Fun and Games with the Emergency Room

So, last Friday (a week ago today) I sat around from around 11 am on toying with the idea of calling 911. I was having what I guess is best identified as shortness of breath. I could breathe fairly deeply and rapidly, but still did not feel like I was getting enough to breathe. If that isn't "shortness of breath", then call it what you want; but, that's what I had. Also, it felt like someone had a wide belt around me just at the end of my breastbone and was gently pulling backward. This was not the classic elephant on the chest syndrome, just a minor discomfort. Finally, I had an ache, quite akin to and later attributed by my doctor as being due to a pulled muscle, from under my left ear down the carotid/jugular region to the clavicle, across the clavicle to the ac joint (achromioclavicular, if you wish) and down the front and middle of the bicep to my elbow. Not a shooting, yes mildly warm and somewhat characterizable as burning, mostly an aching. Periodically from 11 on I felt a bit woozy, and I don't think my brain was clicking on all cylinders through there.

So, when Peg called at 5:30 to see if she needed to stop at the store I told her no, but I'm about to call 911 unless you think you want to take me.

On the way out to Methodist West, she asked why I had not called 911 or her earlier. Here my sarcastic, skeptical, cynical (true?) nature came out. Quote: "Every time I go with symptoms like this, they put me in the little room, give me an IV, give me nitroglycerin, do some tests, tell me they don't know what's going on and send me home. I thought I'd skip the middle man this time and stay home."

Then, too, in 2001 I went in, they even did an angiogram, told me they couldn't find anything wrong. They did not, in retrospect, do an ultrasound of my gall bladder, like the one they did only 2 weeks later in Orlando where I ended up in the hospital for 8 days and never saw Disneyworld. So, skepticism and cynicism? Yeah, maybe¿

So we got out to Methodist West, they did an EKG, blood tests including cardiac enzymes, hung an IV, had me chew baby aspirin (still as  yucky as they were when I was a kid), and put a nitroglycerin under my tongue. Then they asked if the nitro helped, and I was foolish enough to respond "maybe", so they wrote in my chart that nitroglycerin had made a big difference in relieving pain. Since, at the time, I had not been in pain and had noticed little if any effect, I find that a remarkable comment. The cardiac enzymes said none of the muscles had been beaten up yet. But, there was this thing called a d-dimer. I always thought that would be somebody who saved 10-cent coins made at the Denver mint. Lo and behold, we significantly increased the sum total of man's knowledge with a quick trip to Wikipedia:

• "D-dimer is a fibrin degradation product (or FDP), a small protein fragment present in the blood after a blood clot is degraded by fibrinolysis. It is so named because it contains two crosslinked D fragments of the fibrinogen protein. D-dimer concentration may be determined by a blood test to help diagnose thrombosis. Since its introduction in the 1990s, it has become an important test performed in patients suspected of thrombotic disorders. While a negative result practically rules out thrombosis, a positive result can indicate thrombosis but does not rule out other potential causes."

 So, I had a positive d-dimer, and they did a spiral cat scan to check for a pulmonary embolism or thrombosis, aka a blood clot in the lungs, like Captain Phil on "Deadliest Catch".

Nope. Couldn't see anything.

But, they decided I should be their guest for the evening, ran me upstairs, wired me up and then did another round of blood tests at midnight, just after I was asleep (of course). I fooled them in the morning though - I was already awake when they came in to poke me at 6.

My doctor was actually the duty doc for Iowa Clinic, so she came in, and we agreed that after they finished negative enzymes I should go home, since cardio don't work weekends unless it's like an emergency bypass or whatever, and get set for a stress and an echo outpatient. But, then slightly after noon I turned white as a sheet, apparently, and my telemetry showed junctional rhythm phasing in and out of sinus bradycardia (look em up if you want to) and a low pulse rate and blood pressure. Great. What-e'ver. The nurse didn't want to send me home; Dr. Taylor told her send me home anyway. I came home.

So this time it was more than 4 hours, the hospital food was pretty much OK but nothing to write home about, and I knew very little if anything more about my health after than I did before.

