Journal

A Hospital Trip

I’m going to tell the story from my analysis after the fact, and hopefully with a bit of notes. Thanks to my brother in law, Brent Johnson for help editing for mistakes and clarity. Any further editing and clarity mistakes remain mine.

On Friday 6/2/2023 or Saturday 6/3/2023 I started to feel a bit run down, but no more than I’m normally used to. Sometimes I don’t sleep enough, sometimes due to my occasional anemia, and sometimes my depression acts up, so it is often hard to tell why I’m tired. So even though I didn’t feel well, it wasn’t far outside the normal variance, so I didn’t give it too much thought.

Sunday I took an extra nap, which is not that outside of the norm either.

Monday morning, 6/5/2023, I woke up tired. I worked my way through my morning routine. I fed the cats their dental chews and drank water, and got in my morning exercise, which was overly hard to finish. Went downstairs and ate breakfast, which would be the only coffee I had during the week. Since I was running a bit early, decided I could sneak in a 20-minute nap. Set my watch and closed my eyes. My alarm went off too soon, but I got up, showered, made coffee for work, and started my day with email.

It wasn’t too long until I started to feel worse. Not just tired but a little nauseated. During the first meeting of the day, I decided I was just going to take the day off, which was not a big deal since I didn’t have any other meetings, and if I was sick, why fight working through the day. So after the meeting was finished, I headed upstairs to check my temperature.

Walking from the basement to the upstairs (2 flights) is not something that normally gives me a run, but as I was heading from the main level to the upper level, I could see my vision start to close in, as if I was going to pass out.

While this has happened before, it’s not something that happens frequently or even yearly, so I thought maybe something else was going on. I took my temp; it was mildly elevated. As I started walking downstairs, I once again felt my vision start to close in, like I was going to pass out. I made it to the couch and sat down to figure out what I wanted to do.

The last time I stone cold passed out, I figured it was a one off, and it really was, but at the time my primary care provider had told me that I should’ve gone to the hospital. So I started googling my symptoms—yes, I know, a terrible thing to do—and while I had no primary symptoms of a heart attack, I did have a number of secondary symptoms. I had shortness of breath, cold sweat, nausea, and stomach discomfort.

I decided it best not to go upstairs to get socks or shoes, or go downstairs to logout of my work computer or get my headphones.

I called for emergency services. I told them that I thought I was having a mild heart attack. The emergency dispatcher got EMT services on the way to my house in short order. She told me to make sure the door was unlocked so they could get in. I got up to do that, felt very tired and almost lost it again, but I was able to unlock the door and sit back down.

I texted my wife:

  • I call 911

  • I think I am having a mild heart attack

Before my wife was able to respond, the EMTs arrived and started testing a number of things: glucose level, some other checks. They told me that it didn’t appear that I was having a heart attack and asked me what I wanted to do. Being that there were 4 or 5 or 6 men facing me, they did provide a calming air and wanted to know what I wanted to do, so I told them that even if it probably wasn’t a heart attack, something wasn’t right, and I told them that I wanted to go the hospital. They asked me which one, and I said Methodist. So they helped me get up and walked me out of the house and onto a stretcher. They locked the door behind us, loaded me into the ambulance and we were off.

They got me strapped in, setup lines for an EKG, and drew a line for fluids or other items in my left arm, which held on like a champ during the entire event.

By the time Shannon was able to text me back, she got my phone’s auto “focus” driving message while the ambulance (the second one I’ve taken in my life; the first coming after I was hit by a car on a bicycle) drove me the relatively short distance to the hospital.

They got me in and dropped me off in the Emergency Department and after a few critical checks the ED made the call to go through normal process and sent me out to the waiting room. I was able to exchange a few texts with Shannon and she headed down from her work. She met me in the children’s part of the ED waiting room. After a short wait we met with the triage nurse, and she ran the same checks—very similar to the ones the EMTs did, plus a bit more, I think, and they thought I could wait some more. I reported that my nausea was getting worse, so she gave me a barf bag, and we rolled out to wait for a room.

This is where I took action.

Okay, not really.

