You know you're old when...

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by 1MOREMOD

Try eating for 20hrs and fasting for 4.

If you eat for 20 hours, there will be nothing fast about you.

[1MOREMOD]

Digestion

[wdb]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

Well I'm 38

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I'll have a chocolate mousse for dessert please, with an insulin chaser.

A few years back, I had a Carvel ice cream cake smuggled into my hospital CCU room for my birthday. If ice cream cake was going to kill me, at least there were plenty of nurses and doctors around.....

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I'll have a chocolate mousse for dessert please, with an insulin chaser.

A few years back, I had a Carvel ice cream cake smuggled into my hospital CCU room for my birthday. If ice cream cake was going to kill me, at least there were plenty of nurses and doctors around.....

I hope you at least shared that Carvel cake with the nurses in the floor?!

Whomever snuck the cake into your room is a really good friend!

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

I can eat an entire ice cream cake alone. (Medium size) no problem.

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I'll have a chocolate mousse for dessert please, with an insulin chaser.

A few years back, I had a Carvel ice cream cake smuggled into my hospital CCU room for my birthday. If ice cream cake was going to kill me, at least there were plenty of nurses and doctors around.....

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

I can eat an entire ice cream cake alone. (Medium size) no problem.

You and I both brother!!

Reading all this just reminded me that I need to get another prescription of metformin!!

[BimmerDimmer6]

Originally Posted by AreWeThereYet?

You and I both brother!!

Reading all this just reminded me that I need to get another prescription of metformin!!

Let's go!

Feels good doesn't it?

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

Let's go!

Feels good doesn't it?

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

Let's go!

Feels good doesn't it?

Absolutely it does!!!! My wife is headed out for her morning jog and I'm so tempted to ask her to bring me something " sweet " for breakfast!!!???

She won't though so I'll need to sneak out later!

[King Rudi]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

I was also in hot dog eating contest in college. I put down 61 dogs in 10 minutes and won it.

It's my only trophy!

Ummmm......This is key information that should never be shared.....with anyone.....ever.

.....however......



I would be interested in seeing your weiner downing trophy.

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

Well I'm 38 and I've been trying to gain weight for years but I just shit everything out / burn it off on my morning jog.

Plus I do IF intermittent fasting, so I only eat like twice a day with 20 hour fast.

I basically eat whatever I want.

Feels good.

I say this from my heart for everyone else that is overweight, on social security with fake knees looking forward to a hip replacement in the next few years - I hate you. (only kidding - just jealous)


And put me down as also wondering what a trophy for hot dog eating looks like. I love to eat but I'm slightly ill thinking about 61 dogs in 10 minutes. Did you ralph after?

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by 1MOREMOD

That makes you a fat ass not old.

Actually, I only had one spoon of the cake. I was quite literally on my death bed in a major medical center's CCU, with relatives flying in from all over the country to say their goodbyes. Not wanting to be a Debbie Downer, I threw myself a birthday party (it was really my birthday) so they would have something positive to remember (and talk about at my funeral) during the impending sad occasion.

They sent me home to die peacefully, with a portable 24/7 IV infusion of ticker juice. I'm obviously too stubborn to die...and have a problem listening to doctors!

Originally Posted by AreWeThereYet?

I hope you at least shared that Carvel cake with the nurses in the floor?!

I didn't have a freezer to store it, and you can bet that word spread quickly among the CCU staff who volunteered to help "dispose" of the evidence.....

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Actually, I only had one spoon of the cake. I was quite literally on my death bed in a major medical center's CCU, with relatives flying in from all over the country to say their goodbyes. Not wanting to be a Debbie Downer, I threw myself a birthday party (it was really my birthday) so they would have something positive to remember (and talk about at my funeral) during the impending sad occasion.

They sent me home to die peacefully, with a portable 24/7 IV infusion of ticker juice. I'm obviously too stubborn to die...and have a problem listening to doctors!

I didn't have a freezer to store it, and you can bet that word spread quickly among the CCU staff who volunteered to help "dispose" of the evidence.....

