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| Heh. | |
| Posted By: Louis Wu <halo@bungie.org> | Date: 11/24/06 10:38 a.m. |
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Thanks to everyone who sent notes yesterday - apologies for scaring anyone. I had meant the news post to sound flippant; apparently, a lot of you got worried I was dying. I'm not dying. I did, however, learn a really useful fact for getting treatment in an emergency room... if you tell the admitting nurse that you've got chest pains, MAN to they ramp things up in a hurry. So here's the deal: I got pretty sick in early October... I came down with pneumonia. At its peak, I spent over a week sleeping (literally) more than 20 hours a day, and even when the fever broke, and I could move around a bit, I was still pretty weak. I was coughing a lot - my doctor worried about whooping cough, which apparently saw an outbreak in this area this year, but he'd already given me a series of antibiotics; he'd done what he could to kill it. I got extra sleep, drank lots of fluids, didn't exercise too much - eventually I'd get better, I was told. Wednesday night, after dinner, I started to feel some pain in my chest. It sort of felt like heartburn, except I don't really know what heartburn feels like - it was just a pain in the area that people on those Prilosec commercials rub before they've taken their pills. :) It was way too high to be stomach-related,
At that point, it hurt in the front, it hurt in the back; I couldn't get comfortable, I was having trouble breathing. It felt like I'd taken a line drive to my chest. I took a hot bath, I tried lying on the floor, nothing seemed to give me a way to position myself in a way that didn't hurt. Finally, at midnight, my wife had had it. She told me we were going to the emergency room. I was pretty sure it wasn't a heart attack; there was no tingling in any limbs, I'm actually pretty healthy, and my heart's pretty strong... but I didn't know what it WAS, and neither did she. The car ride sucked - every bump on the road made it worse. But about 10 minutes in, I started to feel better. It wasn't clear if it was because I was sitting up again, or because of the cold air, or what... but it hurt less, and I could breathe again. We got to the hospital, walked into the ER, and I stepped up to the attending nurse and said 'I've got these weird chest pains...' Man, did they move fast. They slammed my ass down on a gurney, and 30 seconds later I was in a room with 6 medical people. Folks were slapping electrodes all over me, snapping things on my fingers, one woman had an IV in my arm before I even knew she was there... wow. I guess ERs take heart attacks pretty seriously. (Last summer, I took my son to the ER for a broken arm; he'd fallen off his bike. We sat in the waiting room for 4 hours before they took us back... and then when they did, we sat on a gurney in the hallway for another hour, because they couldn't find us a room.) The EKG was fine - taking the electrodes off was the worst part. (I'm a little bit hairy, I guess.) They sent me for a chest x-ray - lungs were totally clear, no scarring. (This was good news; I worried a little, because pneumonia can leave permanent effects.) So what caused the pain? Whooping cough. I'd been coughing so much, I'd pushed my ribs out of whack, and strained the muscles that overlaid them. Those muscles also overlay my lungs... so it hurts to breathe. (Joy.) They sent us home around 2, with prescriptions for heavy-duty cough medicine, and percocet for the pain. (They gave me one in the hospital, but other than that, I haven't touched 'em; it's not THAT bad, and percocet's pretty strong stuff. The cough stuff I used, though.) We got home around 3 (had to stop at the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions), and hit the sack. THAT'S why I didn't get up in time for updates yesterday; by the time I got out of bed, there were only 3 or so hours before our guests were going to start arriving, and there was a lot still to do. So: I'm healthy, mostly. Whooping cough is sometimes called 'the 100 day cough' because that's how long the toxin it creates hangs around, even after you kill the bug that causes it - so I've got another month or so of this wonderful cough to look forward to... but my lungs are clear, my heart is fine, and I didn't even overdo it on turkey yesterday. I'm sorry for scaring anyone - that was unintentional. I thought it was sort of silly to go all the way to the ER only to find out I had a strained muscle... but even sillier that we learned you could get instant service just by complaining of chest pains. (Next time I cut my finger, I'm saying it's chest pains.) Thanks again to all who sent kind words. | |
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| Replies: |
| Heh. | Louis Wu | 11/24/06 10:38 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Spartan Jag | 11/24/06 10:42 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Teh Cubed | 11/24/06 10:52 a.m. |
| TFFT *NM* | Stuntmutt | 11/24/06 10:55 a.m. |
| Re: TFFT | dogsounds | 11/24/06 12:00 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | DMDyet | 11/24/06 11:00 a.m. |
| Whatever, didn't even notice you were missing. *NM* | One of Bungies mindless bitches. | 11/24/06 11:10 a.m. |
| I was looking forward to getting his monitor. *NM* | Blackstar | 11/24/06 1:32 p.m. |
| neato | Max Power (aka- dewbe) | 11/24/06 11:15 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Recon#54 | 11/24/06 11:30 a.m. |
| Happy you are feeling better | Kaboris | 11/24/06 11:36 a.m. |
| Things looked a little 'Hairy' for a second there. | c0ld vengeance | 11/24/06 11:39 a.m. |
| Re: Things looked a little 'Hairy' for a second th | 3Suns | 11/24/06 2:31 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | ckamp | 11/24/06 11:39 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | ckamp | 11/24/06 11:40 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Hawaiian Pig | 11/24/06 12:44 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Anton P. Nym (aka Steve) | 11/24/06 2:14 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Jillybean | 11/24/06 2:17 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Anton P. Nym (aka Steve) | 11/24/06 2:25 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Jillybean | 11/24/06 2:27 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | scarab | 11/24/06 11:42 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Ross Mills [subnova] | 11/24/06 11:42 a.m. |
| You wuss!!! | Jillybean | 11/24/06 12:15 p.m. |
| Re: You wuss!!! | CHAOS1212 | 11/24/06 12:21 p.m. |
| I think that was sarcasm. *NM* | Argodaemon | 11/24/06 12:29 p.m. |
| Jilly + insult at Wu = lol *NM* | Peptuck | 11/24/06 12:42 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Hawaiian Pig | 11/24/06 12:41 p.m. |
| Re: Heh. | Blown-Upp | 11/24/06 12:56 p.m. |
| Heh. Glad you're ok! *NM* | Eastbeast314 | 11/24/06 1:51 p.m. |
| Donchu EVER Scare Me Like That Again! | Mintz | 11/24/06 1:55 p.m. |
| I feel you, Wu. | mr_mcmurder | 11/24/06 2:56 p.m. |
| That is a highly awkward souding subject line | Echoes | 11/24/06 3:17 p.m. |
| Good to hear all's well *NM* | Fury Three | 11/24/06 4:37 p.m. |
| Aaaaw | BOLL | 11/24/06 5:16 p.m. |
| Re: Aaaaw | The More Deluded | 11/24/06 5:48 p.m. |
| Re: Aaaaw-caution-swede hug :O | vshields ash | 11/25/06 12:22 a.m. |
| Re: HBO: A little bit hairy, I guess. | Sep7imus [subnova] | 11/24/06 6:00 p.m. |
| Re: HBO: A little bit hairy, I guess. | jman571 | 11/24/06 7:24 p.m. |
| feel better :) *NM* *NM* | Zattack89 | 11/24/06 11:03 p.m. |
| Glad you're fine, Wu. | Bs Halo rks | 11/25/06 7:00 a.m. |
| Re: Heh. | maxthehedgie | 11/25/06 5:59 p.m. |
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