VDV's Journal, Part IV

What happened:

Yesterday, I watched the DVR’ed World Cup matches after my doctor’s appointment. Japan’s win over Cameroon was one of the more entertaining matches. Italy survived a scare against Paraguay by playing more long-ball than I think I’ve ever seen them play.

After the games, I typed up yesterday’s entry and posted it. Went to bed at about 11:30, not having disobeyed any of the doctor’s orders, thankyouverymuch.

I woke up at 1 AM this morning, short of breath. That’s happened a few times over the last two months, but never more than once in a night. I made sure I was breathing, got up and walked around for ten minutes, then laid back down in bed. I repositioned myself a few times to get better air flow. I got back to sleep about an hour and a half later.

I woke up at 3:30 AM, short of breath. I made sure I was breathing, got up and walked around for a few minutes, but this time I decided to try sleeping on the couch in the living room, where it’s cooler and there’s better air circulation. I got to sleep in half an hour.

I woke up at 5 AM. I don’t think I was short of breath this time, but I was awake, and couldn’t get back to sleep for a while.

The alarm went off at 7:01 AM for the last day of post-planning. I had one box left in my room to move, some paperwork to fill out, and then my work at Paxon would be done for the summer. Tomorrow and Thursday I was supposed to go to Darnell Cookman to help write their new history curriculum (but I have since cancelled). I got up, showered, felt very tired, felt like I was about to start gasping for air. I got in the car, started driving to work, and realized that it would be bad form to pass out or have a heart attack whilst driving.

I drove to the emergency room at St. Luke’s. I called some people at work and told them I wouldn’t be in. I called my folks and told them where I was. The ER admitted me, attached a blood pressure/pulse/oxygen saturation monitor. The numbers were supposedly normal.

The docs wanted to hook up an IV and draw some blood. Problem: I don’t like needles. I mean I really don’t like needles. I warned the tech that I was very likely to pass out on her. I didn’t, which means that little psychological stumbling block seems to have been leapt, at least for the time being. They drew some blood. They gave me some fluids which made me feel much better, but I still felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. The numbers on the alive-o-meter were normal, I had 100% oxygen saturation, but I just wanted more air.

A doctor showed up. I talked to him about the last few days (read my last post for more details) and the last few months. We discussed family history, athletic activity, work, home life, health habits, and recent stressors, both good and bad… Those guys are sworn to confidentiality, right?

They ran another EKG (ECG?). It turns out that I still haven’t had a heart attack. Actually, that’s not what the nurse said. She said, “Not according to this one.” While I respected her faithfulness to scientific precision, it wasn’t exactly reassuring.

They wanted to take another chest X-ray. I told the techie my symptoms and mentioned that I’d slept like a baby on my trip out of town. He asked how old my home was, because perhaps there was mold. My home probably isn’t old enough to have mold, but I spend an awful lot of time working at a college preparatory health hazard. For a few moments, I pondered how I could spin my current predicament into a newer, cleaner, healthier classroom at my school.

(I was recently informed that I had to change classrooms, from one where you can still detect the scent of the students who used to be housed in that building to one that is home to rats and roaches and has had minimal upkeep.)

The chest X-ray revealed nothing. The tests revealed dehydration–which surprised me at first, because I’d been drinking a lot of water, but I guess I was low on electrolytes (cue Idiocracy reference)–but nothing else. For now, it looks like heart palpitations and dehydration, arguably combined with stress. The doctor tried to convince me that I was one of the healthier patients he’d seen, based on what I’d told him, the numbers from the alive-o-meter, and the tests. I had a wee bit of trouble believing him, given the circumstances.

I was discharged around 12:30 or 1 this afternoon. I drank some water-mixed-with-Gatorade, laid in bed, and managed to get a couple of hours of sleep back. My family has been keeping an eye on me.

I have an appointment at the cardiologist at 10:30 tomorrow morning. They’re probably going to do another EKG, they’re going to hook up a Holter monitor for 24 hours, and probably run a stress test. Hopefully that’ll pin down what the problem is. Elsewise, it may be time to start drinking heavily.

I weigh 201 lbs. That’s down 19 for the year (which is good), and about 6 for the weekend (which is bad). My soccer season is over. Trips to the beach are likely cancelled, not that I’m a big beach-goer. The trip up north may be out, which sucks royally. Thank God the Cup is on the tube this summer, even if I have to mute those damned horns.