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Actually, I only had one spoon of the cake. I was quite literally on my death bed in a major medical center's CCU, with relatives flying in from all over the country to say their goodbyes. Not wanting to be a Debbie Downer, I threw myself a birthday party (it was really my birthday) so they would have something positive to remember (and talk about at my funeral) during the impending sad occasion.

They sent me home to die peacefully, with a portable 24/7 IV infusion of ticker juice. I'm obviously too stubborn to die...and have a problem listening to doctors!
!

My wife used to be an ICU med surg nurse and would've gladly assisted you in hiding that in the nurses break room.

She's cool like that. Her words, not mine!!

She's giggling RN because she remembers patients like you very well and missed that part of her job then!

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by AreWeThereYet?

My wife used to be an ICU med surg nurse and would've gladly assisted you in hiding that in the nurses break room.

She's cool like that. Her words, not mine!!

She's giggling RN because she remembers patients like you very well and missed that part of her job then!

She probably didn't miss ones like me. Ask her about "ICU psychosis". After 30 days of drugs and pain with my belly split open and a large tube sucking out the poison in me I was no longer on planet earth. I was especially irked by the little gremlin that hid behind the machine on the wall.

[213e90n51]

Originally Posted by BimmerDimmer6

Well I'm 38 and I've been trying to gain weight for years but I just shit everything out / burn it off on my morning jog.

Plus I do IF intermittent fasting, so I only eat like twice a day with 20 hour fast.

I basically eat whatever I want.

Feels good.

eat more vegetables. when i wanted to gain wait i upped my vegetable intake and ate alot of beans. If u look at the biggest living things in the world. Red Tree, Giraffe, Elephant, Pine, Rhino, Bufflo, Hiphopitumus, Panda, Gorilla, Ostrich. They all eat veggie and are big. So i decided to eat more veggie and you need protein also. I found out that the same size bean compared to steak has wayyyy more protein! So i ate more chana dal and tofu!

[BimmerDimmer6]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

I say this from my heart for everyone else that is overweight, on social security with fake knees looking forward to a hip replacement in the next few years - I hate you. (only kidding - just jealous)


And put me down as also wondering what a trophy for hot dog eating looks like. I love to eat but I'm slightly ill thinking about 61 dogs in 10 minutes. Did you ralph after?

I am sorry. I wasn't trying to come off as bragging.

And if I can find my hot dog trophy I will upload it here! It's literally just a wiener on a wood base.

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

She probably didn't miss ones like me. Ask her about "ICU psychosis". After 30 days of drugs and pain with my belly split open and a large tube sucking out the poison in me I was no longer on planet earth. I was especially irked by the little gremlin that hid behind the machine on the wall.

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

She probably didn't miss ones like me. Ask her about "ICU psychosis". After 30 days of drugs and pain with my belly split open and a large tube sucking out the poison in me I was no longer on planet earth. I was especially irked by the little gremlin that hid behind the machine on the wall.

She actually says that you were favorite kind since it always made the shift " interesting and fun "!!??

Her words not mine!!

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by AreWeThereYet?

My wife used to be an ICU med surg nurse and would've gladly assisted you in hiding that in the nurses break room.

She's cool like that. Her words, not mine!!

She's giggling RN because she remembers patients like you very well and missed that part of her job then!

A small part of my day job of 35 years involves occasional interactions with nursing students. I can't check into any regional hospital without a "hey, I know you from blah, blah, blah" at least once per day.

When I was up on the normal floors at the big regional medical center, one of the day nurses had a raw clinical nursing student from another school shadowing her. She asked if I would mind being that student's first ever human injection patient. She came back 5-6 times afterward that day, to check if it hurt me. On subsequent clinical days, she would stop by with classmates telling them about how I was her first injection patient and wanting me to tell them that it didn't hurt. (As if an injection on the lower abdomen is going to hit any nerves, and I should know because I had to stab myself there 3-4 times daily with insulin at the time.)

