CODE BLUE! RAPID! EMERGENCY ROOM!

 At this exact moment one week ago I coded. I’m having panic attack thinking about it.

Where do I start? At the beginning I suppose. This will take a couple of posts.

Had a doctors appointment at 9 am Oct 22. I’d been coughing non stop. Fainting. This appointment was why I hadn’t already gone to the ER. I need surgery and I need it quick so I could NOT miss it. 

By the time we got out my cough seemed to be waning a bit. I suggested that we get breakfast before we go to the hospital, I’ve learned enough to know that once you hit that ER you might not eat or drink again for a LONG time. 

When we left the restaurant I was exhausted. My breathing was difficult and I was back to uncontrollable coughing. I’d literally packed a bag for the hospital and my comfort items like a blanket that’s super cozy, facial spray, sports bras, room spray ( the scent calms me) plus all the chargers in the world, two pairs of AirPods, iPad etc… might as well go…

The ER was packed. I checked in at noon. I was put into a bed in the hall, they call it “ The Wall” and if you’re lucky you’ll get an ER but that’s the roll of the dice.

I was immediately prescribed the antibiotic that’s my “ Go To” because of my resistance to other antibiotics.

A seriously bad car accident involving a newborn came in, a dementia patient who looked to be in BAD shape. A man on The Wall in front of me who had a heart attack he wasn’t even aware of…..

I didn’t get my antibiotic. They were swamped with serious cases. My nurse came by to hook me up to an iv pole so I asked if I could use the bathroom first so I didn’t have to drag it along. That delayed it further. 

Then it hit a lull. The guy with the heart attack was moved to an ER “room” , other patients transferred to other hospitals…and my nurse came to do the antibiotics. Everyone was in the nurses station trying not to jinx the quiet. 

He pushed it into my IV which was in my wrist. I commented that it burned. Sometimes they burn but this felt different, like a fireball shot going in, a warm burning. He said that I have baby veins so he’d slow down. He pushed the second half and went to throw away the trash.

I immediately feel this heavy burning through my upper body. My arms and abdomen bright red. My lungs feel like burning concrete, so heavy. I sat straight up and told my husband that there was something SERIOUSLY wrong. He said that my under eye area was gray. My nurse came running over and told me to stick out my tongue and I thought I was but he said “ STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE!” And the last thing I said was “ I cant.”

I grabbed the bed rails to hold myself up trying to stretch my ribcage but started making a noise like “ungk” over and over  and that’s mostly what I remember. 

Apparently I was coded, the heart attack man was removed from his room and I was out in. Jd had yelled for me to BREATHE. My face turned gray, my lips blue. Apparently there were about 10 people working in me. Jd said he watched me die. My blood ox was 76. 

This process took about three minutes from beginning to me being able to take in oxygen again. It was that fast. I had a doctor tell me that I scared the shit out of him. My nurse just kept saying “ But she’s had it so many times” to himself, the staff, the universe. 

Apparently it’s exceptionally rare to turn gray. The room filled with people asking everyone involved what it looked like, how fast had it happened, first signs…. One doc said “ Damn, you know it’s bad when they kick the heart attack patient out of his room”

I had to stay until about 9pm to make sure my heart wasn’t damaged and that it didn’t start again. The oxygen mask was set at like hurricane force winds! 😄At one point I was able to get out “ Thank God that I was here.” I’ve been sent home with pic lines several times so the thought that I could have been home was terrifying. 

Jd was literally in shock. His face was white, he was staring off into the distance and he made a phone call from right there to my primary doc and left a message “ Tracy is allergic. She needs EPI pens. Call to a pharmacy.”  And hung up. We did laugh about that later. Then he just collapsed. I felt so badly for him. I can’t imagine seeing what he saw. 

What did I experience? I think my brain was misfiring. A young woman I coached died in a car accident and I “watched” it happen, I thought I was under a pile of lumber, I had a voice say “ You’re suffocating just like your dad from Covid but you’re not feeling it.” And this reconciliation that this was me dying. And the voice of my nurse mumbling that I’d had it before.

Weird story, a week later I needed a new IV and I’m an impossible stick so they sent someone from the ER with the vein finding stuff and he said…” We you in the wall last week?” I said that I was and he said that another woman was at that moment going through the same thing and so they’d pulled my chart not even 20 minutes earlier!!! So about an hour later my ER nurse came up to my room at about midnight to check on me and tell me how scared he’d been and we got to thank him profusely. His name is Josh so I have a soft spot for him :-)

So that’s it for today.

Find me in the moon.