Hospitals give the best bruises

I used to be a fairly athletic person and in so doing I would get bruises. I have also accumulated my fair share of bruises from pure klutzy lack of coordination. However none of the bruises I've gotten from sports or klutziness begin to compare with the bruises I get when hospitals are involved. Hospitals really do give the best bruises. The Sunday before Labor Day was a pretty typical Sunday. I made a new record! Twenty minutes in Church before I had to use a ridiculous amount of Benadryl and mountain dew. I also started to turn blue in the face, not cool right. Well after a lot of medicine and sleep I woke up Labor Day doing less than great. After a breathing treatment I was feeling a little better. I had made plans to spend time with my mom on Labor Day. My mom and I decided the safest activity we could think about was a walk in our local park.


A walk in the park should be safe right? Wrong. We made it once around the track before I started coughing and turning red. We headed to a Walgreens to try my caffeine and Benadryl avoidance method. Well don't be shocked but it didn't work. I had to use my epi-pen and the Walgreens staff called 911. We might have been ok without calling an ambulance but the friendly lady trying to help me had perfume on. An ambulance ride involving a lot of medicine later I landed in the ER... AGAIN. ARRGH! Although this was the best ER visit I've ever had though. They whipped out the relay computer immediately, it was awesome! A chest x-ray, more medicine, two blown veins from a nurse trying to take my blood, and a few hours later I was doing more or less better. However it came back and with a vengeance too. At that point I had to be given more epi and Benadryl. My amazing home teacher came to give me a blessing in the midst of all of this. Once we hit that third shot of epinephrine in less than eight hours it was decided my butt was being admitted to the hospital. Thankfully I had picked the ER where my regular doctor has admitting privileges. By the time they were ready to move me up to a regular room I was stable.


We got up to the floor and I was wheeled into the room. That was when to pardon the expression but all hell broke loose. The guy moving me didn't realize I had come into the ER for anaphylaxis. They had tried to move me into a room that had been cleaned minutes before with heavy floral cleaners. I was quickly wheeled into another room as I went back into anaphylactic shock. Thankfully the guy moving me was trained as an EMT. The nurses around me thought it was an asthma attack but he knew better. He basically ignored them and broke into their crash cart for epinephrine because none had been authorized on the floor I was sent to. When he gave me my fourth shot of epi in less than twelve hours my heart went berserk.


They cut my top off of me and quickly hooked me up to a crash cart. I was really bummed to lose another of my nice tank tops from Utah to the hospital. It was necessary though since my heart rate hit 174 bpm which is edging right into the danger zone for tachycardia becoming cardiac arrest. My heart rate went from about 85 bpm to 174 bpm in less than ten minutes. The EMT guy also insisted on putting a second IV in and starting an epi drip. He was trying to avoid giving me any more epi through my leg because of how hard it would hit my heart. The EMT knew that one more shot of epi was severely risking my chances of cardiac arrest. He took charge of the situation since the nurses on the floor seemed very unsure of what to do. I also managed to get every nurse and doctor on the floor crowded into my room all at once so new record there. I was also introduced to a new machine I haven't been familiar with before in all my hospital soujourns. They got a Darth Vader looking mask over my face and had me hooked to a machine called a bipap. Basically what it did was force air through my lungs when it got too difficult for me to breathe on my own. I'm eternally grateful that EMT was at the right place at the right time. I owe him my life.

After the epic fiasco of trying to put me into a regular room I was moved down to ICU where I stayed for the remainder of my time in the hospital. I'm also proud to say the hospital did pretty well with my restricted diet. I had one other attack while in the ICU but even more medicine later I was stable enough to go home. Other than some ugly looking bruises from blown veins and soreness in my leg from having soo much epi I'm doing pretty good all things considered. I'm recuperating at home now and counting my blessings.