That whole 7-week ordeal started out in the ER at a local hospital. They did not have a free bed upstairs, so I spent three days in the ER waiting to be moved. Since I had a lot of nurses who knew me there, they managed to snag everything (but a door and private bathroom) to make me a private "upstairs room" in the ER...including furniture and guest chairs.

There was one old/gruff ER nurse on the overnight shift who was not too keen on my activities. She yelled at me for going down the hall to use the restroom, insisting that I stay in bed and pee in a bottle (on severe doses of diuretics). On the second night, she came by at the start of her shift and actually verified the IV bag contents and drip rate settings. The nurse before had hung the wrong bag! She quickly discontinued it and started the correct medicine. She was explaining it to me, and I told her that the nurse who did it actually bought in two other nurses and an iPhone calculator trying to punch the correct dosage rate into the IV pump. Long story short, I told her where I worked, and we had a looooong discussion about millennial nurses and why they can't even do basic dosage calculations even with a calculator in hand. After that, my bathroom privileges were restored.

My favorite one from that stay was that they finally found me a private room upstairs, and it was in the middle of a heat wave. I cranked the air conditioning down to morgue-like temperatures. Once word spread, middle-age nurses were stopping in 24/7...to check on me...from floors/wings away! The nurses on my floor/wing were having their shift change meetings in my room, because their nurse station only had fans and was hot. One nurse came in, felt the temperature, and asked me if I had a temperature preference because she thought it was too cold. I responded that she couldn't make it cold enough...and to consider that a challenge and not a criticism of the room's AC system.

I'll have to share the story of the worst day of my life at another time.....

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

A small part of my day job of 35 years involves occasional interactions with nursing students. I can't check into any regional hospital without a "hey, I know you from blah, blah, blah" at least once per day.

When I was up on the normal floors at the big regional medical center, one of the day nurses had a raw clinical nursing student from another school shadowing her. She asked if I would mind being that student's first ever human injection patient. She came back 5-6 times afterward that day, to check if it hurt me. On subsequent clinical days, she would stop by with classmates telling them about how I was her first injection patient and wanting me to tell them that it didn't hurt. (As if an injection on the lower abdomen is going to hit any nerves, and I should know because I had to stab myself there 3-4 times daily with insulin at the time.)

That whole 7-week ordeal started out in the ER at a local hospital. They did not have a free bed upstairs, so I spent three days in the ER waiting to be moved. Since I had a lot of nurses who knew me there, they managed to snag everything (but a door and private bathroom) to make me a private "upstairs room" in the ER...including furniture and guest chairs.

There was one old/gruff ER nurse on the overnight shift who was not too keen on my activities. She yelled at me for going down the hall to use the restroom, insisting that I stay in bed and pee in a bottle (on severe doses of diuretics). On the second night, she came by at the start of her shift and actually verified the IV bag contents and drip rate settings. The nurse before had hung the wrong bag! She quickly discontinued it and started the correct medicine. She was explaining it to me, and I told her that the nurse who did it actually bought in two other nurses and an iPhone calculator trying to punch the correct dosage rate into the IV pump. Long story short, I told her where I worked, and we had a looooong discussion about millennial nurses and why they can't even do basic dosage calculations even with a calculator in hand. After that, my bathroom privileges were restored.

My favorite one from that stay was that they finally found me a private room upstairs, and it was in the middle of a heat wave. I cranked the air conditioning down to morgue-like temperatures. Once word spread, middle-age nurses were stopping in 24/7...to check on me...from floors/wings away! The nurses on my floor/wing were having their shift change meetings in my room, because their nurse station only had fans and was hot. One nurse came in, felt the temperature, and asked me if I had a temperature preference because she thought it was too cold. I responded that she couldn't make it cold enough...and to consider that a challenge and not a criticism of the room's AC system.

I'll have to share the story of the worst day of my life at another time.....

Funny stuff. In a hospital I learned nurses, not doctors, are who you need to get to know.

