Mama said there would be days like this.
Actually, Mama may not have known about nursing days quite like this. Here are the early signs that you’re in for a “holy moly” nursing shift.
You know you’re in for a crazy shift when…
10. In the first five minutes some fool says, “Boy, it’s quiet tonight.”
9. You walk on the floor and nobody even has time to say hello.
8. Report is from the slow-talking nurse who includes every minute detail about every patient…slowly.
7. The charge nurse asks who has the most experience in psych.
6. A patient greets you at the elevator and says he is wearing new socks.
5. A doctor greets you at the elevator and asks if anyone on the unit knows anything.
4. A fellow nurse runs past you into the elevator screaming and swearing.
3. You get off the elevator and step in vomit.
2. You smell BM while the elevator is opening onto your floor.
1. A new nurse asks, “What’s C-diff?”
Source: ScrubsMag.com
Showing posts with label scrubs magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scrubs magazine. Show all posts
Friday, November 15, 2013
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Nurses Reveal Their Favorite Patient Lines!
I like when patients ask for their nausea medicine while eating a cheeseburger and fries and requesting a second tray from food service. —Heather Burton
“I’m allergic to 25 mg Demerol, but I can take 50.” —Rebekah Hudgins
When patients with severe acid reflux ask, “What do you mean I can’t have pizza? What else am I supposed to eat?” —Liz Johnston
On their 100th visit for treatment: “How long is this going to take?” —Leslie S. Peguero
“I’m not obese—my clothes are shrinking!” —Ginny Riddle
I love when the elderly patients use their call bell for something and say, “I’m sorry if I woke you up….” —Keri Greenier George
“Can I borrow $300? I promise to pay you back. You’re a nurse, you look like you make good money.” (Awkward!) —Victoria Quinn
“I have end-stage fibromyalgia and need refills on my two narcotics.” —Kimra M Griffith
“I get redneck syndrome from that antibiotic.” —Heather Mercier
What are some of your favorite “lines” from patients?
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Hospital Miracles
Nurses witness the miracle of birth every day. But there are some cases that stretch their beliefs to their limits...
by Marijke Durning • September 30, 2011, Scrubs Magazine
What is a miracle? Among nurses, we may jokingly say it’s having a full roster of nurses on our shift or a shift without any “code browns,” but a true miracle—if there is such a thing—is much more than that.
A medical miracle is one that can’t be explained by medical and scientific minds. They may have theories, but no one can prove them. So, the events go down in history as “miracles.”
As nurses, we sometimes see what we consider to be miracles: patients who we thought wouldn’t recover walking out of the hospital or a dying patient waiting until someone from afar arrives to say good-bye before allowing himself to pass to the other side.
Here are three miracles that we’ve found. We wonder how the nurses involved felt about them.
Man Regains Speech and Movement After 19-Year Vegetative State
In 1984, 19-year-old Terry Wallis was in a motor vehicle accident near Little Rock, Ark., that left him in a persistent vegetative state. For 19 years, Terry’s parents visited him in his extended care facility and they also brought him home for visits, all the while talking to him and tending to him as needed.
According to a report on CNN.com, in April 2003, Terry greeted his mother by saying “Mom” when she went into his room. More words followed, as well as some voluntary movements.
Terry’s recovery hasn’t been complete—he has lost his short-term memory and has other brain injuries related to the accident—but the fact that his brain was able to rewire itself enough for him to regain the ability to speak seems to be a miracle in itself.
As student nurses, we are taught to speak to our patients whether they seem to be responsive or not—we don’t know if they can hear us. Here is a good example of why we should continue to live by that rule. We just never know who will be that miracle patient.
Christmas Eve Birth Tragedy Turns into a Miracle
Nurses who work in obstetrics get to see the miracle of birth and life every day. And while giving birth on Christmas Eve may make the already miraculous process of birth and life even more special, things can go horribly wrong as well. Just ask Tracy Hermanstorfer and her husband, Mike, of Colorado Springs, Colo.
According to the Associate Press, on Christmas Eve 2009, 35-year-old Tracy was being prepped to deliver her third child when she suddenly stopped breathing. Despite immediate CPR, the doctors and nurses couldn’t bring her back to life. Fearing for the life of the couple’s unborn son, the doctors performed an emergency Cesarean section. A few moments later, Mike was told that Tracy had a pulse once again.
After much testing, doctors were unable to determine what caused Tracy’s brush with death nor can they say if it will or won’t ever happen again. However, this miracle mom is just grateful that she lived to see another day.
