Like a hospital scene from an apocalyptic movie.

~ Ron Walker ~ 10 Comments

Tuesday around 1pm I cut a small area of grass, perhaps 25foot long and 2 foot wide, it was humid. My pulse had gone to 88bpm, and I felt a bit weak and shaky. My pulse seldom gets above 60-70. I decided to lay down for a short nap and still felt bad when I got up.   After the feeling didn’t pass, I discovered my pulse was now at 125bpm and BP was 190/111. I had her call the paramedics, and they determined I was in afib. So off to the big city. There they found the bpm at 152 and pressure slightly higher than a few minutes before.

I got placed in a holding room in the ER, and attended to by the cardiac team. The hospital was over capacity due to Covid restrictions. There were no rooms available, so the ER was catching the overflow with some patients on beds in the hall of the ER unit. A room was assigned to me due to it being a cardiac event. The next 26 hours would be spent on a bed made for a torture dungeon. The mattress was only about two inches thick, just under those two inches felt like a set of monkey bars from a playground. One was situated across the lower back where my back is damaged. Another was in my mid-cervical region, right below the discs in my neck that are ruptured. The bed felt like it was only about 2 feet wide, with rails that might bend over if you looked at them hard.

Fewer amenities than a prison cell

This was the emergency room part of the large hospital. They really aren’t set up for patients to be held there. The work flow of the staff is geared towards trauma, not daily care. Short staffed, and overworked. Day staff members were wonderful, the night shift couldn’t care less. In this room where I would spend 26 hours of my life, I had fewer amenities than a prison cell. No bathroom, no table, no water, and a good one to 1.5 hour wait if you called for any non-emergency help, like water. No pillow until 9 hours later, and never got a blanket until 30 mins before discharge.

A bed, a sink, various medical monitors, that no one seemed to monitor. The monitor was even turned off/muted at one point due to it alarming so often from my pulse and blood pressure. There was a 14-inch TV mounted to the wall, but it was askew to my plane of vision, so it could hardly be watched comfortably. No remote and just on one channel. Reality TV and infomercials. Karma, it would seem, felt I needed a lesson of some sort, I hate reality TV. When I first arrived, I had to request one of those plastic urinals. 26 hours later, as I left, it was still sitting on the floor nearly full.

That’s how crazy things were there. The doctor, on the night shift, forgot to start my aFib medicine after the IV bottle ran out, so I had to stay an extra length of time. I only got one dose of BP medicine, none of my usual pain medicine for my back and neck, so the BP stayed pretty high the entire time. I swear it was a nightmare. It was more like an apocalyptic movie. People screaming, someone coughing their lungs out. A poor elderly woman was in a bed just outside my door in the hallway.

Lord help me, it’s Adam and Eve tonight.

At one point around 3am, after having waited an hour to get someone to unhook me, so I could get out of bed to use the urinal, I finally took it upon myself and just stretched the wires and tubes, so I could exit the bed and get back in it. Of course, that set off all kinds of blaring alarms on the monitors. Upon crawling/ flopping back onto the torture bed, I noticed an infomercial coming on for “Adam and Eve”. You just can’t make this stuff up! They were starting a review of their top nine (count’em NINE) vibrating sex toys. I had no way to change the channel, reach the power cord, or anything to throw at the TV. I just knew the cute little nurses were going to arrive for that call I had put in over an hour ago, and would walk in with that stuff playing. Not only that, but I lay there for 30 minutes, holding my breath hoping the door would not pop open, while witnessing some of the most bizarre things people can think of that have high hormone levels. Thankfully, no one came in during the very detailed review of the merchandise.

Michelle arrived around 8 am. When I started complaining about the last few hours, she says, “My, your grumpy this morning.”

But I’m home now, trying to un-kink my back and neck from the torture bed. All is well in the kingdom again.

How was your last trip to the hospital?

Too many volunteers? Or Too many cooks in the kitchen.

~ Ron Walker ~ 20 Comments

I was mowing a small section of the lawn Tuesday morning. It wasn’t real hot, but I hadn’t felt 100% for a couple of days. Didn’t take me 10 minutes, but it was really humid out there. I got through, came inside and checked my blood pressure and pulse. Pulse was 88bpm and I thought that was odd as I never run over 65-70 after exertion due to the meds they have me on to control my heartbeat. BP was slightly elevated. I decided to lay down for a nap. After an hour, I got up and felt awful. Shaky.

Pulse at that time was 120 and BP 191/102 way above normal for me (120/80). So even though I’m not one to complain, often waiting until it’s nearly too late to seek help, I decided to do it differently this time. I had Michelle call the paramedics to check me out since my heart felt funny and there was tightness in my chest and throat.

Keystone Medics, I’ll need a bigger yard.

Let me start by saying. I am a staunch supporter of medical personnel. They are the front-line defense in times of emergency. I am, however, very intolerant of inefficiency and stupidity. So I call it as I see it, as fairly as possible. I have blogged before regarding volunteer emergency services here in Alabama. I have given praise in the past and criticism as well if deserved. Sitting here, not feeling all that well, I did hear some of the traffic on the police scanner here on the desk. I thought it was a lot of chatter for one call to check out a person with chest pains, but didn’t think any more of it. I figured, either they like to talk a lot, or I must be a celebrity and didn’t know it. It sounded like an awful lot of radio traffic for one call. The first unit paramedic drove past the house which the address was plainly marked on the mail box by the driveway in 6-inch letters 4121. He thought the call was 4131, Michelle had to run outside and flag him back toward the house. Then the true Keystone syndrome kicked in. Three, count them, THREE ambulances arrive and fill the front yard. So we now have three ambulances and a paramedic truck. We told them on the phone it was chest pains, and that we needed a unit for assessment. So rational people would expect a medic unit and maybe one ambulance. However, the med units here also transport. Basically, I had four ambulances in the yard.

