What is Telemetry?

Telemetry - the unit of a hospital where patients' vital signs and heart rates are closely measured

Friday's fainting spell sent me back to the Beth Israel Deaconess ER. They admitted me to the Telemetry/Cardiac Unit. Here's what was running through my mind as they wheel me in - I'm 28. Am I seriously being admitted to the Cardiac Unit? Isn't that mainly for old people? This is really scary.

For all I might bitch about in regard to the ER, this place was like a whole different hospital. Even though it was a weekend I did not feel like I got the B Team. The doctors, nurses and aides were wonderful, knowledgeable, compassionate, and professional. It was very scary for me to be there, but they did their best to make me feel as normal as possible while still hooked up to various machines.

Highlights (I'm trying to see the brighter side of things)

• They figured out what was wrong with me. On a Saturday.
  
• Getting to see an ElectroPhysiologist. Some hospitals make you wait until a weekday to see a specialist.
• Discussing world politics with one of my CNA's. She's from Nigeria. It was enlightening. Seriously.
• Being reassured by a nurse that I'm not the only person under the age of 50 to have been admitted there in the past decade. She said it's not uncommon for younger people to have cardiac issues.
  
• Unhealthy hospital food. I made it my mission to order the least healthy options available, but to always add a green salad or fresh fruit cup.Since I wasn't on a cardiac diet I had free range to order whatever I wanted. My meals included such nutritious options like chicken fingers, a side order of fries, chocolate cake, pancakes (with real syrup and real butter), grilled cheese.

They let me go home until my procedure on Wednesday. Yay! I'm not a prisoner of the hospital any longer. Not to mention that I would've gotten fat eating so many unhealthy meals.

More adventures in the Beth Israel ER

On Wednesday night serious heart palpitations sent me to the Beth Israel ER. I walked in, told the triage nurse what was wrong, she took my pulse and then all these people in scrubs swooped down on me and quickly wheeled me to a room (same room as I was in for my sprained wrist last month). Apparently, it's not every day that they see someone walk into the ER unassisted who looks totally normal but has a resting pulse rate of 190.

What comes next is what I remember among the confusion.

I was hooked up to a variety of machines while the Residents swarmed around trying to find a vein for an IV. I've got small veins and am tough to stick, even for a pro. At one point, each hand was being examined by a Resident, and I was informed that they were still looking for a spot for the IV.

Lyss: "So, you're both going to stick me at once until someone finds a vein?"
Residents: "Yes"
Lyss: "No. How about one of you tries and if that person can't get a vein then the other person gets to poke at me with needles?"

I give them credit for listening to me.

Eventually it's determined that they must give me a med called Adenosine to break my screwy heart rhythm since the usual breathing techniques have failed to stop it. This is a drug that stops your heart for a fraction of a second. "You might feel kind of nauseous, for like 10 seconds" says an ER staffer.

Nausea is not what follows as the drug is pushed into to the IV (that they finally were able to place) in my wrist. Burning. Like a fireball exploding and incinerating my body, which grows stiffer by the second. I am conscious, waiting for the peace of a blackout that never comes. Searing heat spreads and then is suddenly gone. I go limp. No nausea at all. Not an experience I'd care to repeat.

Bad news. The drug didn't lower my hear rate by much. I am at the mercy of these people in scrubs who are talking about giving me another, higher, dose. The drug is pushed again. Same searing hot pain, but it lasts longer this time. Great. This isn't stressing me out or anything.

By this time a crowd has gathered in my little curtained hellhole. I am not sure what's so interesting about me. It's a busy night in this urban ER. Don't they have a shooting or stabbing to attend to? I survey the scene. So many people in such a small space staring at me is only freaking me out more. "All these people in here is not helping my heart rate go down," I say (though 'yell' might be a more accurate term).

