It's been an interesting few days

Sunday my husband sat on the couch all day and napped.  Monday, it was the same thing, and he didn't even surf the web much, if any; that's highly unusual.  He tried to eat but just couldn't.  In fact, I couldn't even get him to drink much water.  That evening I told him he had to go to the emergency room, because something was obviously wrong; he protested, but not too much.  The grandson took us to St. Mary's and it wasn't long before they took him in.  He was having trouble breathing... that seemed to be his main problem.  But he also had heartburn (that's what he thought was wrong just before he ended up having a four-way bypass, sixteen years ago).  As soon as they hooked him up to an IV and did a little testing, they began checking his heart.  His blood pressure was up quite a bit and his pulse was faster than it should have been.  Once he'd been there awhile, he started feeling better.  None of the folks working with him had much to say about what was wrong.  Later a sweet nurse said they hadn't wanted to worry us until they knew what the problem was.

They checked Cliff's vitals, did a EKG, took blood, and mentioned a chest Xray.  Honestly, I'm not sure what all they did for him, but everyone remained cool, calm, and pleasant during our ER visit.  After an hour or so, a doctor came back and informed us my husband had atrial fibrillation.  I was familiar with that term because my mother had the condition for years.  Cliff had never had problems before with irregular heartbeat, so this was unfamiliar territory for him.  I suspect since I have an irregular heartbeat, he wanted to out-do me.  I'm kidding, of course.

They said they were keeping him overnight so they could try to get his heart beating properly and monitor him closely.  The next morning his heartbeat was still irregular.  We had assumed he'd go home the next morning, but no.  They weren't going to let him go until the situation got better.

Just about the time they were preparing to take other measures to get his heart back in rhythm, his ticker settled down and started beating regularly, all by itself.  

They dealt with his breathing problems all during his stay, also.

He was released around noon yesterday with two new pills to take:  A blood thinner and something else.  It's been an exciting couple of days and I am not recalling everything very well.  

I spent both days with him, coming home at night.  I don't drive, but I have a pretty good family network to take me to and from the hospital.  Our daughter, my grandson, and his girl-friend all did a great job of shuffling me back and forth to the hospital as they made their rounds to and from their jobs.  Cliff's sister lives five or ten minutes from the hospital and she and I decided that if he is ever in the hospital longer than two days, my dog and I will stay at her house.  She has dogs of her own and a well-fenced back yard, so Gabe would fit right in.   Let's hope that doesn't happen, but my husband and I are at an age when nothing surprises us.

And now, back to your regular programming.  My blog is beginning to look like a medical journal lately, but I'm just keeping it real, as Pioneer Woman always said.