Day Two: On the Safe Side
Continued from the post below:
Monday, December 13, 2004: “On the Safe Side”
The next morning I got up around 5:00 to check the snow. By 6:15, no other area districts had closed, but I decided to be on the safe side and post a two-hour delay for school. Julie started the staff phone chain and then called each of our 23 preschool parents herself just to be on the safe side (in case they forgot that preschool is cancelled on such mornings). She finished by 7:00.
About an hour later, I saw her sitting up straight in the chair beside the piano with troubling look in her eyes. It reminded me of the “focus” she used during birth contractions (but without the pain and Lamaze breathing). She told me she was a little light-headed but it was getting better.
“There. It’s gone,” she stated with a matter-of-fact smile and went upstairs.
About 9:30, Ann, Clair, and I were ready to go to school. (Julie wanted us to all drive together…just to be on the safe side.) She called me into the living room where she was sitting alone in front of the Christmas tree with that same quiet look on her face.
"I'm still feeling a little woozy--not sick just weak. I don't think I'll go into school now, maybe after lunch."
“That’s fine. Just stay home and rest, but let’s give Dr. Watson a call just to be on the safe side. At least call one of your nurse friends and see what they say.” I suggested.
“No, I know what they’ll say, and I don’t want to spend the day getting poked for blood. This is probably just that cinnamon tea I’ve been drinking.”
“Honey, I doubt it’s the cinnamon tea.” I said with a fading smile. “You know what this reminds me of? The day you and I were trying to talk Dad into calling a doctor. Why don’t I just stay home with you?”
“No. No. This isn’t anything like that. It’s just sort of a vague wave of blah—it will go away. I don’t want Ann driving in the snow, so you need to go. There. It’s gone,” she said as convincingly as the first time.
She stood and walked me to the door. I gave her a kiss and encouraged her to stay home and just touch base with school every hour or so.
As the morning passed, Julie found some school work she could do by phone with the office. No mention of anything to the secretaries. I called her at noon. Everything was still fine. A couple hours later, I was on the phone with a parent when Dianne, our receptionist, stepped into my office with a note that read: “Judy Hanks on line one. Please take immediately.” Judy is on staff but was calling as one of our “nurse friends.” She had just gotten off the phone with Julie who had called her about the weird symptoms of that morning. They had come again but felt a little more like a contraction and Judy convinced her to go to the ER just to be on the safe side. I grabbed my coat, and headed home to get her.
Julie was feeling fine when we arrived at General, so I dropped her off at the ER entrance, parked the car, and hurried in to join her. By the time I sat down beside her, a receptionist was standing over her, completing a questionnaire on a clipboard. I thought it was odd that most of the items pertained to me as the insurance holder, but Julie knew the answers so I just sat there trying to gather my thoughts. After the last question, the lady turned to me and asked, “Would you like a wheel chair?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I replied, “but you can ask her.”
She leaned toward Julie and whispered, “Do you want him in a wheel chair?”
Julie laughed, “Him? He’s not the patient—I am. That’s why I was answering the questions.”
“Oh, I just thought he was being difficult. Men can be like that sometimes.” She ripped the sheet from the clipboard, “Now we gotta do this all over again.”
I just sat there, trying to look “undifficult” and secretly determined to lose 25 pounds June.
Things were off to a great start.
Looking back on it, I’m thankful that there was no sense of “emergency” in the hours that followed. Judy had joined us to interpret medical jargon as a string of ER staff filed in to ask the same battery of questions: Blood pressure? Good. Weight? Good; Exercise? Yes; Cholesterol? Low; Sleep? Eight hours. Smoke? No; Drink? No; Chew? No; Run with them that do? No. etc. It was really quite affirming, but it did remind me of Mark Twain’s bit about his smoking cigars in order to have something to "quit." He often yarned of the time he advised a very proper lady who'd come down with lumbago: “I ran through a list of bad things hoping to find one or two she could quit in order to be cured. But she proudly announced that she could not quit doing those things, because she had never done them… So there it was….She’d neglected her habits…why even one or two little bad habits could’ve saved her… but she was a sinking vessel with no freight to throw overboard.”