I can't remember too much after that, as they finally found that elusive third dose in a crash cart and gave it to me again. Pain. Fire. Stiffness. Third time's a charm. Sort of. The group has mostly dispersed. I am told that they will be giving me another drug, a beta blocker to get my heart rate down more.

They did let me go home eventually. Gave me a script for beta blockers. Told me to see my doctor the next day. I did.

However, I ended up back in the ER on Friday after passing out at work. No more Adenosine, thankfully. They admitted me, and I have to say that the Telemetry Unit was a much more positive, less scary experience. Well, for a hospital experience anyway.

The highlights (or lowlights) of my visits last week include:
*hairball guy - located right outside my curtained area was some guy making sounds I'd only heard cats make right before expelling a giant furball
*howler - interspersing my ordeal was someone screaming with the ferocity of a caged animal form somewhere else in the ER
*pukey - the guy on the stretcher next to me in triage (this was during Friday's visit after fainting at work) was handed a basin and told to vomit in there if he had to. He mad noises similar to hairball guy before they wheeled me away.
* I have yet to visit the BIDMC ER and have my next door neighbor be someone other than a patient with a bowel or bladder problem. I overheard entirely too much about the plumbing of my ER neighbors. There is no privacy here.

Urban Pets: Man vs. Mouse

Saturday, July 21, 2007. Not your typical night in the Slacker household.

Roommate2.0* has been sealing off holes, openings of any kind really, in the kitchen, as we lose battle after battle in the war against the mouse. The thing is making us feel like we're in a f----ing cartoon. We patch an entry point, it finds another. We set out trap after trap. It prances right over the them. Arrogant little bastard.

Roommate2.0 thought he'd finally isolated all points of access, when we began to hear noises coming from... the oven. As I type, Roommate2.0 is dismantling the top of the stove, looking for access points beneath the range cover. See, when he turned on the oven, the mouse poked its nose out of an area next to one of the burners, taunting him. It's as if the thing was daring him to turn the gas burners on.

I think it has just become his archenemy.

As grossed out as I am by the thought of Roommate2.0 playing rodent executioner with the weapon of choice being one of our appliances, I am more grossed out seeing that disease-bearing critter in my kitchen. Not basement, not garage. Kitchen. I'm tired of obsessively cleaning and bleaching the counter because the mouse might have scampered across it while we were at work, dragging germs and who knows what else across the surface where we prepare sustenance for our tired, stressed out selves every night.

I'm sure what I've typed here will offend some people. I can live with that. I invite them to come over and catch the darn thing and bring it home to live in their kitchen.


*previous Roommate (Roommate1.0?) bought a condo in Lynn

Snapshots of Somerville

Artbeat/Artbeast
Davis Square
Somerville, MA
July 2007

Adventures south of the border

Rush hour charity collectors of Boston

Who are these mysterious people in the neon shirts causing traffic slowdowns at rush hour? I can't tell if they are collecting for a legit cause or just really sophisticated panhandlers.

Accident prone

Sprained wrist = less blogging, typing

Only a 3-hour visit to the Beth Israel ER this time. Better experience than my last trip there.

Boston Harborfest 2007

July 1, 2007

How cheap is the MBTA?

Really cheap, according to one Orange Line rider in Haymarket.

MBTA - Haymarket - Orange Line, Inbound

Commute under construction (again)

I can't escape it. It's like the construction is following me south.


The new bane of my commute is the construction on Route 1 by Gillette Stadium. Generally there's not much typical* traffic on a given morning (especially compared to when there's a football game or concert). But add some orange cones, big machines, and men in DayGlo vests and you've got a traffic-stopping mess on your hands.





*Typical traffic = general volume, frequent slowdowns, commuters afloat in a sea of brake lights (ex: Storrow Drive at rush hour)

Urban pets: The raccoon contingent

Picture it, Jamaica Plain, 2007, in a slightly post-gentrification apartment complex. Children are playing, adults sitting on their porches, and three to four raccoons are chowing down on some cat food.