When I left the hospital after about 90 days flat on my back I of course was unable to walk so was transferred to a rehab hospital. Which was a great relief for my wife as I was still crazy as a jailhouse rat at that point. One night in a room with no tubes in me, no buzzing machines, the door closed and I awoke completely normal (for me) again.

But I was freezing. I kept buzzing them all night asking for warm blankets and asking them to check the heater in the room. It was a really cold February for Phoenix and the heat wasn't helping. They kept telling me the thermostat was all the way up. Well after 3 nights I was finally strong enough to move around some on my own. I went to the wall unit. Sure enough it wasn't turned on. Thermostat setting means nothing it it isn't on.

[vreihen16]

...when your only conversation topics are about illnesses, aches, and hospital stays.

Back to the worst day of my life. My last hospital outing was one week in the local hospital, and then a transfer to the big regional medical center for three more weeks before they released me for the first time. Four weeks of continuous ECG monitoring and a defib box installed between both places, and never a single mention of AFib the entire time. Two days later, I was back in an ambulance for an hour down to the regional medical center again after passing out cold twice.

There was a huge category 5 hurricane heading for the southeast coast on my first day back in the hospital, and as luck would have it half of my family relocated to a coastal community down south a few months before. Not one of them had a clue about hurricane evacuations procedures. I got a phone call from my sister that day, saying that her moron husband wanted to go 5 miles inland (swamp) and find a motel to ride out the storm. I immediately booked two 4-star pre-paid hotel rooms for a whole week up in Atlanta for them on my credit card, before the evacuation panic ensued and filled all of the rooms.

Their state decided to start evacuations at 6:00 AM on my day three. The afternoon before, I told my sister that she and her moron husband needed to pick up my mother a few towns away by 3:00 AM -- and put at least 200 miles behind them by sunrise at 6:00 AM. If they didn't get ahead of the evacuation traffic, they would be stuck for a day on the road.

My day three started with an early morning trip to the cath lab, where among other things I got to "ride the lightning" trying to get my brand new case of AFib back into rhythm. No-go on that. When I got back to my room on the normal floors at 9:30 AM or so, I grabbed my cell phone and called my mother to ask her how far they were away from Atlanta. She was still at home waiting to be picked up, because my sister's moron husband wasn't ready to leave his house yet! The cellular system down there was so jammed after that from panic evacuation calls where it was nearly impossible to call anyone. The other guy sharing my room kept his TV on CNN all day with the volume cranked, so I had to suffer through the news showing evacuation traffic jams with no way of knowing where my relatives were or if they even left home!

My wife came down to visit for an hour late that afternoon. As she was leaving, one of the cardiologists that I'll refer to as Dr. Doom cornered her in the hallway and told her that I was dying. We'll overlook the malpractice suit because I *intentionally* did not sign HIPAA release forms for my wife, but now I've got a missing family in an approaching category 5 hurricane AND an emotionally destroyed wife who came back to my room crying that I'm going to die! I got her calmed down enough to drive home, but knew that she needed someone to stay at our house overnight for emotional support.

Coincidentally, this was our dog's birthday...and my in-laws just love their grand-dog to bits. As soon as my DW left the hospital, I called up the in-laws and asked them to pick up a surprise birthday cake for the dog and spend the night at our house supporting their daughter. Unfortunately, my DW beat the in-laws to our house...and almost shot them when they unexpectedly pulled into our dark driveway for the surprise party. In the words of Steve Jobs, but wait, there's more!

The other guy's TV was on CNN with the volume cranked until 3:00 AM, with non-stop coverage of the hurricane making landfall and flooding everything. I still had no idea where my family was, had a wife at home distraught to the max because she thought that I was dying, and was still quite energized from the cath lab procedure and riding the lightning while totally awake. While I was grateful that one of the nurses turned off the other guy's TV so that I could try to sleep, the reason why she was in the room was because his ECG went crazy and they had an emergency on their hands! His blood pressure dropped to near zero, and the overwhelmed night shift doctor was calling for all kinds of tests and medicines until 7:00 AM when they wheeled him out of the room bound for either the CCU or the morgue.