They said cardio would call on Monday. I'm still waiting. I have felt poopy about half the time this week. Who knows what's going on? We'll see next time.

Guns

This should be a simple post; but, it won't be. I am trying to make a simple statement; but, it can't be. However I put this, someone will take offense or exception or opposition; but, here I go anyway.

For historical background: I learned to shoot when I was 6 with my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. But, you "Christmas Story" fans, before I could shoot it at all, I had to be able to show my father, WWII veteran of the US Marine Corps, all the parts that were visible and explain their function. If you could have field stripped a Red Ryder I would have had to do so, and put it back together blindfolded, I am sure. I only shot at a target set up in the garage on a backstop built according to Daisy and NRA design standards. [I remember going to the lumber yard, since we had those back then, with mom. She had the plans and the materials list. The two guys at the yard were either bored or took pity on a woman, both highly likely in Oklahoma in the 50's, fired up their 12" radial arm and cut to specification every piece of wood required in the backstop, for free of course, and loaded 'em into the back of the car.] My brother and I each had a Daisy BB air rifle, my Red Ryder and his pump. The only thing we saw was NRA official targets up through Pro-Marksman, Marksman, Marksman First-Class bar, Sharpshooter, all 9 (yes, nine) Sharpshooter bars, and the Expert Rifleman, 15-ft air rifle class.

Although I never made it, my brother, nearly blind as a bat with no depth perception and astigmatism that would cause an elephant to turn his head, made Distinguished Rifleman. That required what seemed like a half a zillion perfect targets to achieve. Nothing at all for Mike.

We got a .22 single shot next. We only shot it at the outdoor range set up on one of the Standard properties near Oklahoma City, a recreation area for employees only. Again at targets.

At the age of 11 or so, we could take the BB guns to our grandfather's farm and hunt pigeons and sparrows. Had we nailed a mockingbird, our grandmother would have skinned us alive. We also got to go squirrel and quail hunting with our grandfather. This is a Winchester Model  74 semi-automatic rifle in .22 short. It was my grandfather's, it was manufactured in 1939, and it is an example of fine American craftsmanship. My grandfather, quite literally, could have driven nails with this at 100 yards with open sights. When my cousin, Bill, brought it out one day and gave it to me saying that Grandpa and Grandma had specifically told him to give it to me, I cried. [It is, by the way, on the shop wall with the spinning rod my dad bought me when I was 6 and my dad's spinning rod and his favorite bass plug].

"Daddy Bill" hunted quail, rabbits and squirrels for the most part - occasionally maybe a dove or two and, at the time, a blackbird (4 and twenty in a pie, you know?) - for food. If you were an annoying wild dog or cat or a wolf (yep, still had them in OK in the 50's) or coyote, you didn't want to get within 200 yards of the house. Not only Grandpa, but my grandmother was known more than once to lay that Winchester across the window sill and pop anything that had been chasing her mockingbirds. She didn't miss, either.

Now, the point of this post: under the definitions as proposed by good old Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Byrd, this is an assault rifle. It is magazine fed and hold 20 shells at a time, so it is capable of firing 20 rounds in far less than a minute. Probably more like 10 seconds - as fast as you can pull the trigger. I saw today in the Facebook posts from the National Association for Gun Rights that a 92-yr-old WWII veteran had used a .22 to protect himself from 3 intruders. They came in through the basement, he heard them, called 911, and sat waiting with his .22 pointed at the basement door. The last thing the first intruder heard after kicking in the basement door was the report from the slug that hit "center mass", as we say, and nicked some blood vessel quite near the heart. His two buddies dragged him out, took off in their car, and were found, a couple of blocks away, shaking in their seats with their then-dead companion in the back seat.

I guess that makes it an assault rifle, too. It can kill people. I have a daughter who is quite against guns, and, as she points out, guns are made for one purpose and this is to kill. Some folks will argue about shooting targets, but hey, what is the purpose of becoming a marksman? So you can kill trees? I think not. Animals, including people - that's what guns are used to shoot.