Yes, that's right, raccoons. Big, fat city raccoons indeed. There they were, sating themselves with the cat food that a neighbor leaves out for our cadre of kitties*, unafraid of the nearby parking lot basketball game or cars maneuvering around the asphalt.




*the best fed stray cats in Boston

Ultimate Masshole: Office Edition

This story of Massholism comes from a co-worker.

When her family first moved to Worcester from NYC in 2001, R's dad inherited a dilapidated Buick from her great aunt. It was a sad car, just on the verge of falling apart, but he figured it was would do until they got settled and he bought a new car. One day, R and her dad were in the supermarket when over the loudspeaker they hear "will the owner of a blue Buick, license plate YYY-ZZXX, come to the customer service counter."

It turns out that an elderly man had hit the Buick as it sat in the supermarket's lot, parked nicely between the lines of the parking spot. R's dad, a mellow guy, took it in stride. He wasn't angry he told the man, since it was a shitty old car and he was planning to sell the Buick for parts in the near future. The senior citizen, who had knocked one of his own headlights out when he ran into the Buick, was livid. He blamed R's dad for the way the Buick was parked.

Welcome to Massachusetts.

Maybe he thinks gay means 'happy'

Does this mean that Jesus is OK with the gay?

(via Universal Hub)

Brookline police confront divine problem

Police confronting a man outside the Trader Joe's in Brookline (parking lot side) on Sunday afternoon. Seems his signs and loud praising of Jesus was weirding out the customers. The customers complained to the staff, who in turn called the authorities.




I'm all for religious freedom, but this guy did seem a little pushy (from the part I witnessed anyway).



I realize the angle of the photos is kind of odd, but the presence of police officers kept me from getting any pictures of they guy's signs ("Praise Jesus" and etc...), as well as his manner of dress (black cassock-like thing, HUGE cross around his neck).

Fried DVR, with a side of ire

My DVR has died. Again. This will make it the fifth Comcast DVR that I've had replaced in the past year or so.

And it's not just me. Last time this occurred (November?), the Comcast rep told me that a lot of people have had this problem and that the company was searching for a new manufacturer (if that last part's true, I'll eat my hat).

What's the average life span of a Comcast DVR?

Neighborly hate crime in the 'burbs

A anti-Semitic hate crime where the victim is not actually Jewish. Fascinating.

Excerpts from the Milford Daily News:

Franklin - A 50-year-old King Street resident already charged with a hate crime against his neighbor stabbed the man in the hand yesterday with a knife, police said.

Wallace then cut a tire on King's car before turning to him and saying, "I'm going to (expletive) kill you," King said. He came at King with a hunting knife, aiming for his neck and face, but King, an ex-Marine, said he parried the blow and knocked the weapon lose.

In addition to the attack, Wallace is accused of slashing one of the tires on King's car, police said. In January, Wallace was charged with violating King's state constitutional rights for allegedly painting a swastika and the word "Jail" on his apartment door. King's ex-wife is Jewish, and he said he found the graffiti offensive.

Monster puddle swallows car?

This picture of what I believe to be a car's bumper floating in a large puddle was taken through my rain-soaked car window on VFW Parkway this morning.

WBOS Earthfest

Better late than never.

Behold, the car that floats

Amphibious car chugging down the Charles River, as viewed from the Esplanade.

Urban pets: The city mouse

There is a mouse in my house. And it's a smart one. I think it's the same mouse each time. (At least I prefer to think that there's only one skulking around.)

I know this not because it spoke to me (or spoke at all) but because this determined little rodent has chutzpah. I saw it scamper over one of the mouse traps that make the room an obstacle course for mice and humans alike.

I also think it's a picky little mouse. Most guides to pest elimination (including the boxes to one of the variety of traps) suggest using peanut butter as bait. This mouse clearly has a distaste for peanut butter.

I suppose it's time to get the landlord to bring in a professional to eliminate it.