Although this is now day four, I hadn't slept so it's still the same day for me. My DW showed up before breakfast, and spent the day with me. I told her a watered-down version of what had happened the night before, and Dr. Doom stopped by doing his rounds and added another pill to my daily list. When I tried to sit up for lunch, I felt dizzy and flopped back down. I told my DW to call a nurse, who noticed that my blood pressure was dropping. As I was getting loopier by the minute, I realized that I was having the same symptoms as the guy in the other bed a few hours earlier. In my delusional state, I started calling out all of the tests and medicines that the overnight doctor tried on him as if I were the doctor! The last thing that I remember was a nurse doing a manual BP measurement and getting 38 over "I can't find the bottom" before waking up that night in the CCU with *nine* different IV bags hanging over my head, no TV, no DW, and no cell phone to check on my family! I'm sure that the floor nurses upstairs had a good laugh at my expense for calling out the tests like I was a doctor or something.

To recap, ride the lightning, missing family in category 5 hurricane, distraught DW who was told that I was dying, almost shot in-laws, guy in other bed apparently coding out, and being as close to dead as I care to be due to an adverse reaction to one tiny pill. Like I said, the worst day of my life...by far!

My birthday was a week later, and I was still in the CCU. This was when my relatives were all flying in to say goodbye, and I threw my CCU ice cream cake birthday party to cheer everyone up because of Dr. Doom's HIPAA mistake.

Oh, did I mention that I am still too stubborn to die? Get off my lawn, Dr. Doom...and take that premature death certificate with you!!!!!

.

[wcr3d]

Helluva story you stubborn old goat!
Glad you are still around!

[AreWeThereYet?]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...when your only conversation topics are about illnesses, aches, and hospital stays.

Back to the worst day of my life. My last hospital outing was one week in the local hospital, and then a transfer to the big regional medical center for three more weeks before they released me for the first time. Four weeks of continuous ECG monitoring and a defib box installed between both places, and never a single mention of AFib the entire time. Two days later, I was back in an ambulance for an hour down to the regional medical center again after passing out cold twice.

There was a huge category 5 hurricane heading for the southeast coast on my first day back in the hospital, and as luck would have it half of my family relocated to a coastal community down south a few months before. Not one of them had a clue about hurricane evacuations procedures. I got a phone call from my sister that day, saying that her moron husband wanted to go 5 miles inland (swamp) and find a motel to ride out the storm. I immediately booked two 4-star pre-paid hotel rooms for a whole week up in Atlanta for them on my credit card, before the evacuation panic ensued and filled all of the rooms.

Their state decided to start evacuations at 6:00 AM on my day three. The afternoon before, I told my sister that she and her moron husband needed to pick up my mother a few towns away by 3:00 AM -- and put at least 200 miles behind them by sunrise at 6:00 AM. If they didn't get ahead of the evacuation traffic, they would be stuck for a day on the road.

My day three started with an early morning trip to the cath lab, where among other things I got to "ride the lightning" trying to get my brand new case of AFib back into rhythm. No-go on that. When I got back to my room on the normal floors at 9:30 AM or so, I grabbed my cell phone and called my mother to ask her how far they were away from Atlanta. She was still at home waiting to be picked up, because my sister's moron husband wasn't ready to leave his house yet! The cellular system down there was so jammed after that from panic evacuation calls where it was nearly impossible to call anyone. The other guy sharing my room kept his TV on CNN all day with the volume cranked, so I had to suffer through the news showing evacuation traffic jams with no way of knowing where my relatives were or if they even left home!

My wife came down to visit for an hour late that afternoon. As she was leaving, one of the cardiologists that I'll refer to as Dr. Doom cornered her in the hallway and told her that I was dying. We'll overlook the malpractice suit because I *intentionally* did not sign HIPAA release forms for my wife, but now I've got a missing family in an approaching category 5 hurricane AND an emotionally destroyed wife who came back to my room crying that I'm going to die! I got her calmed down enough to drive home, but knew that she needed someone to stay at our house overnight for emotional support.