Funeral Called Off
Family members had gathered to say their good-byes; a funeral was being planned. It was 2008 and 65-year-old Rae Kupferschmidt had sustained a massive cerebral hemorrhage so severe that there was no hope for her survival, no matter how slim. According to the Star Tribune, doctors at United Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., could not detect any brain activity.
The family had Rae taken off life support and brought her home to die. But things didn’t go as expected, and within a few hours of returning home, Rae began sucking on ice cubes and responding to simple questions.
Emergency surgery was performed to drain the blood. After recuperating, Rae went home with the ability to walk and talk, and determined to live her remaining days to the fullest.
Have you ever witnessed a miracle?
by Marijke Durning • September 30, 2011, Scrubs Magazine
What is a miracle? Among nurses, we may jokingly say it’s having a full roster of nurses on our shift or a shift without any “code browns,” but a true miracle—if there is such a thing—is much more than that.
A medical miracle is one that can’t be explained by medical and scientific minds. They may have theories, but no one can prove them. So, the events go down in history as “miracles.”
As nurses, we sometimes see what we consider to be miracles: patients who we thought wouldn’t recover walking out of the hospital or a dying patient waiting until someone from afar arrives to say good-bye before allowing himself to pass to the other side.
Here are three miracles that we’ve found. We wonder how the nurses involved felt about them.
Man Regains Speech and Movement After 19-Year Vegetative State
In 1984, 19-year-old Terry Wallis was in a motor vehicle accident near Little Rock, Ark., that left him in a persistent vegetative state. For 19 years, Terry’s parents visited him in his extended care facility and they also brought him home for visits, all the while talking to him and tending to him as needed.
According to a report on CNN.com, in April 2003, Terry greeted his mother by saying “Mom” when she went into his room. More words followed, as well as some voluntary movements.
Terry’s recovery hasn’t been complete—he has lost his short-term memory and has other brain injuries related to the accident—but the fact that his brain was able to rewire itself enough for him to regain the ability to speak seems to be a miracle in itself.
As student nurses, we are taught to speak to our patients whether they seem to be responsive or not—we don’t know if they can hear us. Here is a good example of why we should continue to live by that rule. We just never know who will be that miracle patient.
Christmas Eve Birth Tragedy Turns into a Miracle
Nurses who work in obstetrics get to see the miracle of birth and life every day. And while giving birth on Christmas Eve may make the already miraculous process of birth and life even more special, things can go horribly wrong as well. Just ask Tracy Hermanstorfer and her husband, Mike, of Colorado Springs, Colo.
According to the Associate Press, on Christmas Eve 2009, 35-year-old Tracy was being prepped to deliver her third child when she suddenly stopped breathing. Despite immediate CPR, the doctors and nurses couldn’t bring her back to life. Fearing for the life of the couple’s unborn son, the doctors performed an emergency Cesarean section. A few moments later, Mike was told that Tracy had a pulse once again.
After much testing, doctors were unable to determine what caused Tracy’s brush with death nor can they say if it will or won’t ever happen again. However, this miracle mom is just grateful that she lived to see another day.
Funeral Called Off
Family members had gathered to say their good-byes; a funeral was being planned. It was 2008 and 65-year-old Rae Kupferschmidt had sustained a massive cerebral hemorrhage so severe that there was no hope for her survival, no matter how slim. According to the Star Tribune, doctors at United Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., could not detect any brain activity.
The family had Rae taken off life support and brought her home to die. But things didn’t go as expected, and within a few hours of returning home, Rae began sucking on ice cubes and responding to simple questions.
Emergency surgery was performed to drain the blood. After recuperating, Rae went home with the ability to walk and talk, and determined to live her remaining days to the fullest.
Have you ever witnessed a miracle?
Friday, November 11, 2011
Nursing During The Great Depression
by Scrubs • November 7, 2011
What was it like to be a nurse in the Great Depression? There’s plenty of historical information available about what was going on in the industry as a whole…but what most of us really want to know is the answer to questions such as “What was it like to be a nurse back then? What motivated people to choose this profession? What do I have in common with the nurses who came before me?”
Let’s take a look at the big-picture facts and hear some personal anecdotes from nurses who were just graduating from nursing school at the time.
The New Nursing Profession Suffers a Blow
The decade of the Great Depression came at a critical time in the history of nursing. The concept of educating nurses as healthcare professionals had just begun to catch on. Nursing schools with high-quality programs were becoming established. For the first time in U.S. history, being a nurse was seen as a respectable career path for women.