I am grateful for the prayers, kind words, well-wishes, the text messages, phone calls, e-mails, and Facebook comments.

My soccer team had two games scheduled yesterday for 4 and 5 o’clock in the hundred degree heat. The first match was against our arch-nemeses from last season, whom we beat in the regular season and fell to in the championship.

I played the whole first half because we had only one sub, and I figured I’d need to be that sub in the second half. I walked off the field, heart racing. I was sweating normally, I wasn’t sore, I wasn’t feverish, flush, nauseous or dizzy, but my heart wouldn’t slow down at all.

I sat on the sideline in some shade, drank water, stretched out. I had a teammate’s wife check my pulse every few minutes. She said it wasn’t slowing down.

The strange thing is that aside from my pulse, I felt perfectly normal for playing in a game. I didn’t want to leave my teammates without a sub for the next 30 minutes, especially considering we had another game coming up. So in the second half, I’d come on the field for a few minutes at a time and simply stand up front, just to give someone else a break. I told my teammates the situation and said I wasn’t moving an inch unless the ball came right to my feet (which isn’t too much different from when I’m healthy). The game finished in a tie. I played maybe eight-to-ten minutes of the second half.

And that was it. I didn’t play at all in the next game. I alternated between sitting and lying flat in the shade. This brought my pulse back down to normal.

So, the first thing this morning, I made an appointment with a doctor I haven’t seen in maybe 15 years. Went in at 2:00, height 5’9″ with no shoes on, weight 205 (down about 13 for the calendar year). Pulse normal. Blood pressure measured from the left arm was fine. Diastolic pressure measured from the right arm was a little bit high.

I told the doctor my symptoms, answered his questions about my medical history, the family’s medical history (which he should know, being the family doctor), my eating, drinking, and exercise habits, and so on. He wrote, asked, and talked more than any doctor I’ve encountered. This worried me, especially when he threw around words like “tachycardia” and phrases like “athletes suddenly dropping dead.”

He did an EKG. Good news: I’ve never had a heart attack. I’d like to think that I’d have noticed a heart attack when it occurred, but sometimes I get preoccupied so something like that might’ve slipped by. Who knows.

He said it looked like tachycardia, which I thought meant my heart travelled backwards in time, but apparently not. His orders: two baby aspirin a day. No physical exertion until I get the OK from the doc. Stay out of the heat. A chest x-ray and bloodwork as soon as possible, and then an appointment with a cardiologist.

I went for the chest x-ray immediately in a facility not even five minutes away. It went more smoothly than I expected, with one nerve-wracking exception. The tech asked if I’d ever had chest surgery. I hadn’t. Then, after she shot the x-rays, and after I got a glimpse at them on a computer screen, she asked again. Wondering “What was on the x-ray that made you ask again?” worked wonders for my nerves.

And that’s where things stand. My soccer season is over. I can’t ride the bike–which has helped bring down my weight–for the forseeable future. I can’t engage in strenuous physical activity of any sort until the doctor says so. Chicago is just a month away–what if I can’t drive for that long a time, or even take a flight?

I have to make the bloodwork appointment tomorrow. No idea when I’ll get to see the cardiologist. No exertion, no heat, more tests and God-only-knows what comes after that… my summer may just be shot to hell.

…

My teammates called, texted and e-mailed to make sure I was okay. That helped. Thank you.

…

Back in the ER. Blood drawn, IV hooked up.

I just finished watching the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup for the first time in my lifetime.

The ‘Hawks won this year. The Pens won last year–my two favorite hockey teams won in back-to-back years. I watched the Celtics win two years ago, and the Bulls win six times in the ’90s. I watched the Bears win in the ’80s. All my favorite teams have won in my lifetime, and all the Chicago teams have won in my lifetime…

…with one glaring, 102-year-old-rancid-pile-of-failure exception.

I love to hear the Flygirls’ fans boo.

Over the last couple of weekends, I got to visit four of my oldest college friends. If memory serves, we all got shuffled into overflow honors housing in Cope Hall instead of getting a room on the top floors of Clemson House. At first I remember feeling ripped off, but now, after so many years of so many zany, madcap adventures, I feel marginally less so.