That seemed to be Julie’s plight. Each of the questioners looked baffled by this fit-45-year-young specimen perched on a paper-covered table in their world. Last in the line up was the head ER doctor who brushed back the curtain and stepped into the room with a reassuring smile.
“Hello, Julie, I’m Dr. Bower,” she said. “The EKG came back negative and preliminary tests look good. I’m not 100% certain, but at this time, I’d say this is not your heart. That’s good, but we’d still like to help you know what’s going on. I’m still waiting on one result from your blood work. Once I see that that’s okay, I’m going to have you step on the treadmill for a stress test. If that checks out, we’ll send you home and keep in touch. Meanwhile, try to think about anything different you might have eaten or anything that may have pulled a muscle.”
She stepped out of our niche and pulled the curtain shut. As an at-home RN, Judy was thinking, “I must have lost my touch; I talked my friend into coming here for nothing,” but we just sat in silence watching Julie think.
“I’ll bet it was the salsa!” she confessed, “I ate two big plates of chips and salsa after we got back from the peer last night.” She went on and on about how good it was, sounding very much like the lady who first offered us the sample Sam’s Club. I added that some of the pastors and I had experienced an “after burn” from that salsa the week before. (It’s a bit heavy on the onions.)
“Let’s hope that’s what it is,” Judy agreed, “but don’t be sorry you came in to check it out. Female heart symptoms aren’t as classic as they are with men, and women tend to ignore irregularities when they’re body’s trying to tell them something’s not quite right. You did the right thing by coming in.”
Just then an orderly rolled a wheelchair into the room and asked Julie to put her tennis shoes on for the treadmill.
“Did the doctor see the last blood test?” Judy asked politely.
“I don’t know. They just told me to come and get her for a stress test.”
Julie wiggled her tied tennies and announced, “I’m ready to run.”
“But you weren’t supposed to do the treadmill until the doctor knows one more result from the blood tests,” Judy reminded.
The orderly wasn’t sure, so he left the wheelchair and went to double-check his paperwork. A moment later, he returned.
“You can take off your shoes,” he said, “The doctor coming to explain.”
He left with the wheelchair and Julie’s smile, but her puzzled eyes remained hopeful.
The doctor came in and calmly explained that Julie’s “troponin level” (a term we had never heard but would come to know) was slightly elevated to zero point one seven (0.17). “That is just slightly above normal, but it may indicate some sort of cardiac irregularity came and went before we did the EKG—not a heart attack, per se—but we never do the treadmill with a trop-count over 0.05.” She held her clip board against her chest and looked into Julie’s eyes with compassion and competence. “We’re going to keep you overnight— just to be on the safe side. If the count goes down, we’ll do the stress test in the morning. A nurse will be here in a bit to take you to your room.”
Julie frowned playfully, “I really hoped it was the salsa.”
“Do you need me to bring anything from home?” Judy asked.
“No. I packed a bag for overnight just to be on the safe side.”
In her usual style she took in a deep breath and looked at me to begin thinking out loud. We decided not to tell the Ann and Clair until after that night’s volleyball game. We did this not because of the news itself but so the rest of their afternoon and evening could play out as planned. And it did. After the game, the three girls and I went to Hackley where Julie and I assured them that they were trying to figure out what was causing the symptoms. They had to do one more test in the morning so the doctor wanted to keep her overnight.
The news weighed differently on our daughters of twenty, seventeen, and nine, but each did surprisingly well as we said our “good nights” and promised to be together tomorrow. Julie and I were proud of them as they stepped into the hall to wait for me. The walk to the car and drive home was quiet until Ann finally spoke.
“You would tell us, wouldn’t you, if something was really wrong with Mom?”
I assured them all that we would and explained again why we had chosen not to tell them until that night. (I would do the same again.) Each of the girls just stared blankly out their windows. My mind, too, was sorting thoughts, then almost to my surprise, I was pulling up our driveway as if the car knew the way home by itself.