Hazel Joy, RN: “People sort of looked up to nurses. You had to study for three years—intense study, really. I was always proud to be a nurse and I think all of us were at that time.”
On the public health front, malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitation and other side effects of extreme poverty caused by the sudden economic decline took an enormous toll on human health. However, the rise in the number of people seeking hospital care didn’t lead to the creation of more nursing jobs. In fact, many hospitals and nursing schools closed due to lack of funding.
Results of Widespread Unemployment
Hospitals instituted entirely new rules for scheduling. Previously, most nurses were expected to work at least 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week (sound familiar?). Now, hours were cut back to eight hours a day, with no more than 48 hours in a week. This policy change allowed more nurses to be employed. General duty staffing became the norm. But some staff did still serve as private duty nurses, caring for just one patient at a time. With funding low, nurses often had to use whatever equipment was available to help patients pull through. Just like today, seeing a patient get well was the best reward.
Ida Carthel, RN: “I did private duty nursing for a two-year-old child, a beautiful little girl from a nearby town. A rattlesnake had bitten her several times on her legs. We had to stay with her because she was delirious. You know how you’ve heard they do these ‘X’ marks to suck the venom out of the patient’s flesh? We used breast pumps for that and it worked. You call that improvising, and we did! She recovered…she was such a doll.”
Low Wages and Restrictive Working Conditions Prevail
The pay wasn’t great (some hospitals had to cut salaries or stop paying altogether for a time), but the work was steady and offered some stability. Of course, just like now, a paycheck was only a temporary incentive. It wasn’t enough to make a person stay in the profession if they weren’t cut out for it.
Hazel Joy, RN: “Yes, it was a job at first, a way to make a living, and then as time went on, you had to like it. And you had to have some input into what was going on, and you had to feel a part of the team in order to get some satisfaction out of the job.”
In a time when few men or women could find a job at all, many young unmarried women still saw going to nursing school as a way out of poverty and insurance for their future. They just had to stay single or they would be kicked out! These thrifty women learned to live on very little as they pursued their dream.
Irma Earngey, RN: “I know that some nurses worked in some hospitals in Fort Worth, [Texas], in the 1930s for room and board and maybe $15 a month. I know that is hard to believe, but remember you could buy a pair of shoes for $2 and you could get a dress for $2 or $3. There wasn’t much money, but it went a long way.”
Nursing Shortages Arise
During the mid-1930s, the situation eased a little. But by this time, the general lack of support for the nursing profession had already created a big problem. There weren’t enough well-trained nurses to go around. This issue took decades (and lots of government educational funding) to fix. Yes, nursing shortages are nothing new. Fortunately, there have always been those who feel the calling to the healing profession too strongly to ignore.
Cleatis Treese, RN: “I think all my life I wanted to be a nurse. Mother said I never had a baby doll that was well. It either had a fracture or something had to be bandaged. So all my life I wanted to be a nurse. There was just never any doubt. Now my father was an invalid and he pushed me too, you know. He thought nurses were just the thing. And then I was a Lutheran, and so my minister just thought he would like to have one of his people go to the Lankenau Hospital [in Pennsylvania] to be a nurse. It just all fit in.”
Quotes derived from The Lived Experience of Registered Nurses, 1930-1950: A Phenomenological Study by Beverly Knowles Byers, BSN, MS, MSN
What was it like to be a nurse in the Great Depression? There’s plenty of historical information available about what was going on in the industry as a whole…but what most of us really want to know is the answer to questions such as “What was it like to be a nurse back then? What motivated people to choose this profession? What do I have in common with the nurses who came before me?”
Let’s take a look at the big-picture facts and hear some personal anecdotes from nurses who were just graduating from nursing school at the time.
The New Nursing Profession Suffers a Blow
The decade of the Great Depression came at a critical time in the history of nursing. The concept of educating nurses as healthcare professionals had just begun to catch on. Nursing schools with high-quality programs were becoming established. For the first time in U.S. history, being a nurse was seen as a respectable career path for women.
Hazel Joy, RN: “People sort of looked up to nurses. You had to study for three years—intense study, really. I was always proud to be a nurse and I think all of us were at that time.”
On the public health front, malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitation and other side effects of extreme poverty caused by the sudden economic decline took an enormous toll on human health. However, the rise in the number of people seeking hospital care didn’t lead to the creation of more nursing jobs. In fact, many hospitals and nursing schools closed due to lack of funding.
