Last night I got home from a 16 hr shift around11pm. I smooched around on my hubby, got a snack and sat down to surf the web for a while. I started coughing, thinking "ugh these allergies suck". but the cough kept on, getting worse. it was a hacking cough. i felt like i had a mucus plug stuck in the bottom of my throat that i couldnt cough up. i started wheezing very badly and suddenly felt like i couldnt get any air. My extremities got flushed, felt like needles were pricking me and then i started having chest pain.
i use a bipap with O2 bled into it at night so being the good nurse i am i put some O2 on. I have a h/o COPD and am a smoker. the chest pain kept getting worse and so did the feeling of something stuck in my throat (but not like i was choking, more like mucus stuck there still). i was using my inhaler trying to open myself up to cough this out but the chest pain got worse.
then suddenly i got this horrible feeling of "omg i am going to die". i cant explain what it felt like but it was kinda like God was yelling in my head "go to the hospital!". (i have only been to the ER once in my life and that was a PE 2 yrs ago but this didnt feel like it did with the PE). it was the most horrible feeling i've ever had, like this impending doom that i was having a heart attack. my chest kept hurting, i was nauseated slightly and still trying to cough that out of my throat.
it freaked me out so bad that i had my husband take me to the ER. he is the sweetest man. he felt i was having a panic attack from over using my inhaler and tried to calm me but i kept saying "i really think something is horribly wrong" so he took me to the ER.
about 15 min of being there, after the EKG, stat labs, ABGs, o2 I was able to cough and it felt like that plug in my throat cleared then my chest pain went away and i was able to calm down. it was at that point i realized my husband was right, i had freaked out because i couldn't breathe well. all my symptoms completely cleared in less than an hour of being there.
thats when i started feeling like the biggest idiot that ever walked this earth. here i was, an RN for God's sake, not to mention i work with these people...and i had over reacted like an idiot.
thats when i told the nurses "omg, I'm so sorry, can i just go home?" (lol, yeah like they were going to let me just leave, lol, but i tried). they were the nicest guys! a patient couldnt have been treated better. i told them all i was sorry for wasting their time AND their trauma room. i wanted to crawl in a hole i was so embarrassed.
they had all my test results back in no time and i was there less than 3 hrs. the doc said he thought that i had panic'd and also had some muscle spasms in my chest. i think i just freaked out from the albuterol and the wheezing.
like i said, that was only my 2nd time in the ER and i really feel like a big ole drama queen today.
have yall ever done anything stoopid like that or had a patient do it? i feel like sending them a card or something, lol.