Monday, December 13, 2004: “On the Safe Side”
The next morning I got up around 5:00 to check the snow. By 6:15, no other area districts had closed, but I decided to be on the safe side and post a two-hour delay for school. Julie started the staff phone chain and then called each of our 23 preschool parents herself just to be on the safe side (in case they forgot that preschool is cancelled on such mornings). She finished by 7:00.
About an hour later, I saw her sitting up straight in the chair beside the piano with troubling look in her eyes. It reminded me of the “focus” she used during birth contractions (but without the pain and Lamaze breathing). She told me she was a little light-headed but it was getting better.
“There. It’s gone,” she stated with a matter-of-fact smile and went upstairs.
About 9:30, Ann, Clair, and I were ready to go to school. (Julie wanted us to all drive together…just to be on the safe side.) She called me into the living room where she was sitting alone in front of the Christmas tree with that same quiet look on her face.
"I'm still feeling a little woozy--not sick just weak. I don't think I'll go into school now, maybe after lunch."
“That’s fine. Just stay home and rest, but let’s give Dr. Watson a call just to be on the safe side. At least call one of your nurse friends and see what they say.” I suggested.
“No, I know what they’ll say, and I don’t want to spend the day getting poked for blood. This is probably just that cinnamon tea I’ve been drinking.”
“Honey, I doubt it’s the cinnamon tea.” I said with a fading smile. “You know what this reminds me of? The day you and I were trying to talk Dad into calling a doctor. Why don’t I just stay home with you?”
“No. No. This isn’t anything like that. It’s just sort of a vague wave of blah—it will go away. I don’t want Ann driving in the snow, so you need to go. There. It’s gone,” she said as convincingly as the first time.
She stood and walked me to the door. I gave her a kiss and encouraged her to stay home and just touch base with school every hour or so.
As the morning passed, Julie found some school work she could do by phone with the office. No mention of anything to the secretaries. I called her at noon. Everything was still fine. A couple hours later, I was on the phone with a parent when Dianne, our receptionist, stepped into my office with a note that read: “Judy Hanks on line one. Please take immediately.” Judy is on staff but was calling as one of our “nurse friends.” She had just gotten off the phone with Julie who had called her about the weird symptoms of that morning. They had come again but felt a little more like a contraction and Judy convinced her to go to the ER just to be on the safe side. I grabbed my coat, and headed home to get her.
Julie was feeling fine when we arrived at General, so I dropped her off at the ER entrance, parked the car, and hurried in to join her. By the time I sat down beside her, a receptionist was standing over her, completing a questionnaire on a clipboard. I thought it was odd that most of the items pertained to me as the insurance holder, but Julie knew the answers so I just sat there trying to gather my thoughts. After the last question, the lady turned to me and asked, “Would you like a wheel chair?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I replied, “but you can ask her.”
She leaned toward Julie and whispered, “Do you want him in a wheel chair?”
Julie laughed, “Him? He’s not the patient—I am. That’s why I was answering the questions.”
“Oh, I just thought he was being difficult. Men can be like that sometimes.” She ripped the sheet from the clipboard, “Now we gotta do this all over again.”
I just sat there, trying to look “undifficult” and secretly determined to lose 25 pounds June.
Things were off to a great start.
Looking back on it, I’m thankful that there was no sense of “emergency” in the hours that followed. Judy had joined us to interpret medical jargon as a string of ER staff filed in to ask the same battery of questions: Blood pressure? Good. Weight? Good; Exercise? Yes; Cholesterol? Low; Sleep? Eight hours. Smoke? No; Drink? No; Chew? No; Run with them that do? No. etc. It was really quite affirming, but it did remind me of Mark Twain’s bit about his smoking cigars in order to have something to "quit." He often yarned of the time he advised a very proper lady who'd come down with lumbago: “I ran through a list of bad things hoping to find one or two she could quit in order to be cured. But she proudly announced that she could not quit doing those things, because she had never done them… So there it was….She’d neglected her habits…why even one or two little bad habits could’ve saved her… but she was a sinking vessel with no freight to throw overboard.”