Results of Widespread Unemployment
Hospitals instituted entirely new rules for scheduling. Previously, most nurses were expected to work at least 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week (sound familiar?). Now, hours were cut back to eight hours a day, with no more than 48 hours in a week. This policy change allowed more nurses to be employed. General duty staffing became the norm. But some staff did still serve as private duty nurses, caring for just one patient at a time. With funding low, nurses often had to use whatever equipment was available to help patients pull through. Just like today, seeing a patient get well was the best reward.
Ida Carthel, RN: “I did private duty nursing for a two-year-old child, a beautiful little girl from a nearby town. A rattlesnake had bitten her several times on her legs. We had to stay with her because she was delirious. You know how you’ve heard they do these ‘X’ marks to suck the venom out of the patient’s flesh? We used breast pumps for that and it worked. You call that improvising, and we did! She recovered…she was such a doll.”
Low Wages and Restrictive Working Conditions Prevail
The pay wasn’t great (some hospitals had to cut salaries or stop paying altogether for a time), but the work was steady and offered some stability. Of course, just like now, a paycheck was only a temporary incentive. It wasn’t enough to make a person stay in the profession if they weren’t cut out for it.
Hazel Joy, RN: “Yes, it was a job at first, a way to make a living, and then as time went on, you had to like it. And you had to have some input into what was going on, and you had to feel a part of the team in order to get some satisfaction out of the job.”
In a time when few men or women could find a job at all, many young unmarried women still saw going to nursing school as a way out of poverty and insurance for their future. They just had to stay single or they would be kicked out! These thrifty women learned to live on very little as they pursued their dream.
Irma Earngey, RN: “I know that some nurses worked in some hospitals in Fort Worth, [Texas], in the 1930s for room and board and maybe $15 a month. I know that is hard to believe, but remember you could buy a pair of shoes for $2 and you could get a dress for $2 or $3. There wasn’t much money, but it went a long way.”
Nursing Shortages Arise
During the mid-1930s, the situation eased a little. But by this time, the general lack of support for the nursing profession had already created a big problem. There weren’t enough well-trained nurses to go around. This issue took decades (and lots of government educational funding) to fix. Yes, nursing shortages are nothing new. Fortunately, there have always been those who feel the calling to the healing profession too strongly to ignore.
Cleatis Treese, RN: “I think all my life I wanted to be a nurse. Mother said I never had a baby doll that was well. It either had a fracture or something had to be bandaged. So all my life I wanted to be a nurse. There was just never any doubt. Now my father was an invalid and he pushed me too, you know. He thought nurses were just the thing. And then I was a Lutheran, and so my minister just thought he would like to have one of his people go to the Lankenau Hospital [in Pennsylvania] to be a nurse. It just all fit in.”
Quotes derived from The Lived Experience of Registered Nurses, 1930-1950: A Phenomenological Study by Beverly Knowles Byers, BSN, MS, MSN
Friday, July 15, 2011
10 Cures for Frazzled Nurses: Shortcuts for an Easier Day
By Cynthia Dusseault
A day simply isn’t long enough to get everything done, right? Or is it?
If you’re stressed out before you even get to work, or if you race through your shift at a frenetic pace and still feel as if you didn’t accomplish everything you were supposed to or wanted to—and subsequently didn’t give as much attention to your patients as you would have liked—then maybe you need to use some shortcuts to make your days more productive and less hectic.
1. Get ready for work ahead of time, no matter how tired or busy you are. Pack your lunch, make sure your uniform or whatever you’ll be wearing is all set to go, get the coffee maker ready (use the timer if it has one) and fill your vehicle with gas. If you’ll be showering before you head out the door, lay out everything that you’ll need in the bathroom. If you make the whole getting-ready-for-work process easier, you’ll be less stressed out when you do arrive, and you’ll be able to focus on your job much quicker.
2. Make a “to do” list the day before or the night before of what you need to accomplish on your next workday or shift. If you have goals and a plan, you’re more likely to get things done.
3. Run any errands right before or right after your shift, if you can. Of course, if you’re working a night shift, you might just need to get home to bed, and that’s understandable. But if you can, package your errands into your travel to and from work, so you won’t have to dip into the time you should be relaxing at home or doing things with your family and friends. And get everything ready for those errands ahead of time—your shopping list, your dry cleaning stub, the letters or packages you have to mail—with your work gear, so you can just grab everything quickly and head out the door.
4. As soon as you get to work, stock your uniform or lab coat pockets with the items you use the most. Think about the items you’re always chasing down: tape, a pen light, dressing scissors, alcohol pads, IV parts. Those items should be in your pockets.