If my wife, children or grandchildren (or me, I suppose) were being threatened bodily harm by someone, I would not hesitate to use a gun if I had one to protect them. My dad also taught that if you always fight to win or you don't bother to get in the fight. I suppose those are also separate debates.

My son claims he had met Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before (obviously before) Columbine, lived in Littleton at the time. I went to Virginia Tech and had classess in Norris Hall, home of my major in environmental sciences and engineering. We have a good friend who lives 6 blocks away from the theater in Aurora. It's a small world. That doen't mean we are any more or any less safe. It just points out that evil wanders all around and when you least expect it you're elected.

My brother was an attorney. He had two Glock 10mm semi-automatic pistols, an M-1 Garand rifle, a Saiga semi-automatic shotgun, and heaven only knows what else. None of these were designed for hunting game, and he would admit it. They were to defend himself and his family AND (here it comes) for the real reason that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged:

when a government becomes destructive of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it

and Mike was always quick to point out that the driving factor of the 2nd amendment is to ensure that "we the people" can protect ourselves from the government. It took me a while to understand this. Now I completely agree with him. And, in that event, the people need military weapons. [Somewhat arguably, I believe that the founding fathers never even gave a second thought to hunting weapons. It would have been assumed that everyone needed their hunting rifle and shotgun. I believe they specifically addressed the right, and the necessity, of the citizenry to have access to arms to protect themselves from oppression. Period.]

I could go into a long rambling (like this isn't already?) discussion of "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns", the un-worth of gun-free zones, why banning guns is a poor idea, etc. etc. But I shan't. I am just going to say that I see a LOT on the line through this election. If you don't know or care about the UN gun treaty, I won't bore you for now - google it and see what it is and how people other than "we the people" can subject us to laws we didn't ask for.

Well, anyway, that is it for now. Very simply - we all have the right and, if you were my brother, the obligation to keep and bear arms for military purposes and for self defense. I shall speak more of this later, I just wanted to dump some of this out there today. Thanks for reading, if you do.

Jim

Pro-death vs. Anti-choice Politics, or Parenting?

In my Town Hall email today, I learned about a baby who should have been aborted, according to her obstetrician, and when the parents said no, he refused to continue to treat the mother and daughter-to-be.
http://pearljoybrown.wordpress.com/

http://townhall.com/columnists/marybethhicks/2012/09/05/given_a_fighting_chance_little_pearl_thrives/page/full/

This really is not anything new in the world, it is just a reminder, and a reminder coincident with a Presidential election during which these things have been made political when they are anything BUT politics.

They were not political to my nephew and his wife when their daughter was born at 21 weeks. Now, Mark has a big hand, admittedly, but still it's a hand - and Grace was still smaller than his hand. Historically, and legally, there have been parents and hospitals who would have tucked her in one of those clear hospital baby holder thingies in the corner with no attention, instead of the incubator and constant attention she got, and waited for her to turn from a live baby to a dead blob of tissue (sorry if you read this Mark - it's about the concept, certainly not about our miracle).

They were not political to my classmate Stephanie when her daughter was born at full term, bounced around healthy as could be, and suddenly became the "case in point" that introduced too many of us to Group B Streptococcus. I don't like strep throats anyway; but, this is a strep spine and brain. As Stephanie and Travis watched helplessly but lovingly, Baby Thumper, aka Samantha, went from absolutely "normal" (a meaningful yet worthless concept) to having her brain completely and literally devoured by bacteria. This is not just having a sore throat - this is watching MRI's progressively showing more and more void space in her head until the brain was 80% gone and Sammy no longer had the electrical activity to stay living. Stephanie is a Director of Christian Education and Travis is a Pastor, so their trip has been heavily faith affected. You can find Stephanie's blog, the pictures as previously linked, and a Caring Bridge detailed story if you write to Stephanie for the link.

These are two wanted children with different outcomes. Pearl Joy Brown now enters the same arena. What can you do for her? What would you do for her? How would you treat her or have treated her if she were yours? Why? How do you feel?

Oh, by the way - I don't know who is Republican and who is Democrat here. All I know is who are parents.