Shannon says I vomited and passed out. I only vaguely remember this part. I remember starting to vomit and waking up to lots people wiping me off. So I apparently vomited in the bag and on myself. There was a combination of blood and breakfast. This got me immediately roomed, my clothes taken off, and gowned. My memory is all very fuzzy for me. My clothes, keys, wallet, and phones ended up in a plastic bag. They started some fluids through the IV site the EMTs had started.

Next up, I got an x-ray to check for heart things. I got a CT scan to check for mid to lower body issues and there was some evidence of what was happening. That led to a debate on what to do next. The x-ray was normal, but the CT scan said that there was evidence of stomach bleeding, so they wanted to schedule me for an upper GI endoscopy and eventually get me to a room to wait.

I thought that perhaps I could still go home, but the nurse disabused me of the notion that I was leaving anytime soon. I told her that the language the doctor had used suggested I might be able to leave soon(ish) as he didn’t specify how long I was going to be observed, but I suppose I should’ve known.

No food. No drink. Just ice. Start texting people updates…family, boss, team lead, friends. I also slept, because I was really tired. My wife collected my devices, ran home to put my work phone on the charger, got me headphones, and brought back my CPAP machine.

To give you a sense of just how weak I was, I got physically exhausted playing a hand or two of solitaire on my phone.

Early in the morning, patient transport moved me to the endoscopy area, where I have been more than a few times. I waited in the staging room for the endoscopy room to clear up. They got me set up with normal drips and monitors since my procedure wasn’t scheduled until something like 9:13 or so. After a short wait, they brought Shannon to the waiting room and took me into the endoscopy room.

I think the good doctor was a wee bit late, but I only have a vague sense of that, as one of the drugs they put me on sort of messed with my memory. To keep me awake (ish) to avoid troubles with my sleep apnea, they did a combination of the forget this drug and local anesthesia. I remember vaguely falling asleep with the tube guard (a plastic ring to protect my teeth from it and it from my teeth) in my mouth. I also vaguely remember some issues of closing off the bleed, but again, I wouldn’t necessarily trust my perception here. I woke up back in my room and spent a good chunk of the morning and afternoon passing in and out of consciousness.

Interestingly enough, after tests I started getting buzzes on my watch notifying me of test results, often before the people on the floor (probably because I get notifications about all things me, while they only get notifications of critical things for the area). These notifications gave me results on my blood draw, or whatever, and let me know how I was doing. So I got to monitor my own numbers, which was nice. I did have to look up a thing here and there as I didn’t know what everything meant.

Generally this is where the pattern started. Blood draw for tests at 5 a.m. and noon-ish, Glucose tests around every “meal,” changes of drips at 4 hours or 12 hours, and temp, blood pressure, and oxygen level checks four times a day.

Eventually they let me start to “eat” very simple foods that wouldn’t stress the stomach or leave much residue. This included a bunch of things I wouldn’t normally eat (due to the sugar content). I ate what I could tolerate, which wasn’t that much, which, as I think about it, probably wasn’t great for my body’s blood generation, though I was still on a drip to keep me hydrated..

As we were waiting for the next thing, Shannon made the best joke of the stay, “My goal for discharge is to become a magnetic whiteboard eraser.” Though after mentioning this to the nurse, I did get discharge goals.

This is where I learned that my body retains things in my gastrointestinal tract and likes to hide things from time to time. So even though I was no longer bleeding from my stomach (as I learned from my second endoscopy), the end stage of my gastrointestinal tract likes to hide things. So this could be due to the amount of things ate (not much), to just general pockets. I know I have diverticula, so i suppose residue could have hidden in there.

My 5 a.m. test on Thursday (my third 5 a.m. test of the week) for hemoglobin dropped from the previous day, so they were concerned that I might still be bleeding. This caused a bit of confusion and conflicting orders between the GI doctor and Internal Medicine doctor. One wanted to get me prepped for a scope, while the other thought that if I ate “breakfast,” they could reserve a spot for tomorrow.

But evidence of blood, which would turn out to be evidence of my less-than-speedy GI tract, showed up, so I ended up getting another endoscopy early Thursday afternoon.

