Sunday, October 18, 2009

Night in the ER

The strangest thing happened to me last night. I had gone to ballroom dancing club at 8pm, and we were sitting and talking about different scheduling things that were going on when suddenly I felt my heart rate speed to an extremely fast pace. I started taking deep, even breaths, not completely sure of what was going on. When it didn't calm down after a couple minutes, I decided to step outside for some fresh air. When it still didn't calm down, I went back in, grabbed my roommate and my stuff and we headed back to our dorm. What I was thinking was that I wanted to talk with my RA. You see, Laurie, my RA, is a third year nursing student. I figured that she would let me know if I was overreacting or if it was something a little more serious.
My heart rate had slowed some over the course of my walk back to my dorm, but it was still rather fast when I got back. I can honestly say that I hadn't been that scared in a long time. I was so scared that when I walked into Laurie's room and started to talk to her about what was going on, I started to cry. I don't remember the last time I cried before that. She had me lay on her bed as she checked my blood pressure and heart rate. She confirmed that it was rather fast and that she wanted to call my doctor. When she didn't get a hold of my doctor, she made the decision that she wanted me to go to the hospital. We called my mother and told her what was going on and she told us to go to Highland Hospital because of how calm an emergency it usually is. We decided that it would be the best place to go, and mom told us that she'd meet us there. I got up and we started walking to my friend Jen's car, but I barely made it half way there when my heart rate started sky rocketing again. We walked back to Laurie's room and she called the ambulance. I hated the fact that I was making such a scene, knowing full well that people on campus would be talking about the girl that got taken to the hospital in the ambulance, but I really didn't have any other choice. The ambulance came and hooked me up to an EKG and a heart rate monitor, and we headed off to Highland Hospital.
When I got there, they hooked me up to another EKG monitor, heart rate monitor and blood pressure monitor. My heart rate was still rather high ranging somewhere between 100 and 130-something. They decided to do some blood work, taking a bunch of different sized vials of blood and then sticking an iv in my arm, thinking that they might give me fluids in case of dehydration.

They ended up flooding my system with 2 liters of fluids, which seemed to drop my heart rate some. When my blood work came back, it was all normal. There seemed to be no apparent reason for it to have happened, so at 2:30am they decided to release me with instructions to follow up with my primary care doctor in order to get a holter monitor. I'm not sure how long I'll have to wear it or if it'll even get me more answers than I have now.
As for right now, I'd appreciate your prayers and support. I don't know what's going on, and, as you can clearly understand, this slightly unnerves me. I can tell that there's something that's still not right with my heart beat, and I'm hoping that this eventually calms down.

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