How A Toothache Saved My Life

 The original plan was to go out a few days ahead and stay with The Geek. Just kind of have a chill few days, enjoy ourselves and maybe do some sightseeing. I thought Hanging out, eating well, and just being present would be a wonderful thing to do for the first part of the trip.

Then I was going to go to the driver for the actual Birthday celebration. It was to be a Saturday full of riding motorcycles in parking lots, a character I knew was going to come down. We were going to have a barbecue; The driver was going to provide some delicious steaks and I was going to bring out some Jumbo shrimp we were going to throw onto the barbecue, thus SURF AND TURF! 

The rest of the trip was going to be spent somehow connecting with the former roommate, who had made delicious cocktails when I saw her last, seeing the children and her father the butcher. Hadn’t seen the butcher in quite a while so was looking forward to that. Then I would finish out the trip by going to stay with my aunt and cousin and hopefully having dinner with my other cousin and his wife on the backend before heading home.

It would have been grand, glorious, great, and many other G words.

Instead, it kind of unraveled starting the Saturday before. I got a phone call in the morning that kind of decided that I was going to my first local social event since covid started and probably before that. Haven’t really been doing social lately. But the birthday party for my friend actually ended up being a lot of fun. I had intended to stay an hour or so, but I ended up staying quite a while and having fun. I was up pretty late as a result though. Sunday morning very early my brother called to tell me that Dad had been running through the halls of the retirement home, screaming. So I spent Sunday with dad, talking him down as his blood sugar came up and generally enjoying the day. Just chatting and hanging out.

Monday I went to mom’s house. I just didn’t want to go. It was a crappy drive over, but I had to get my laundry done. Winding up having a decent time. It was what I thought it would be, just kind of exhausting. Tuesday I dropped off the keys to the cat sitter, and my client had a hard drive issue. So it was decided to push the trip back a day so I could de-stress a bit. 

That last bit seems funny now.

SOOOoooooOOOooooo...

Thursday I woke up too late to leave early. Ended up chatting with The driver for quite a while before packing up and leaving. On the way out of town I bought a pack of emergency cigarettes because I knew the douche flute would fail as soon as I needed it most. I ended up smoking a full pack of cigarettes while driving out as well as vaping a bit in the first part of the trip. So when my chest started tensing up a bit during the drive, I just assumed I was smoking too much, plus I had drank two Mountain Dew Zeros! So of course my chest hurt when I was trying to carry my bags up the geek's stairs. They are unnaturally steep. My bags are heavy. So when my chest started to really hurt and I was hot, I just presumed it was part of me being wildly out of shape. 

AND This is where I kind of have to rewind a bit. Because I declined to mention how I woke up at six AM with immense tooth pain the day I left. And by the time I got to Ohio it was pretty bad. I had been taking a lot of Tylenol that week for light pain. Thursday it was.. Bad as hell

So I remember taking breaks periodically for cigarettes and Tylenol and mouth rinsing and such while the geek and I were chatting, . I noticed that the chest pain had just turned to pressure and was persistent. But I don’t remember saying anything about the chest pain because it wasn’t That Bad . I do remember thinking before I went to sleep I was probably having a stroke because my blood sugar was so off. I was pretty sure I forgot my insulin that morning and some of my pills, so I just figured that was what was going on.

Friday I woke up because I thought the right side of my face had doubled in size. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to talk it felt so big. I went to check in the mirror, I couldn’t really tell, though I wasn’t sure if that was just me. But god damn did it hurt. So first I spoke to The driver, I think? Talked or texted. But, he suggested I go to an urgent care. I called my dentist back home to see if I could get an appointment, and they were less than helpful, telling me the root canal was a referral and it would be entirely out of pocket. So I called my mom because I figured if it’s going to be out of pocket, we might as well do it in Ohio.  So Mom suggested urgent care as well, and that I should call my aunt to see about having her dentist do it. 

Fine, I would go to urgent care to get the antibiotics;  But I would go as soon as the geek woke up. I mean, the antibiotics did make a lot of sense.

So we went, I described everything that had been happening to the PA at Urgent Care. Her response was that I was describing a heart attack and that I needed to get to the emergency room immediately. I needed some tests to be run on me and fast. I asked if I could just get the antibiotics and head back home Monday, taking whatever tests I needed in Maryland. At which point she replied that I would either go by my friend driving me or she would put me in an ambulance to go there. She also agreed not to charge me for my visit to urgent care. That was when I started seeing it as serious. Doctors don’t forgo charging you unless they think you’re going to die.