Between the evidence and the procedure, they confirmed my blood type (again) and gave me another unit of blood, and while I might have gotten some blood during my first endoscopy, this time I actually got to see them do it. Lots of physical process, scanning, double checking, taking my blood ID tag sticker to tie it to the bag of blood, authenticating with a password on my medical record to record it happening, signatures—it seemed like a lot, but when you think about how much of a shock to the system a bad blood transfusion can be and how precious blood is, it starts to make sense. I did ask if I got a discount since I was a 5+ gallon donor of blood, and that got a laugh.

Blood and Saline

The second endoscopy confirmed that the first endoscopy was done well enough, and I probably wasn’t bleeding. So they updated me to a low-fiber diet. I ordered dinner: turkey with gravy on white bread, with green beans, a biscuit, and a banana. Per my text to my family: “the turkey is dry, the gravy is meh, but I mean, still good” and “beats cream of wheat.”

Dinner

Friday morning, after my 5 a.m. hemoglobin test jumped 1.2 g/L to 8.2 g/L (still low), they removed the last drip I was on. That brought about a lot of excitement. After discussions between Shannon and I and both doctors, and then more discussions that the doctors had among themselves, they decided that if my hemoglobin level went up again, I’d get to escape. The test was scheduled for 4 p.m. It turns out the person doing the blood tests had a couple of issues, and didn’t get to us until after a STAT was placed on the order. As soon as I got the result that it went up another 0.2 g/L, we started packing up.

The nurse mentioned that almost immediately after the result came in, the discharge orders came in. We cleaned up the room, packed my things, and just waited for the paperwork to go through. My two lines got taken out and we were headed home at 5:18 (okay, maybe 5:19) on Friday evening—4.5 days after the ordeal began.

We picked up some food on the way home, and I got to say hello to our cats for the first time all week.

2023 - Week 22 Cooking Results

Sausage

I saw these sausages at the Cheese Shop, so I got them, and we ate them. It had a quite good cheese in the middle of it. Quite delicious.

Burger

Got some brisket and bacon burgers, and fried them up. Good Things.

Corn Hand Pies

I had forgotten to take the beef and chicken out of the freezer, so I quick defrosted these and put them in the oven. They were pretty good.

(Western) Iowa Loose Meat Sandwiches

So in having the sandwiches, I figured I try to get close to replicating them. This got the texture about right, but the pepper was not distinct enough. Using yellow mustard, ketchup and some spicy pickles did make it kind of nice, but just not enough. I’ll have to revisit this in a bit.

No-Boil Baked Ziti

I did step 2 with all the prep work while step one had the pasta soaking in salted water. The interesting thing here is that it got the noodles to just about the perfect spot they should be to absorb pasta sauce. Though I suppose that was the point. I use Rao’s Arrabbiata sauce and had to swap out for dried basil and parsley. It did take a while to make, so probably not a weeknight meal, but certainly good.

After the tin foil comes off, before going back in the oven.

Soy Sauce Chicken

I really enjoyed this. I swapped out the sherry vinegar for the rose vinegar that I had. I swapped out the Shaoxing wine for some vermouth. Which may not have been the best choice, but was the choice I made. I served it over jasmine rice. A little sweet, a little acidic, and a whole lot of flavor.

2023 - Week 12 Cooking Results

Sausage

Last of the cheese brats.

Pollo alla Pizzaiola

So the tomato sauce, of “good quality” turned out to be what I had on hand (Kirkland), I added some herbs and spices to add a bit more flavor to it. I used the mozzarella that I had leftover from making pizza last week and it came together pretty quickly and well. Easy to do, pretty good to eat.

Egg and Sausage Sandwich

The little sausage rounds that I’ve been getting from Crooked Gap have been quite tasty and just calls to be used like this. Good things.

Roasted Potatoes, onions and Ring Bologna

I tossed roasted potatoes, onions and chopped ring bologna in olive oil and smoked paprika, pepper and a bit of salt. They were baked on a sheet pan. I kind of thing these should have gone over something, but I couldn’t thing what would make sense to me at the time. But the Ring Bologna added flavor to the potatoes and onions, making nice meal. I know the Ring Bologna is local, and I’m not quite sure where it came from, but in an effort of cleaning out the freezer, here we go.

Pork Tamale Pie

I’ve made this before, and will no doubt make it again. Easy to make, good tasting has a nice flavor to it.

