ONE DOWN ONE TO GO

Right! Tha idiot heart stress test is over and I didn't understand what went on all. When it was finally my turn, a very competent gal slipped a vent in my arm and shw's even better than the nurse at my clinic. While she was doing that I could hear the person ahead of my pounding her way to nowhere on the treadmill. Boy was she huffing and puffing. She staggered out all breathless and red in the face. My turn! First the checked my blood pressure which was sky high for me. 130/95. Then they started shooting the stuff in. They stopped when I got to 125 after asking how I felt. I felt just fine and was breathing normally, even though the sound effects sounded like I was practically sprinting. Another blood pressure check and it was back to almost normal for me.119/80. I understood that what they try to do is get the heart rate up to 80% of the maximum which is around 146. I have no idea why they stopped at 126 when I was still breathing normally. Oh, well, I'll find out soon enough! Then, on to the glow in the dark part of the thing. They have two machines in the room and the poor techie tried to put me on one that was wide enough for a young anorexic child. Nope. Not going to do that so I waited for the one that adult size. Then the poor guy tells me I have to hold both arms abovr my head for 14 minutes. Um, yeah, right. He doesn't know that my left collar bone is disconnected at the outer end. I was pretty much crying from the pain 8 minutes into it. That's going to be one accurate test (not). Then he shot me with the glow in the dark stuff and to wait. The second time around was much shorter and stopped before I got to the crying part.
Now all I have to do is wait for the results.
Ah, what a joy it was to get home. I was asleep almost before getting into bed. Yesterday I went out for a quick check at the mail box, and to buy some houmus, then, just vegged across from the TV. Today it's raining and it's supposed to really storm tomorrow so I think I'll head into town in a bit, then come home to settle in for the storm.

And, now, I will post a brief history of my various and assorted hospital scarpers.

The Gimp wonders how much money she has saved the universal health care system in Israel with her early hospital check out plan.
The gimp also wonders if yet another chapter will be added to her Book of Hospital Scarpers.
I hope so. But, if not, just thought I'd post some things Peppermint, er, Mrs. Pepperhawk personally requested.
I do not do hospitals well at all. There was only ever one time when I stayed for the whole time. And I stayed only because I simply could not leave physically. Oh, I threatened, but stayed until they transferred me to the rehab hospital, from which I did in fact scarper a full month before they wanted me to leave.
My first ever scarper was in 1994 when I had the platinum plate removed from my shoulder. The katyusha that knocked me off the motorcycle in 1996 gets all the credit. I was yelling "I want out" the very next day and they let me go because I assured them that someone was indeed coming from Kiryat Shmonah to get me. How much you want to bet they would have put me in a padded room if I'd told them that I meant the bus driver? After signing all the relevant AMA releases I caught a bus back home and the driver was actually from K.S. He took a curve badly and the next day there was a faint line of blood on the dressing, and after a day or two it started to smell. Yes it was summer. I went to the clinic and asked the nurse to change the dressing which she refused to do because the ortho surgeon gets really angry if his dressings are changed. My solution to the situation was to rip it off myself and dare her to not put a new on. When I went to the doc to have the stitches out he did get very angry at the nurse. But I told him that *I* ripped it off and left the nurse with only one workable choice. When he'd calmed down he asked if I wanted to take the stitches out too? Well, yeeaah. I grabbed the suture cutter, and the thing that pulls them up, went to the mirror and took them out. He cleaned up the scabs and minor blood leaks, then put on a smaller bandage and sent me home. Sadly he has since passed away.
My next scarper was in 1998 from rehab after my stroke. I just wanted to go home, so I signed the AMA papers again and went home. Enough is enough.

The post heart attack scarper was probably the best of all. I was sitting at the computer, happily reading and answering e mails when both arms started to hurt, I broke out in a cold sweat and felt a little nauseous and a tightness in my chest. When it didn't go right away I went back to my bed, had a cigarette and waited a few minutes to see if it let up. When it didn't, I called the ambulance folks and described the symptoms. They were here in minutes with an IC ambulance that was donated by someone in the town where my father had lived (and dies) and a doctor who confirmed my diagnosis. They promptly hauled me off to hospital where I found myself in the cardiac cath room within 10 minutes of arriving and having two stents put in. From there to the brand new CICU where I behaved myself for two days. On the third day they had to send out search parties to find me as I was rolling myself all over the hospital from sheer bordom. On the fourth day they decided to move me to the intermediate care unit and I decided it was time to go home. I called a friend and asked him to come up and help me spring myself from there. He did, I signed yet another set of AMA papers, and home I went.
For my next trick a few years later, my new sawbones put some spikes in the toes of my left foot. They were painfully bent down from the stroke, and nothing I tried would straighten those toes so we decided on the spikes. I went home the next day even though he wanted me there for t least two more. That time I had a proper ride home with a stop at KFC. This new sawbones even let me pull the spikes out of my toes.
As the 'spike Franne' plan didn't exactly work, we decided to move right on to Plan C which was cutting the recalcitrant toes' first two joints off. That was done in a different hospital and I almost cancelled an hour before. I just didn't like the feel of the place. It annoyed me that 3 different nurses asked the same questions. I guess it's too complicated to have just one nurse ask all the questions one time only. So, all the stupid toes got themselves cut back, leaving one whole toe on my left foot. The gimp was ready to go home. I demanded a cigarette before letting them put me in bed after the cutbacks so I was rolled onto a balcony where I promptly announced my intention to spend the night right there. A few phone calls later about the difficult gimp and I was on my way home that same night.
I am now wondering how long I'll stay in after the carotid rotorootering. The Gimp wonders if maybe there should be some kind of rebate progrram for patients who save the system so much money on the early check out plan?