The men on the primary (first in the house) unit hooked me up and determined I was indeed in Atrial fibrillation status. Since I was ambulatory, and they didn’t transport to the city 10 miles from us, I opted to have Michelle drive me.

12 guys standing around.

I thought perhaps having moved some miles from our last residence close to a small city with it’s own fire department I wouldn’t be seeing volunteer units racing to each and every call. Apparently being just outside the city limits, we fall into the first arrive, first paid category. I have mentioned before, volunteer fire units get around $32 each time a member rolls and arrives at a call. So anyone and everyone within fuel tank range apparently decided to try to collect on my single medical call. What if, someone several miles away, had been in cardiac arrest or had a limb amputated and had to wait for one of these speed racers to leave my residence and get to them. I mean, really. Three ambulances and a paramedic unit that doubles as an ambulance for one call? Anyhow, once I was checked out, Michelle and I thanked everyone, which took a while with about 12 guys standing around. The neighbors next door came over. We rarely see them, but I guess it looked like a mass shooting might have occurred and people love to gossip.

I would then begin the adventure in the hospital that was overcrowded, but that will be the next post. Gives me a little something for post material, and keeps this one from being so long. Suffice it to say, I am back home after a 26-hour stay at the large hospital in the capital city, 10 miles from here. I’m fine now with the Atrial fibrillation under control but just worn out.

On the bright side, the “Chaplain Truck” didn’t show up. I might have suffered a cardiac event at the sight.

Correction: Michelle says there was a tanker fire truck and another paramedic truck. Total of 6 units in the yard.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

~ Ron Walker ~ 22 Comments

What a strange journey it has been. As I mentioned in my last post back in May, I was to begin a hormone therapy for my low energy level and just overall exhaustion. It took longer than anticipated, due to scheduling around here. I started a month later than intended, so this is just my fifth week of the weekly shots. Within three weeks (three shots) my thinking and moods had improved. Not sure if they were supposed to work that fast, but I can say I’m certainly glad.

Slowly fading away

Before starting on the treatment, I had reached the point of wondering if I would even wake up from the next nap. That is how weak and uninterested I had become, mentally foggy all the time. There were times I actually felt like I was just fading away towards some ethereal destination. No desire to do anything, No sign of creativity for blogging or posting to my own forum that I have operated for the past 13 years. I’m not sure what all the bodily systems are that get governed by this male hormone, but it was a feeling I hope to never have again. Just slowly fading away each day, getting weaker as time progressed.

Apparently, it was a subtle change

The flip side of this coin is more energy and desire to do things. Another condition I have noticed is my eyesight. I had gotten to the point that even reading glasses wouldn’t help me when on the computer for a long time. I realized over the last two weeks, that I am not wearing my reading glasses, or my prescription glasses to use my smartphone. Apparently, it was a subtle change, but a welcomed one. Sitting here now with the browser set on 90% zoom, where in the past months I had cranked it up to 110% zoom and that was with my reading glasses. Could it be that the hormone affected muscles in the eyes causing them to be weak and not focus after a short period?

Of course, a sudden renewal of energy tends to lead to overdoing things a bit. In the last two weeks, I repaired the washing machine, built an eight-foot workbench in my shed and stained it, fixed Michelle a she-shed area for her crafts, trimmed and fitted a door to the office here. This comes at the price of intense back and neck pain at times, but I can tell you it’s worth it at this point to once again feel like participating in the world. I’m looking forward to getting back in here and visiting all of you and trying to create things to post about.

“What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.”

Not sure how to title this.

~ Ron Walker ~ 27 Comments

Forgive me for the idiotic title, but I honestly couldn’t come up with one that wouldn’t embarrass me. It seems, my esteemed doctor has finally taken the time to notice something. He is a great guy, but like many doctors now you see his “assistants” and not him. Apparently, he noticed something in the recent myriad of blood tests they take, when they’re not trying to find phantom things to charge my insurance for.

It would seem that due to the medications I’m on, and my mileage and age (69 next month), that perhaps my Arnold Schwarzenegger chemical (Testosterone, there I said it), is nearly non-existent. Normal levels are 12-13 according to him, but mine is .8

After some Q&A I learned this can cause all sorts of problems such as concentration, extreme tiredness, moodiness, loss of muscle mass, and lack of interest in the world as a whole. Nice of them to finally find something possibly connected to my multiple reports of these symptoms to them, instead of listening to them tell me what they think I may need to be tested for. I’m betting that is why I have no desire to do many other things like blog, come up with good content, go places, and unable to concentrate once I sit down at the computer wanting to think of something to post. I used to come up with fairly witty and fun posts in the past, but for a year now thoughts have been like an empty landscape with the occasional tumbleweed drifting by.

I’ll start treatment the first of the month, so hopefully, I will get motivated once again to blog, with actual formulated content. That is if my eyeballs don’t fall from their sockets, or an arm falls off from the side effects. I haven’t bothered looking into them, as I don’t even want to know. It’s rough when you start to do something, then your brain and body just say, “Nah, give us a moment and this feeling will pass.”

So here’s hoping for energy, brainpower, and a drive to do more things this Summer. Thank you all for being a part of my blogging world. -Ron