At Deaths Door

Discussion in 'Health & Wellness' started by Hedi Mitchell, Dec 13, 2017.

  1. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    I am in the hosptial ...but doing better.Suppose to go home sometime tomorrow.
    After I get home and get settled in will post how I unexpectedly almost died 12-11-17 and how my daughter saved my life..the doctor said. Too tired right now...ttyl .
     
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  2. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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  3. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    What in the world happened!
     
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  4. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Saying prayers for you, @Gloria Mitchell , and so glad that your daughter was there to rescue you ! Hopefully, you will be home tomorrow, and well enough to share the whole story with us.
     
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  5. Kitty Carmel

    Kitty Carmel Veteran Member
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    I hope you are home soon.
     
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  6. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Gloria Mitchell
    Even the black sheep of the family has a warm place in his heart, you know? So, it hurt to read your post; please, keep us all aware. We would do anything to help, if we could.
    Frank
     
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  7. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    Gloria - what a shock !
    Hope you are soon well - hugs and prayers for a speedy recovery x
     
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  8. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    @Gloria Mitchell ,.... what on earth are you doing in there ?..tsk, tsk...anything to get out of doing the Christmas shopping..., ;)....just kidding of course... my goodness I hope you're going to be well, and I'm just as curious as everyone else to find out what happened... and thank goodness your daughter found you... ((be well))) rest up, and see you soon..
     
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  9. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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  10. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    So thankful you didn't leave us @Gloria Mitchell and that your daughter was there to help save your life. Thank you Lord.

    Can't wait to hear about your real life miracle.
     
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  11. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    I am home now! This could get real lengthy, but am going to try for a short version. But first, please do not lecture me, ask me why I continued to do this to myself
    I have been punished in more ways than just the last three days.
    I have smoked for 50 years. I have quit 7 times in last 20 years. After the last time, I hated even myself and vowed to never try again.
    About a month ago began the SOB, and knew i would need to go see doctor, and dreaded that. Tuesday morning, as I stepped in shower,and bam...could not catch my
    breath, gasping for air i prayed to God to not let me die naked in the tub...terrible site that would of been. I manged in my gasping to make to a phone, and call
    my daughter, who lives in same complex and happened to be home. I gasped for air-Leeann,I need Er or call ambulance. She was on her way.
    She drove me to nearest hospital about 3 miles away. I was literally dying on the way to ER, and I knew it. They kept asking me questions I could not answer for lack of breath. After that I remember very little. I had a team of 8 working frantically to find out why a 69 year old woman, who was on no meds, suddenly could not breath.
    Am sure family filled in the spaces. Once they had me stable and oxygen mask on, some of the panic and delirium had subsided.
    I was being admitted. Not good, have not been in hospital for 40 years at least. I was admitted to PCU, step down from ICU. Their work began.
    My blood pressure was 220..over some ridiculous number, can not remember. I had kept yanking out IVs in ER, so they tried something else, but pressure was so great, it kept spitting out the tubing.But they found a way to insert the tubing, for injections. My oxygen was down in the 80's.
    I found out a few hours later that the doctor told my daughter, that what saved me, was her not waiting for ambulance , but bringing me herself. He told her I would have never made it waiting for ambulance, I was that far out.
    My lungs had over 1000 ccs of fluid in them, pushed there by the uncontrolled BP. I have had eight stomach injections, countless, shots and pills , iv injections..and I am black and blue from all of this.But I am alive!!
    Today was when I found out what all was wrong : Heart failure, Acute Hypoxic, and Hypercapnic,Respiratory failure,COPD, Hypertension, and kidney Injury.
    So much for me not taking any meds, that has all changed.
    I could go on more, but will leave it with, now I will be on a host of meds, change of diet, and whooppe lung drs and heart dr, and regular dr.
    All I really know, is I knew that I was dying, and felt very helpless. Now, I must work at staying alive and well as possible. This has changed everything, literally in my
    life and my husbands. He is struggling with all of this,as he to smokes, but now even he will change things. I will tell you this, save your own breath, in regards
    to your loved ones who do smoke. Nagging, and etc, will change nothing- it won't . Each one is different, and each one must cope in their own way.
    We all find our own ways to handle things, my only regret - I waited too long. My husband is concerned because all of this threw out his Christmas shopping for me.
    I told him, honey I just got the only Christmas present I need , my second chance.
     
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  12. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    Yikes, that's a Scary read and it triggers anxiety in me, I'm an ex smoker and the same could happen to me.

    Were you out of breath before this incident? Was your BP always high? Why did this happen all of a sudden?

    Glad you are okay... very scary!!

    Edit: rereading it I see you were short of breath a month ago.
     
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  13. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I think that the heart failure did not come from the smoking, but I imagine that it probably made it even harder for you to breathe, @Gloria Mitchell . Did they do an echocardiogram of your heart yet ?
    When they do that , it will show what your ejection fraction is (what percentage your heart is working at). When mine was so bad, it was about 23%, and I could barely walk around, huffing and puffing as I went.
    I am so thankful that your daughter was there so close to you, and could get you to the hospital so fast, and that probably did save your life.
    Probably they will put you on a diuretic, like Lasix, to help keep the fluid out of your lungs, and maybe put you on a blood thinner for the heart failure.
    If you also have kidney failure, they will need to put you on a blood thinner that does not make the kidney function worse.
    My doctor changed me from Xarelto to Savaysa because it is not as damaging to my kidney function; but he said that Eloquis was good, too, and it was just that my insurance covered Savaysa and not Eloquis for some reason.

    If I can help you with going through any of this, just send me a PM. Each one is different , but I will be happy to share with you anything that might help.
    It is not an easy road ahead, but you can recover from this.
    Slowly, over 2 years time, my heart failure receded, and now I am not in heart failure any more. I still take some heart meds, and Lasix when I feel congested and hard to breathe, but with better diet and exercise, things are improving.
    My husband still smokes, so even though I do not, I get a lot of the second hand smoke from him, and I am sure that doesn’t help at all; but I am getting better even so.
    I am so thankful that you are back home and doing better........ hospitals are NO fun at all ! !
     
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    Last edited: Dec 14, 2017
  14. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    How terrifying for you Gloria, and but for your daughters' quick thinking you wouldn't be here to tell us this awful story.... I can't even begin to make any comment, but @Yvonne Smith has been through so much with heart problems, and if I was in your position I would listen to her closely along with your doctors , and hopefully you'll pull through this . You're going to need a lot of emotional as well as physical help in the coming weeks... this must have scared the living daylights out of you.. so don't be afraid to reach out to people... .

    No-one is here to judge you, we all do things in life that can cause us to become poorly...or sometimes it's just bad luck... all that matters to us here and now is that you're alive...and you get all the support you need to get back to living a better life... (((hugs)))
     
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  15. Kitty Carmel

    Kitty Carmel Veteran Member
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    Oh wow! No lecture from me. Glad you are home and I hope all will be well. So scary. I'm surprised but glad you were released so quickly.
     
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