alaming statistics - Page 2

08-23-2005, 08:15 PM

Pericarditis at age 29. Youngest person on the cardiac intensive care unit.

They drained 2.5L of fluid and estimated they lost another 0.5L into the chest cavity.

70% of the pericardium removed. Heart stopped while on the table, woke up from anesthesia with hands inside my body when they did the massage. (I do not recommend this....die first! Ooohh the pain.)

2 weeks after surgery heart tested at 75% function.

Life keeps trying to kill me.

08-23-2005, 08:25 PM

Wow...that sucks. I remember an intern having tuberculous pericarditis when I was in medical school and nearly dying from it (she hadn't taken the full six months of anti-tuberculous medication when her skin test converted a year or so earlier).

75% is more than enough as you proved by having kids which is as much stress on the heart as you are likely to put. Just don't have a heart attack later (and DO NOT SMOKE!!!).

On the subject of waking up during CPR, I remember a blind guy in the CCU when I was an intern. He kept going into ventricular tachycardia and going out of the picture. Each time we would "thump" his chest and he would wake up and scream, not having a clue as to what was going on. Did I mention he was rip roaring drunk and vomitting blood too? That was a LONG night.

08-23-2005, 08:33 PM

Actually, I didn't get diagnosed until the pain was so bad and I'd been sick for so long that I had given up and was ready to die.

When they put me in the first hospital--where they drained the fluid intially--I was too tired to care.

When they sent me down to Tampa General I was morphined to the max and derived great joy from informing people visiting patients on the unit (with a big smile on my face) that I was there because I was dying. What else would they expect when they stop at my room and ask "You're so young, why are you here?"

At one point I was on morphine, toradol, and demerol at the same time...this was after the pericardectomy. It was a blast, considering the circumstances.

Tampa General has great food, too.

08-23-2005, 08:38 PM

Oh yeah, they never did figure out what caused it. At least, if they did, they did not tell me.

I had every possible test run, spent quality time with the infectious disease people, microbiologists, you name it.

I was a Histotechnologist at the time working in a Florida Hospital. I had had twins 6 months prior to hospitalization and had been exposed to chicken pox 3 months prior. I was only off work for three weeks after having the twins through a traumatic C-section. Doesn't pay to be the breadwinner in the family.

I'm pretty sure they were all afraid I had gotten something in the lab, though.

08-23-2005, 08:45 PM

Defintely sucks. Just shows that medical science is often much better at excluding diagnoses than making them. We have a long way to go. Most likely it was immune mediated or viral, but no way to prove that. I'm sure that they tested you for infectious causes and for collagen vascular diseases like lupus. Obviously if it had been a malignant effusion then we would be talking about you in the past tense so it wasn't that. Hmmm...

08-23-2005, 08:57 PM

I accept medicine as a theory, not a science.

I accept that doctors are human beings.

I accept that I have been on deaths doorstep 4 times in 39 years and I will die someday....just not yesterday.

Life is a trip and I'm just stretching it out to see where we go next.

****Note: I have not been shot by anyone, but I have been stabbed by a doctor. Also been sliced nearly in half by one who later was PROUD of his ability to GLUE me back together in such a way that the scar would be easily covered. Doctors ARE dangerous.

(Too bad you're so far away Jim, we could sit down to a nice meal and some decent conversation. I don't think you would be squeamish about any of the topics I'd discuss.)