.

No such luck.  “You need to stay here until we are sure you are not in any danger” they kept saying.  I was soooo sick of the hospital and I missed my kids.  Stud Hombre, Bless him stayed by me 24 hours a day.  On the evening of my 4^th day in the hospital the doctor came by on his evening rounds and again I begged to go home.  I even threw in a generous helping of pathetic sobs and whimpering worthy of an academy award for a Steven Spielberg film.

 Then the doctor says to me “You don’t have to stay here.  You don’t if you don’t want to.  I am not the police.  I can’t force you to stay here……BUT you will have to sign some papers saying you were released against my wishes and were releasing me from all liability when you drop dead outside the hospital doors.” 

Well since he put it that way I decided it was probably best to stay.  So there I am on night 4 of my stay feeling as if things could not get any worse.  Then the evening nurse came on duty.