5. Take notes during report and keep them in your pocket. Consider this your “cheat sheet” of important things and add to it as the day progresses. When you’re on the night shift and are super tired, you won’t have to worry about relying totally on your memory because it will all be there. Just be sure to shred your cheat sheet or lock it safely in your locker before you head home.
6. Hang onto that pen! Seriously, don’t lend it to anyone or you’ll likely never see it again. Plus, you’ll waste time looking for another one.
7. If your facility isn’t using a “bedside handover” system, suggest it. Conducting bedside handovers from off-going nurses to on-coming nurses saves time because it enables patient safety assessment and allows nurses to respond early in their shifts to the needs of patients. It also keeps patients and families more involved in the plans of care.
8. Do “real time documentation.” In other words, don’t leave your charting until the end of your shift. Sit at that computer and do your documenting right away so you don’t waste time later trying to remember what you did.
9. Learn how to remove yourself politely. Although patients love to talk, sometimes you have to pull yourself away from a long story—that you don’t really need to hear—so that you can do what needs to be done. You don’t want to seem rude or uncaring, so it may take a little practice to get good at this. Try saying things like, “I’m so sorry. I have to go and take of another patient, but I’m not far if you need me, and I’ll come back if I have a free moment and we can continue talking.”
10. Eat for energy and don’t skip meals. The best energy combination is a carbohydrate plus a protein because carbohydrates give you energy, and proteins prevent your blood sugar from spiking after eating those carbohydrates, so they get more staying power, which translates into sustained energy. And you know that the minute your energy level starts to drop, so does your productivity.
Visit www.ScrubsMag.com
Thursday, February 3, 2011
ScrubsMag.com: ER Nurse's Description of a Heart Attack
If you have not seen Scrubs Magazine, you need to check it out. Its a fabulous magazine for those in the health industry, but it also relates well to us everyday people. Here is an important story from www.scrubsmag.com, the sister site to the magazine.
***
Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack? For example, women typically don’t undergo the “as seen on TV” version of a cardiac arrest (you know: the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, the dropping to the floor…).
Here is a story, sent in by a Scrubs reader, of one nurse’s experience with a heart attack.*
I had a completely unexpected heart attack at about 10:30 p.m. one night with NO prior exertion and NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on.
I was sitting all snugly and warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, “Ahhh, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy La-Z-Boy with my feet propped up.”
A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly, and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation—the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5 p.m.
After that had seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hindsight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws.
AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening—we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, “Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack!”
I lowered the foot rest, dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, “If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else…but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.”
I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the paramedics…I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me and, if so, to unlock the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.
I then lay down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like “Have you taken any medications?”), but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart, where they installed two side-by-side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.
Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned firsthand.
1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body—not the usual men’s symptoms, but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one, and commonly mistake it for indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up…which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a “false alarm” visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that I said “call the paramedics.” Dial 911, ladies. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER—you’re a hazard to others on the road, and so is your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor. Do NOT call your friend.
3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol-elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.
*Editor’s note: When we were sent this story—written by an anonymous author—we were compelled to share it with our readers. We are more than happy to credit the author, so please contact us: hello@scrubsmag.com.
***
Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack? For example, women typically don’t undergo the “as seen on TV” version of a cardiac arrest (you know: the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, the dropping to the floor…).
Here is a story, sent in by a Scrubs reader, of one nurse’s experience with a heart attack.*
I had a completely unexpected heart attack at about 10:30 p.m. one night with NO prior exertion and NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on.
I was sitting all snugly and warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, “Ahhh, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy La-Z-Boy with my feet propped up.”
A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly, and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation—the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5 p.m.
After that had seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hindsight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws.
AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening—we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, “Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack!”
I lowered the foot rest, dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, “If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else…but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.”
I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the paramedics…I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me and, if so, to unlock the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.
I then lay down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like “Have you taken any medications?”), but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart, where they installed two side-by-side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.
Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned firsthand.
1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body—not the usual men’s symptoms, but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one, and commonly mistake it for indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up…which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a “false alarm” visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that I said “call the paramedics.” Dial 911, ladies. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER—you’re a hazard to others on the road, and so is your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor. Do NOT call your friend.
3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol-elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.
*Editor’s note: When we were sent this story—written by an anonymous author—we were compelled to share it with our readers. We are more than happy to credit the author, so please contact us: hello@scrubsmag.com.
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