Coincidentally, this was our dog's birthday...and my in-laws just love their grand-dog to bits. As soon as my DW left the hospital, I called up the in-laws and asked them to pick up a surprise birthday cake for the dog and spend the night at our house supporting their daughter. Unfortunately, my DW beat the in-laws to our house...and almost shot them when they unexpectedly pulled into our dark driveway for the surprise party. In the words of Steve Jobs, but wait, there's more!

The other guy's TV was on CNN with the volume cranked until 3:00 AM, with non-stop coverage of the hurricane making landfall and flooding everything. I still had no idea where my family was, had a wife at home distraught to the max because she thought that I was dying, and was still quite energized from the cath lab procedure and riding the lightning while totally awake. While I was grateful that one of the nurses turned off the other guy's TV so that I could try to sleep, the reason why she was in the room was because his ECG went crazy and they had an emergency on their hands! His blood pressure dropped to near zero, and the overwhelmed night shift doctor was calling for all kinds of tests and medicines until 7:00 AM when they wheeled him out of the room bound for either the CCU or the morgue.

Although this is now day four, I hadn't slept so it's still the same day for me. My DW showed up before breakfast, and spent the day with me. I told her a watered-down version of what had happened the night before, and Dr. Doom stopped by doing his rounds and added another pill to my daily list. When I tried to sit up for lunch, I felt dizzy and flopped back down. I told my DW to call a nurse, who noticed that my blood pressure was dropping. As I was getting loopier by the minute, I realized that I was having the same symptoms as the guy in the other bed a few hours earlier. In my delusional state, I started calling out all of the tests and medicines that the overnight doctor tried on him as if I were the doctor! The last thing that I remember was a nurse doing a manual BP measurement and getting 38 over "I can't find the bottom" before waking up that night in the CCU with *nine* different IV bags hanging over my head, no TV, no DW, and no cell phone to check on my family! I'm sure that the floor nurses upstairs had a good laugh at my expense for calling out the tests like I was a doctor or something.

To recap, ride the lightning, missing family in category 5 hurricane, distraught DW who was told that I was dying, almost shot in-laws, guy in other bed apparently coding out, and being as close to dead as I care to be due to an adverse reaction to one tiny pill. Like I said, the worst day of my life...by far!

My birthday was a week later, and I was still in the CCU. This was when my relatives were all flying in to say goodbye, and I threw my CCU ice cream cake birthday party to cheer everyone up because of Dr. Doom's HIPAA mistake.

Oh, did I mention that I am still too stubborn to die? Get off my lawn, Dr. Doom...and take that premature death certificate with you!!!!!

.

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...when your only conversation topics are about illnesses, aches, and hospital stays.

Back to the worst day of my life. My last hospital outing was one week in the local hospital, and then a transfer to the big regional medical center for three more weeks before they released me for the first time. Four weeks of continuous ECG monitoring and a defib box installed between both places, and never a single mention of AFib the entire time. Two days later, I was back in an ambulance for an hour down to the regional medical center again after passing out cold twice.

There was a huge category 5 hurricane heading for the southeast coast on my first day back in the hospital, and as luck would have it half of my family relocated to a coastal community down south a few months before. Not one of them had a clue about hurricane evacuations procedures. I got a phone call from my sister that day, saying that her moron husband wanted to go 5 miles inland (swamp) and find a motel to ride out the storm. I immediately booked two 4-star pre-paid hotel rooms for a whole week up in Atlanta for them on my credit card, before the evacuation panic ensued and filled all of the rooms.

Their state decided to start evacuations at 6:00 AM on my day three. The afternoon before, I told my sister that she and her moron husband needed to pick up my mother a few towns away by 3:00 AM -- and put at least 200 miles behind them by sunrise at 6:00 AM. If they didn't get ahead of the evacuation traffic, they would be stuck for a day on the road.