That seemed to be Julie’s plight. Each of the questioners looked baffled by this fit-45-year-young specimen perched on a paper-covered table in their world. Last in the line up was the head ER doctor who brushed back the curtain and stepped into the room with a reassuring smile.
“Hello, Julie, I’m Dr. Bower,” she said. “The EKG came back negative and preliminary tests look good. I’m not 100% certain, but at this time, I’d say this is not your heart. That’s good, but we’d still like to help you know what’s going on. I’m still waiting on one result from your blood work. Once I see that that’s okay, I’m going to have you step on the treadmill for a stress test. If that checks out, we’ll send you home and keep in touch. Meanwhile, try to think about anything different you might have eaten or anything that may have pulled a muscle.”
She stepped out of our niche and pulled the curtain shut. As an at-home RN, Judy was thinking, “I must have lost my touch; I talked my friend into coming here for nothing,” but we just sat in silence watching Julie think.
“I’ll bet it was the salsa!” she confessed, “I ate two big plates of chips and salsa after we got back from the peer last night.” She went on and on about how good it was, sounding very much like the lady who first offered us the sample Sam’s Club. I added that some of the pastors and I had experienced an “after burn” from that salsa the week before. (It’s a bit heavy on the onions.)
“Let’s hope that’s what it is,” Judy agreed, “but don’t be sorry you came in to check it out. Female heart symptoms aren’t as classic as they are with men, and women tend to ignore irregularities when they’re body’s trying to tell them something’s not quite right. You did the right thing by coming in.”
Just then an orderly rolled a wheelchair into the room and asked Julie to put her tennis shoes on for the treadmill.
“Did the doctor see the last blood test?” Judy asked politely.
“I don’t know. They just told me to come and get her for a stress test.”
Julie wiggled her tied tennies and announced, “I’m ready to run.”
“But you weren’t supposed to do the treadmill until the doctor knows one more result from the blood tests,” Judy reminded.
The orderly wasn’t sure, so he left the wheelchair and went to double-check his paperwork. A moment later, he returned.
“You can take off your shoes,” he said, “The doctor coming to explain.”
He left with the wheelchair and Julie’s smile, but her puzzled eyes remained hopeful.
The doctor came in and calmly explained that Julie’s “troponin level” (a term we had never heard but would come to know) was slightly elevated to zero point one seven (0.17). “That is just slightly above normal, but it may indicate some sort of cardiac irregularity came and went before we did the EKG—not a heart attack, per se—but we never do the treadmill with a trop-count over 0.05.” She held her clip board against her chest and looked into Julie’s eyes with compassion and competence. “We’re going to keep you overnight— just to be on the safe side. If the count goes down, we’ll do the stress test in the morning. A nurse will be here in a bit to take you to your room.”
Julie frowned playfully, “I really hoped it was the salsa.”
“Do you need me to bring anything from home?” Judy asked.
“No. I packed a bag for overnight just to be on the safe side.”
In her usual style she took in a deep breath and looked at me to begin thinking out loud. We decided not to tell the Ann and Clair until after that night’s volleyball game. We did this not because of the news itself but so the rest of their afternoon and evening could play out as planned. And it did. After the game, the three girls and I went to Hackley where Julie and I assured them that they were trying to figure out what was causing the symptoms. They had to do one more test in the morning so the doctor wanted to keep her overnight.
The news weighed differently on our daughters of twenty, seventeen, and nine, but each did surprisingly well as we said our “good nights” and promised to be together tomorrow. Julie and I were proud of them as they stepped into the hall to wait for me. The walk to the car and drive home was quiet until Ann finally spoke.
“You would tell us, wouldn’t you, if something was really wrong with Mom?”
I assured them all that we would and explained again why we had chosen not to tell them until that night. (I would do the same again.) Each of the girls just stared blankly out their windows. My mind, too, was sorting thoughts, then almost to my surprise, I was pulling up our driveway as if the car knew the way home by itself.
posted by .Tom Kapanka | 8:28 PM
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