Pan Seared Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin

I had kept missing the few times that Crooked Gap had a pork tenderloin on hand (one per pig, kind of makes it hard to have an abundance of them, ever). I finally was able to obtain one and while this was my original plan, I kept thinking about a mustard pan sauce. So I adjusted what Iw as going to make.

I chopped potatoes and tossed them with olive oil and Momofuku Savory seasoning and baked them in the oven.

I added salt and pepper to the tenderloin, and then seared them off in a pan, getting all sides, and finishing them off with the lid on to get a nice sear on each side. I used butter and some leftover diced red onion, combined with flower, some white wine, stock and dijon mustard. Since I didn’t plan this I had to swap out 2% milk for cream. it made a nice topping for both the pork and potatoes.

Seared pork tenderloin with a drizzle of mustard 2% milk sauce

2023 - Week 11 Cooking Results

Sausage

Cheese Brats, Crooked Gap, Good things.

Pizza with Crooked Gap Pepperoni

My house is not warm enough. To get a proper rise, the house needs to be warmer. Since I keep the house around 67°, this makes it a bit of a problem. The rise on the dough wasn’t enough.

I liked the pepperoni, though.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken

The grocery store that I go to has been re-arranging their store. It took me extra time to find the cream that I like. I get, at some point, that this is the point overall, but I like knowing where things are and being able to just find the brands I like for the staples. I still will walk through the store, most visits.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, I started off with the chicken and cut it precisely, and while I am ok with knives, I slowed down to make the breasts, which I don’t generally use, cut evenly. Seared these off, and let them finish. The sauce came together well and then had the water boiling by the time it was ready to go. We ate, watched the oscars. It was a good evening.

Tangy Chili Pork Noodles

I had to use a pack of another noodle as the spicy soy only had 2 left. I had to make some adaptations as the pork I took out of the freezer had not thawed yet. so I didn’t get as much of a sear that I wanted on the pork. Even so, easy to bring together, good to eat.

Shepherds Pie

This isn’t the first, second or third time I’ve made this. It’s always nice. I thought about making it yesterday, but when it comes down to it, it takes a bit more time then I would normally like for a dinner where we’ve worked all day. Today, I cleaned the kitchen, re-organized my spice drawer, caught up on bills, menu planned. Then after all that I made dinner. The grocery store didn’t have ground lamb, I ran out of ground lamb from local farmers and wouldn’t have a chance to get more by then. They did have hunks of lamb, so I got those and divided them up into similar sized pieces. It was a nice way to listen to podcasts and make food. Good dinner, nice way to close out the week.

2023 - Week 9 Cooking Results

Sausage

Skinless Garlic Brats from Crooked Gap, last set of the package

Southwest Sausage Burgers (Lucky George)

Slowly cleaning out the freezer, some odds and ends, here and there. These were good. Yellow mustard and good things.

Turkey Sheet Pan Fajitas

The other half of the turkey breast, combined with veggies. Tossed with oil, lime juice herbs and spices. Good things.

Spaghetti with Sausage and Peppers

This came together, quickly, and worked out pretty well.

Ginger Scallion Shrimp with Crispy Coconut Rice

I had assumed that my wife would not want to watch Creed, which was this weeks AMS. So when she mentioned it, I was a bit behind, as I was unwinding from work a bit longer than normal. I missed the opening window by a bit, but the dinner worked out pretty well. I used some leftover frozen shrimp and new frozen shrimp to get to that pound mark. Over all it was pretty easy to do and came out pretty tasty. I do like the idea of broiling the shrimp over the rice as a way to finish things off.

Red Beans and Rice

I may have added too much water to the beans, so I kept reducing it down afterwards. Other than it being a bit more soupy than I wanted, it was pretty good. Perhaps it needed a bit more salt and pepper, but that’s on me. I added some hot sauce after I started eating my bowl and that enhanced everything. I useed Crooked Gap Andouille Sausage

2023 - Week 8 Cooking Results

Chana Masala

A pretty good vegetarian dish. It came together pretty quickly and I added more spice and an only one Thai chilie.