My day three started with an early morning trip to the cath lab, where among other things I got to "ride the lightning" trying to get my brand new case of AFib back into rhythm. No-go on that. When I got back to my room on the normal floors at 9:30 AM or so, I grabbed my cell phone and called my mother to ask her how far they were away from Atlanta. She was still at home waiting to be picked up, because my sister's moron husband wasn't ready to leave his house yet! The cellular system down there was so jammed after that from panic evacuation calls where it was nearly impossible to call anyone. The other guy sharing my room kept his TV on CNN all day with the volume cranked, so I had to suffer through the news showing evacuation traffic jams with no way of knowing where my relatives were or if they even left home!

My wife came down to visit for an hour late that afternoon. As she was leaving, one of the cardiologists that I'll refer to as Dr. Doom cornered her in the hallway and told her that I was dying. We'll overlook the malpractice suit because I *intentionally* did not sign HIPAA release forms for my wife, but now I've got a missing family in an approaching category 5 hurricane AND an emotionally destroyed wife who came back to my room crying that I'm going to die! I got her calmed down enough to drive home, but knew that she needed someone to stay at our house overnight for emotional support.

Coincidentally, this was our dog's birthday...and my in-laws just love their grand-dog to bits. As soon as my DW left the hospital, I called up the in-laws and asked them to pick up a surprise birthday cake for the dog and spend the night at our house supporting their daughter. Unfortunately, my DW beat the in-laws to our house...and almost shot them when they unexpectedly pulled into our dark driveway for the surprise party. In the words of Steve Jobs, but wait, there's more!

The other guy's TV was on CNN with the volume cranked until 3:00 AM, with non-stop coverage of the hurricane making landfall and flooding everything. I still had no idea where my family was, had a wife at home distraught to the max because she thought that I was dying, and was still quite energized from the cath lab procedure and riding the lightning while totally awake. While I was grateful that one of the nurses turned off the other guy's TV so that I could try to sleep, the reason why she was in the room was because his ECG went crazy and they had an emergency on their hands! His blood pressure dropped to near zero, and the overwhelmed night shift doctor was calling for all kinds of tests and medicines until 7:00 AM when they wheeled him out of the room bound for either the CCU or the morgue.

Although this is now day four, I hadn't slept so it's still the same day for me. My DW showed up before breakfast, and spent the day with me. I told her a watered-down version of what had happened the night before, and Dr. Doom stopped by doing his rounds and added another pill to my daily list. When I tried to sit up for lunch, I felt dizzy and flopped back down. I told my DW to call a nurse, who noticed that my blood pressure was dropping. As I was getting loopier by the minute, I realized that I was having the same symptoms as the guy in the other bed a few hours earlier. In my delusional state, I started calling out all of the tests and medicines that the overnight doctor tried on him as if I were the doctor! The last thing that I remember was a nurse doing a manual BP measurement and getting 38 over "I can't find the bottom" before waking up that night in the CCU with *nine* different IV bags hanging over my head, no TV, no DW, and no cell phone to check on my family! I'm sure that the floor nurses upstairs had a good laugh at my expense for calling out the tests like I was a doctor or something.

To recap, ride the lightning, missing family in category 5 hurricane, distraught DW who was told that I was dying, almost shot in-laws, guy in other bed apparently coding out, and being as close to dead as I care to be due to an adverse reaction to one tiny pill. Like I said, the worst day of my life...by far!

My birthday was a week later, and I was still in the CCU. This was when my relatives were all flying in to say goodbye, and I threw my CCU ice cream cake birthday party to cheer everyone up because of Dr. Doom's HIPAA mistake.

Oh, did I mention that I am still too stubborn to die? Get off my lawn, Dr. Doom...and take that premature death certificate with you!!!!!

.

Thank you for the interesting read during our morning coffee!!!!

It really seemed like a horrible day with everything going on at the same time!! What made it worse was not knowing where your relatives were and the mind starts thinking of the " worse case " scenario!!!!

That Dr. Doom also didn't help at all and the wife here cringed at the memory of a few she worked with that were that way!!

Thanks again for sharing!!

[eluded]

Tru

[vreihen16]

...when your idea of a "nooner" is half a sandwich and a 20-minute nap.....