So we went out into the waiting room, I said I wanted to talk to the geek alone so he and I went out to the car. I told him the PA thought I was having a heart attack and that I needed to go to the emergency room. I felt it was taken care of better back in Maryland and could we please just go to another urgent care so I could get my antibiotics. But the geek insisted, saying that if nothing else, I would have a great story to tell. This great story would become a running thread throughout the trip...

I insisted if we were going to the emergency room that I smoke a cigarette before we went in. Didn’t realize that would be my last or I would have enjoyed it more.

So we went to the ER. They did an EKG. Then they admitted me. The Doctor I had asked me for the whole story again. He listened and said that it was the job of urgent care to scare the shit out of people, and they had clearly done their job with me. Everything I described was kind of borderline, so he wanted to run a blood test, but it sounded like I would likely go home that afternoon with a great story and some antibiotics. He was a pleasant man, and I started to relax a little. This was all going to be fine, I was sure of it.

Until it wasn’t.

The doctor came back a short-ish time later and announced I had failed my test. I assumed this meant I was not having a heart attack and could go home. But I was wrong again. The doctor came and sat down next to my upper body. That move that doctors only do when something horrible is happening, like.. a heart attack. I had received this chat before, when I was having the Diabetic KetoAcidosis. Or when I came out of the coma and my kidneys were failing. I really didn’t want that news. I just wanted antibiotics for my tooth so I could go home.

So Friday was spent in the emergency room at Grady Medical Center. The geek stayed for quite a bit until I excused him to go home. Not a whole lot happened except waiting for a transport. The cardiologist came in at one point and told me I was very definitely having a heart attack and this was going to mean I would have to make some changes. They didn’t know how much damage there actually was, but my Tripponan levels were high enough that they were worried. The nurses told me it was a good sign they weren’t rushing me to Grant medical center, but this was all splitting hairs because I was definitely having a heart attack.

Friday night after everybody had left, I started thinking about how badly I just wanted to go home and see my cat Remington. I was tired of being in hospitals. I was tired of changing my diet, I was tired of my body failing me. I didn’t want to be in a psych ward, or an emergency room or my own room in a medical center. I just wanted out. If I was going to die, I wish I would just get on with it, instead of having all of these idiotic close calls. I was so sick of all of it, of being hopeless, helpless and broke. For fuck’s sake, I of it was going to end, then let it be over and done, not just taking bits and pieces away from me until I had no enjoyment left. So I lay in my bed and cried my eyes out, because there was nothing else to do. I was chained to a bed. Again, and not in a good way.

Saturday was my birthday. I was supposed to be surrounded by friends I had known for decades. I was supposed to be riding a motorcycle in circles in a parking lot. I was supposed to be eating a delicious steak and Shrimp meal, grilled to perfection on a real grill. It was supposed to be a night of excess and enjoyment before I went home to get back to work. Instead the highlight of the day was getting medical transport from Delaware, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio so I could wait until Monday to get a heart catheterization and find out how bad all of this really was. But for whatever reason, be it my health or a bored doctor, I was to get my procedure on Sunday. 

Sunday they did the procedure. That was a new level of terror for me. The nurse shaved off some my pubes in case they needed to do a bypass or put the cath through my leg. They put the pads on my chest in case they needed to shock me back to life. Then the fun began. There was a monitor near my legs that I could kind of see where they were doing the catheter. They had an X-ray machine right up near my face to see what they were doing. For most of the procedure it was blocking my view and frightfully close to my nose. Proving that I am astoundingly claustrophobic. My god did that thing give me the willies. Halfway through the procedure I asked for more of the good stuff, at which point they started giving me Phentanyl. That shit is the bomb. Killed my anxiety and my pain! I wasn’t high like I usually get with the dilaudid. Just elevated for sure. It was an 80% blockage in my left main artery And they fixed it with two stents.  So the rest of Sunday was spent with a combination of the geek and my aunt and after they left The driver came up and visited. 

The driver was obviously set back by the whole thing. He was as emotional as I have seen him. Just upset. I think he was realizing he was at that age where this is going to start happening (which I had hit a year earlier with Laurie), and he didn’t like that I was having major issues. I think he also was positive I almost died on his couch or something. Or that I could have. Either way. He was a bit of a mess.

Monday I got released. Spent the week at my aunts. That’s probably another Journal entry. In any case, that’s the quick story of how a toothache saved my life.