Time drags when you're not having fun. Last week was a month ago maybe longer. My partner, who had been very helpful on particular morning last week, left for an appointment actually while I was writing my last blog entry. So, still in my pajamas, I was sitting in the breakfast room typing away as he departed. Half an hour later, the phone rang and the person on the other end of the phone told me that something seemed very wrong with my partner's behavior and that I needed to either pick him up immediately or an ambulance needed to be dispatched. I have had similar calls from high school principals when the kids were younger but this was the first one in thirty years that I had received about my partner and the tone of voice sounded really different than the principals' had.
I tore through the house grabbing a pair of jeans and a shirt...stopped to brush my teeth...then flew out of the door and jumped in my terrorist mobile and headed to the location where my partner was, without exceeding the posted speed limits, because I AM still on probation you know. O.K., maybe I broke the terms of my probation and sped a little, but, I didn't get caught. (snicker, smirk). I arrived at the destination 12 minutes later. Interestingly, I have yet to find my pajama top since that morning. Oh well. Surely it will turn up.
It was pretty obvious that my partner was in the throws of having a stroke. Fortunately, there was a hospital across the street from where he was so we drove across the street and were in the ER very quickly. The ER had been alerted and people were swarming us when we walked in. Yes, he could walk without impairment but speech was very delayed. Those folks had my partner rolling down the hall and into the Cat Scan room probably less than 10 minutes later and had him back in the ER before I could run to the restroom. Approximately 14,000 questions later, and within the critical three hour window of response time, it was determined that he was a candidate for the super-duper mighty- mega clot buster drug that is thought to help stop the damage a brain that is partially dying can reek upon a person.
The administration of such a medication must done by someone who possesses at least the skills required to balance their own check book. It involves arithmetic. Knowing how to calculate 10% of a number is beneficial. It took three people to check and recheck that 10% of 90mg still equals 9mg. That was important because 10% of the drug was to be administered in the first 59 seconds so calibrating the rate of the drip into the IV to achieve the precision was more challenging. In the meantime the clock was going tick, tick, tick. That was just step one. Step two brought on a huddle by the same team who after the triple checking deduced the remainder of the dose was in fact 91% of the 90mg dosage. That remaining portion was to begin immediately following the 10% and was to be administered exactly within the next 59 minutes. I was extremely helpful in calculating the percentages. I had lots of practice figuring out "how much tip" and what 33% off of regular price plus 18% interest on the credit card was at the local department store, for example. I had no clue as to how to divide all of that up into incremental drips on an IV however. So, when your kid asks you why he or she needs to know fractions you can tell the little creep that it is fractions that seem to help keep people alive and motivated, other than that, probably no reason unless of course they want to double or half a recipe.
ICU was another place where numbers, whole and fractal, and seconds are important. ICU was a great microcasmic demonstration of chaos theory. It was amazing how a very calm recorded voice suggesting the "Critical Response Team to Room 303, please" threw an entire unit into a frenzy that resembled 4:00 AM on Black Friday at WalMart when the advertisement said that 2 black and white 15" televisions would be sold for just $39.99 (no rain checks). There was the occasional overheard protest of someone saying, "I'm not going until she says 'please'" and another saying "She DID say 'please'" and the first person saying something like, "O.K. then, if you say so but I didn't hear her and that's the second time today and I'm getting tired of her attitude".
Being at a hospital is counter productive to most people, but that is so magnified for a stroke survivor when every thing about a hospital is conducive to promoting a stroke or heart attack for the survivor and any of his or her family and visitors. I think they may intentionally promote stroke and heart attack to ensure job security. Maybe not. But calling someone at home from ICU at 12:30 AM to inform that their loved one as been moved to another room supports my suspicion.
The really great news is, my partner is now home and doing very well. It appears he is well on his way to making a full recovery. He has had good company, good food, lots of phone calls and emails (all sent to me) to inquire about his status and is seemingly close to being back to being his old self (no pun intended). I on the other hand, am very busy fielding phone calls, answering emails, cooking healthy food, greeting guests, emptying garbage cans, catching up on back laundry and getting personalized calls with helpful suggestions like, "Don't forget to take care of yourself". Right. I will. In fact, I am going to take the first 59 seconds of the upcoming hour to to take care of 10% of myself and then use the next 59 minutes taking care of 90% of everything else that I can squeeze into the hour. Thank goodness there are only 24 hours in a day and a HUGE thank goodness that I still have someone I can take care of whether he likes it or not! I think I can eat a donut in 59 seconds while I figure out something healthy to fix for supper. "Chow"...or something like that.
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