Okay.  Shit just got real.   I guess.

Early yesterday morning I had a sharp, but very brief piercing twinge in my chest, not altogether different from al the other aches and pains traveling around my abdomen.  Usually I just breathe through them and get on with my life.

Then at mid-day I picked up some antacids and toothpaste and went to the self-checkout and it hit again, only sharper and much longer-lasting.   Janie had me go sit near the pharmacy, and the pharmacist took my b.p.     (189/132 or something like that).  After sitting still for about 20 minutes, he took it again and it was about 172/111.  I was feeling fine and needed to get home to get a package out the door.

I got home, got the package assembled and out the door.  I lay down for a nap around 3:30, and just around 4:00 it started again, waking me up with a vengeance.  Once I got the boys fed and made sure everything was turned off, I went across to the neighbor’s house and ended up crying like a baby it hurt so bad and so hard and so long.  She called the ambulance (I can only imagine how much that’s going to cost, even though my water bill includes a ‘donation’ to support EMT service here in Channelview).

In the ambulance I got 2 spritzes with nitro-glycerine, twice, which wasn’t helping much.  Finally, after I’d been in the E.R. an hour or so I was given a shot of morphine, and the pain finally subsided.

Then they put me in a room to face a night of repeated visits for more blood draws, more vital signs, etc.    And then waiting forEVer for the echocardiogram (which in itself is SO COOL, watching my heart on the monitor!).

Bottom line, yeah, I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but I already knew that.  But the heart is apparently just fine, no evidence of a specific ‘cardiac incident’, and they never did figure out what was causing the pain or what to do about it if that specific pain occurs again.

OH!   and I came home with a handful of meds to last a month, so that’s a start.

On the other hand … or perhaps IN the other hand … I have a sheaf of papers to fill out to get a Gold Card, which is the Harris County version of gov’t paid health care or something.  I’m not sure how it works, but I’m supposed to gather a bunch of documentation and go carry it to whatever place was marked on the list of places.

I’ll give tomorrow for that.  Tonight, I’m having dinner, vacuuming the house, and trying to shake off the after-effects of a horrible 24-hours at the hospital.   My head hurts (“No, you can’t have coffee until after all your tests.”), my body is still and noncompliant after having to lie still for so long.   And there is a LOT on my brain, lots to think about, lots of things to evaluate about how I’ve been living and things that need to change.