7/24/24 Wednesday

 Last week I was in Maui, Hawaii, with my entire family. It was a wonderful 10 days. The first day I got in the ocean, I swam and treaded water for about a 1/2  hour before I tuckered out. I had to walk through the very deep, loose sand getting back to the car, and I was struggling to breathe. My chest hurt and I was just hoping it was a strained muscle from the unusual activity. Turns out, I was wrong. I had a pulmonary embolism. Actually, I got three. I didn’t know it at the time, but that night I was in a world of hurt, and David wanted to take me to the local ER. I did not want to go and ruin everyone’s vacation, so we kind of kept it to ourselves. I was in pain, but I still managed. I even went snorkeling two more days. I was in the water about an hour each jump, for a total of three hours. To be honest, it was hard to hear anyone talk to me over the sound of my own breathing, so I tried to discreetly stay away from people so no one would tell me to get out of the water. Now, here's where some of you are going to call me stupid.  I know, I know.  But, I'd planned this trip for months.  I wanted it so badly.  Think about it -  if I died snorkeling in Hawaii, what a way to to go! My family helped me carry stuff to the beach, get in the water, get out of the water, and carry stuff back to the car. They walked slowly for me, too.  I didn’t have to do much work that way. They actually were very good to me this trip. If I tried to go to the kitchen, Courtney would say “Mom, this is a one man kitchen. Get out.”

I was still convincing myself that it was a strained muscle, and not a blood clot in my lung. So, I flew home like that. Actually, it wasn’t just one lung. It was both of them.

 

The last day on the island, I was feeling a little puny and started to cough. Courtney had suspected something earlier and had me wear her watch so she could see what my pulse was. It was 90 at rest. Normal for me is in the mid-50s. The flight home was long and very tiring. We flew all night. I couldn’t sleep. Things went downhill from there. Wednesday morning, I was really feeling crappy. I went out to get the newspaper that morning, and my heart rate went up to 128. I called my cardiologist, but they couldn't see me until 8/22.  Well, that's probably not going to work. That’s when I called my regular doctor and she told me to go straight to the ER. I took a home covid test that morning, but it was negative. Turns out, it was a bad test. I guess it was too old. I walked out into the garage where David was working on a project and I asked him how I could make his day go from good to bad in 10 seconds or less. I said, will you please take me to the ER now? Of course, he had no reservations and  and we were at the door in five minutes. Turns out it was the busiest day the ER had seen it in a long time. Lucky us!

This post is already too long, so I am going to break them up by day. I do not have my computer, just my iPad. I will post all at the same time, I guess. I am not on a secure server so it will not let me get to post on my blog.