I spent a day in St. Augustine with Captain Patton and his bride, pictured here at Fort Matanzas:

Captain Patton and Wife

After Fort Matanzas, we visited the Castillo de San Marcos, where we saw a kid nearly run off the roof in his rush to watch the cannon fire, and then the oldest wooden schoolhouse in America. For lunch, we ate salteado (chicken, chorizo, peppers, mushrooms, yellow rice, yummy) at the Columbia. Later, we visited the Fountain of Youth–which apparently isn’t really a fountain of youth–and listened to old burned-out hippies dressed as Native Americans tell us stories of how the locals once lived. That night, we wandered the quaint streets of St. Augustine, wading through rows of souvenir shops that seemed to run together after a while.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I drove up to Virginia to visit the Mole family and the Hmnahmna family. Sadly, I only got to spend one afternoon with Mole, his wife, and his son before they were off to watch a Yankees game. They were gracious enough to let me stay at their house during my visit. Within an hour of their departure, lightbulbs had burned out, sink faucets were leaking, and the smoke detector was blaring.

Some pictures of Baby Mole, Moladette, and Oliver, the Mole family dog:

Baby Mole

Moladette and Baby Mole

Oliver

VDV and Baby Mole

I spent a couple of days hanging out with the Hmnahmnas, and I met their beautiful baby girl, Baby Hmnahmna, for the first time. While there, Dr. Hmnahmna made bacon-wrapped filets and deep-fried a turkey in peanut oil. I knew I kept him around for a reason.

Dr. and Baby Hmnahmna

The Hmnahmna Family

Good, wholesome people. I still intend to have their babies fall in love and marry against their parents’ wishes, but there seems to be a rival for Baby Mole’s affections: a young lady born on the same day and in the same hospital as he.

From there, to South Carolina to visit my good buddy Chip. There we feasted on the finest buffet victuals and butter rolls that Ryan’s has to offer. We traded tales of valor and woe, spoke on literature and politics, and philosophized for hours before I made my way home. No pictures, I respect his privacy.

I missed seeing Robert and Brundgren and Aabrock and Nikita and a few other people. I hope that one nice, clear, not-too-distant day, we shall all reunite.

…

It occurs to me that I don’t have pseudonyms for Patton and Chip.

Once upon a time, I lived in a pleasant little town called Manassas, Virginia. It was predominantly Caucasian, but becoming more ethnically diverse as it grew. Being a young’un in a mostly white suburb, I was blissfully unaware of the racial issues of the day.

When I was in third grade, my family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, which had a higher degree of ethnic diversity (though not necessarily integration) than Manassas did. We moved in March, so the difficulty of being the new kid at school was exacerbated by the fact that I was being thrown into group of kids who had been interacting and developing their own group dynamics for the better part of a year. The academic adjustment wasn’t difficult, but apparently the social one was.

A few days after I started at the new school, a new acquaintance decided to approach me. Octavius was a young African-American kid who, if memory serves, was roughly 8 feet tall and was built like a tank on steroids, wearing another tank. Since I was short, quiet, and new, I think I was supposed to be intimidated by this monster of a kid as he ambled towards me, the floor caving under each step. He must’ve sensed that I was unschooled in racial matters, and decided that this would be the ideal time for my initiation. He stopped in front of me and called me “Cracker.”

I didn’t know what he meant by this. My eight-year-old, racially innocent mind could not grasp the insult intended by calling me food. I was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to try to eat me, because the teacher might’ve been able to stop him in time. But, being young, foolish, and remarkably brash considering the size difference at hand, I retaliated in the only way I knew.

I gathered myself, and with as much defiance, nerve, and force as I could muster, I called him “Cracker.”

He froze–the first sign that I’d put him off. He tried again, though with less conviction this time: “Cracker.”

It had already worked once, so again I fired back at him: “Cracker.”

He was confused, and thought I was confused, and thought he’d clarify matters: “No, you’re the cracker.”

“No,” I said, sensing victory. “You’re the cracker.” The tide had turned. By this point I’d found his weakness: clearly, calling him names–even the same names he used on me–would weaken him, and eventually force him to back down. There were a few more exchanges of the insult before it was over. I don’t remember whether the teacher intervened (though I do know she called my parents about the matter and couldn’t keep her composure from laughing so hard) or whether Octavius simply gave up.

Had he thought that he’d encountered an intellectual and rhetorical force not to be trifled with, or had he realized that I had no idea what he was talking about, which rent his insults powerless? I’d like to think the former, since he trifled with me no longer.

…

Why bring this up? I’m not sure. It might have something to do with the kid who checked me into the hotel. He had a Confederate flag pennant tattooed on his neck. Fill in your own insult.