Concussion

No pictures today.

It's hard to take pictures
when you're
unconscious.

My Friday started so normal.

Early morning blogging and computer work in my little cool bedroom at The Land.

An early breakfast of fresh French toast and grapefruit juice.

At 7AM I slipped out the door to go water one of my oak trees before my bike ride to work.
The morning was bright and fresh - a relief after these dry hot weeks of drought.
The puppies were bouncy so I said - Come on guys, let's run!"

Silly Koda, my Rottweiler, ran in front of me and stopped suddenly stock still.

I crashed into him and I hit the ground.
Hard.
The dry soil, like concrete, knocked my head, rattled my brain and knocked me out.

I lay in the grass for about 2 hours - fading in and out of consciousness.
Every time I woke up and lifted my head I was hit with intense waves of nausea.
I threw up twice - that I remember.

Finally I had to go to the bathroom.
So I crawled into the house, used the toilet, fainted, threw up.

By this time I was convinced I was bleeding into my brain.

So I crawled into the bedroom where my cell phone was and called 911.
I was fading in and out and could barely talk.
  - just gave them the address.

Then I called Tom back in Fishers.
Again I wasn’t conversant.
I croaked out.
“I fell”
And
“Come”

So now we need to see thing from the EMT perspective.

They find a 56 year old lady, barely responsive, in her bedroom in her pajamas.
Pulse in the 40s. (normal is above 60)
They had no idea I had been running outside with a Rottweiler.
They didn't know my heart was slow because I'm such a biker.
They didn’t know I had fallen or hit my head.

So I guess it was pretty logical to assume I had a heart problem.

When I could wake up enough to talk the one thing I would say, over and over again, was “Cat scan”.
So they did do a CT scan of my brain - which was normal.

So they sent me to the St Vincents heart hospital (SVHH)

Bad choice.
SVHH knows nothing about brains or concussions.

They ordered an echocardiogram.
Donna, the echocradiogram tech was astonished!
She had never seen such a good heart.
She raved about the quality of the images (no fat) and the quality of the heart muscle.
She said these pictures were Olan Mills quality.

Now I had to wait for a consult from the Electrocardiologist (EC)

So I sat around the heart hospital all day long – telling my nurse Michael that I was leaving after I saw the EC.

Waited.
And waited.

Shift change at 7PM and I told Kathy, my new nurse, that I had to see the EC soon.

She paged him and found out that after 5PM he was the admitting doc and he wouldn’t be seeing any more consults that day. But she told him my situation and he said he would make me an exception and “squeeze me in”.

9:00 hit and no EC.
So I called in Kathy and asked for the AMA forms.
(That is Against Medical Advice for when a patent leaves without a doctor's blessing).
Kathy got quite flustered and left the room.
Five minutes later and the EC walked in.

He was sure flummoxed.
He said his practice is specifically putting in pacemakers for people who are symptomatic from their bradycardia. I described some of my biking activities including last Saturday’s 80 mile ride.

He decided I was not a candidate for a pacemaker.

So he agreed to discharge me and I asked for their standard set of instructions of what my family should be looking for post- concussion.

Nope. St V’s heart hospital doesn’t even carry those.
Good thing we have Google.

So I went home finally about 10:00 PM and had an uneventful night – other than a worried KC at 1:00 and a grumbly Tom at 3:00 and 5:00 checking on me.

Now I read that post-concussion I should take things easy.
No workouts, quiet settings, limit computer and television.

This could be difficult.