This post is very personal, and I have been contemplating whether or not to share it with you all. But in the end I felt like I needed to.

“Thanks, for not dying Mom!”

That’s what my son said to me, after I had just spent 9 hours in the emergency room.

14 September 2011 is a day I won’t soon forget. I had an appointment for a routine medical procedure early in the morning and so my husband and I were on route to the hospital at 5:50 am.

Everything was fine until 10 minutes into our 30 min trip to my appointment. All of a sudden my face started tingling. Then my hands and my feet started tingling too. My calves tightened up as if they were wrapped tightly in Saranwrap. The same started happening to my arms up to my elbows.

I had no clue what was happening so I got increasingly more scared.

About 10 minutes away from the hospital my chest started tingling and by the time we hit the last stop light before the hospital, about 3 minutes away, it had tightened up so I hardly could breathe.

My husband wanted to pull over but I begged him, “Please just get me there. I think I’m dying.”

It was a long light and five cars in front of us.

“Okay, that’s it,” I thought, “I’m going to die right here 3 minutes away from the hospital.”

But as soon as the light turned green, my husband got around those cars and “floored it.” He blasted down the street, missed the first exit to the hospital, which turned out to be a good thing because the shot to the ER was shorter from the next exit.

By the time we reached the entrance to the emergency room I could neither move nor talk anymore. My hands were clutched tightly together and I was unable to get them apart to undo my seatbelt.

My husband ran in to get help but was too impatient to wait for any response of the ER staff so he came running  back out seconds later with a wheelchair. However, since I wasn’t able to move anymore he just grabbed me, carried me into the ER and put me on a gurney.

Within seconds a whole swarm of emergency staff wheeled me away, ripped of my clothes and hooked me up to all kinds of wires.

Then they placed a mask on my face to slow down my breathing, hooked me up to an IV and gave me some meds to slow down my heart rate which had shot up to 166.

At two o’clock in the afternoon they were contemplating of keeping me in the hospital overnight for observation because my heart rate was still between 130 and 145. It only had come down to 80 briefly but went right back up.

I didn’t want to stay so I tried my darndest to be really calm, think “happy thoughts” and even tried to sleep a little bit. Luckily it worked out and I got to go home a little after 3:00 pm in the afternoon.

Nothing will have more of an impact and help you reevaluate what is REALLY important than 9 hours on a gurney in the emergency room.

At least for me it did.

As I was lying there, scared and not knowing what was going on a lot of thoughts went through my head.

But…I will share this in part two as this post is getting quite long already.

To Your Success,

Ilka Flood
The Enlightened Networker

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