07 | April | 2013

I am exhausted. I didn’t do any work today and this is why I am so tired. Instead at the crack of dawn I answered the phone. It was the nurse saying Al didn’t feel well. He was cold and clammy and was having chest pains.

Did I want to send him to the ER? Um, let me open my eyes and get my brain thought process going. What do you think? Do you think he needs to be sent in?

I really received no satisfaction so I asked her to ask Al if he wanted me to come in to see him and he said yes. I hurried and got dressed and grabbed my medicine to take with me. I figured I would just take it with a glass of water at the facility and find something to nibble on somewhere.

When I got there Al did not look good. His face was pale. He told me he felt light-headed. He also said he didn’t eat supper last night because he didn’t feel good. Then he changed it to a little bit he ate but not much, so not sure on the supper deal. The nurse didn’t seem to know anything about this.

He stated his heart was beating really fast. He was cold and clammy and his BP was 172/90. Not extreme but a big enough signal for me to ask Al if he wanted to go to the ER and he said yes.

The EMS came and got him and I left first sneaking into the gas station to buy a bottle of water and a nasty pre-packaged turkey sandwich. I ignored the tough bread and ate the turkey out of it.

Off I went to the hospital. The EMS and I met each other there. I watched them carry Al inside and then I popped my body in the waiting area. They made me wait until they got him comfortable. That is a new word for me. I don’t remember Al being comfortable for at least a year or so, but nice thought.

The nurses and doctors were disagreeing about what was wrong with him. Some said his heart, others said it was the tremors mimicking a heart attack. As before when I was there, the machine was all over the place.

Two or three nurses would come in at a time and check the sounding alarm and say, “Don’t worry, it is just his tremors.” When I told the doctor that we were here two weeks ago and the heart monitor showed his heart going clear up to 250 he told me that was impossible. I said, ” I saw it with my own eyes.”

“He would be dead if his heart beat went that high.”

“I don’t know, I am not the doctor. I just know what the numbers were saying.”

They did a Cat Scan on him to make sure his fall hadn’t damaged his head in some way. Seeing the band aid over his eye and forehead from the rug burn he acquired in the bathroom on the tile floor. It is a doozy too, let me tell you. Nice and long and looks like a rug burn for sure.

Al went from clammy to soaking wet and each time he did this his chest would hurt. The staff seemed to be stumped. They said it wasn’t his heart but they gave him baby aspirin and admitted him.

Now he is staying over nite and they are documenting and monitoring his heart. They gave him some more baby aspirin. He continued to get clammy and soaked from sweat up until I left.

His heart doctor is to be there in the morning and they are going to see if his neurologist will come in also. I don’t know what is going on. The last doctor I talked to was the admitting doctor. My grandmother was just nuts about him. I remember her speaking so highly of him for many years

He told me,” It may not be his heart causing the great fluctuation but it sure is wearing his heart down. We need to see if there is some way to calm his body down of those tremors. His heart will be exhausted at this stage of the disease.”

I had argued this point with the ER doctors before when I questioned them about the wear and tear on his heart from the massive tremors. They always stated that it was not his heart. But here is a doctor that says it is making the heart work so much harder trying to cope with the tremors. Since he is a heart patient it is going to make the heart tired.

I was exhausted so when Al wanted to go to sleep I came home. I told them to call me for anything, because I love him. Call me even in the middle of the night. They told me Al was one lucky guy to have such a loving sister. I said, “He is my brother, I could react in no other way.” They smiled and I came home and napped.