Pasta Alla Zozzona

So, um wow. This was fantastic. I had some guanciale that I had dropped in the freezer quite a bit ago (Red Table Meats). I cut off about half of it and then cut them into small pieces. I used part of a segment of hot Italian sausage from Crooked Gap. I made a bit of adjustments, I added a bit more tomato sauce, since I couldn’t find tomato pasta, and used a whole pound of rigatoni. This tasted really good, highlighting the guanciale, and just making a really good dish as a whole.

Macaroni and Cheese with Kielbasa and Mustard

Since I was using Kielbasa later in the week, I thought this would also make sense. I know mac & cheese is always popular in this house, so this seems like a good variation. I was trying to finish something and AMS was going to start, so I had to rush and get this done, so I ended up using two pots, instead of one so I could cut the time down. I got it in the oven, baked off and served with plenty of time to watch Man on Fire.

It was pretty good, I think adding some dash of hot sauce makes it even better.

Simplified Cassoulet with Pork and Kielbasa

So I had a plan to make something like this for a Movie night, years ago. The directions were long, and not divided up into enough steps, which is a common problem with Cooks Illustrated, but they had you mostly constantly working during the entire set. I had the rest of the pound of Kielbasa, some CostCo chicken, a Lucky George pork roast, from the freezer. I had bought a bag of flageolet beans from the internet to make the dish.

I started the chicken brining, thinking I’d end up with one pot, I put the beans in my pretty pot to heat. I made the bread crumbs…where I was supposed to make croutons. But that didn’t work out cause I didn’t read that well, and the mac & cheese earlier in the week, it sounds like the same thing so I basically did that.

The rest of it I followed pretty closely. I had to make some adjustments on the herbs, but not too much. But it kept me up and working until the end where the beans were finishing their cooking and the meat and stock were finishing there’s.

Once combined and in the stove, is when Ir really noticed that I should’ve made croutons, but in the oven for a bit, then rested. I started just a little after one and finished a little before 5.

This was worth the effort. I served with the rest of the wine that I used in the dish, and also a surprisingly dry and delightful Prosecco (yes really).

Baked Potato

Used several smaller potatoes, fried off some bacon, served with sour cream, cheese, salt, pepper and butter.

Sausage

Skinless Garlic Brats from Crooked Gap, good things.

2023 - Week 6 Cooking Results

It has been a bit of a strange week. After being convinced that the previous week was when the new dishwasher it turned out it was this week. After getting it installed on Tuesday, we noticed that that about half (right side) of the TV was darker, so we started plannong on getting a new TV. However, I then stepped through, yes through, the 3rd to the last step. It appears as if the support, on the right side, had lost its grip. Instead of being built like normal steps, it only had supports on the side, not through the wood or in the center like it should. So the TV replacement is on hold, because it’s annoying but not desperate. I’ve made some calls out, used some apps and etc, but here I am waiting on a quote, had one guy stand me up, and have another person coming in a few days.

Meatloaf and Smoked Gouda and Scallion Mashed potatoes

I really love this meatloaf. While I swapped out the meat with ground beef, ground pork and a bit of bacon ends blitzed together to make a nice meatloaf. If I’m honest, I was looking forward more to the sandwiches I’d have for lunch than the meatloaf itself.

The Scallion Mashed potatoes, a bit under seasoned. Maybe I’m used to more of mine. Anyways, I added more cheese, more butter, and it was eventually pretty good.

Sausage

Hot Dogs, cause that’s what the top of the pile was. I am making good progress on cleaning out that freezer, not so much on the big one. Anyways, All Pork, Crooked Gap, deliciousness.

Buttermilk Pancakes

I didn’t get to give it the full ten minutes to rest as I was delayed a bit by work and needed to get dinner on the table so we could participate in Action Movie Saturday (not actually on Saturday). The pancakes were a bit less fluffy than they should have been, but still quite good.

Chicken Karahi

So I made this as a way to use the Kashmiri chile powder that I bought for the other dish. This came together pretty well. It used quite a bit of spice. I added a bit of extra time as I used diced tomatoes, , so it need a bit more time reducing. The spice added at the end added a bit of a kick of cinnamon. Quite good. I went to get flat bread earlier in the day, when the food coop didn’t receive the delivery from the bakery. Still happy to have it.

Penne alla Vodka

Quick to make, a bit of vodka, a nice meal. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this before, but it’s been a bit.

Burger (veggie)

I think it was an impossible burger. It was fine.