To the Emergency ward!

Ah, what a day, what a day.
I will always remember the day August 6, 2006, as the day I saw my first Pride parade, and also had to go to hospital.
Let's explore that shall we.

The parade itself was crazy. (And I'm not talking about the audience, they were great, very well behaved really..) The people in the parade itself were crazy.. Or they were representing a large financial institution.. Which in itself is probably a little crazy..

Anyway, being a beautiful sunny day here in Vancouver, a group of us all decided we'd go watch the parade, and then try to find somewhere to grab lunch in the thronging mass afterwards. A sound plan. However, it was the walk back from the march to where we were going to be having lunch which is when things began to go pear-shaped.

I suddenly realised that I had a certain tightness accross my chest.
Thinking nothing of it, I continued on with the group, however, I found that with each passing minute, the 'cramp' wasn't going away, it was actually getting worse. This concerned me somewhat.
Five minutes after I first began to feel the pain, my breathing started to get harder and harder. Immediately I went and sat down, thinking that a heart-attack at the age of 22 probably wouldn't be the most memorable way to reminisce about what had up to this point been a great Labor Day weekend.
The group was still hanging around, thinking I had indigestion or something, so I told them to press on and get a table at the restaurant, and I'd catch up with them there.
Sean, a new addition to our circle, stayed with me and sat on a seat nearby, where I soon told him that my breathing was painful. I said maybe I should see a doctor, by this stage in a lot of pain. I could barely move my left arm, and I couldn't take a full breath.

We rushed to a medical clinic, conveniently located only a block away, and burst through the door, Sean guiding me, and I, doubled over in a significant amount of pain.
We reached the desk, waited a couple of minutes or so as the elderly lady currently being helped gave her full address, mother's maiden name, pet history and a brief summary of the history of Germany, then I promptly told the nurse at the desk that I couldn't breathe. She then proceeded to take down my information in a similar manner to the previous customer.

Ten minutes later I was in the Emergency ward at St. Paul's hospital downtown, being hooked up to an IV, a breathing apparatus, and a heart monitor.
(Upon missing the appropriate vein with the IV needle three times, the nurse eventually decided she wasn't going to have much luck, and changed location from my forearm to the back of my hand, where she was successful in inserting the needle and hooking up the IV, by which stage I was having heart palpitations and basically fainted.. So macho..)

"How are you feeling?" A nurse proceeded to ask me, to which the other replied, "he's fainting.." with a certain 'duh' tone..

A couple of minutes later when my heart-rate had returned to normal, she asked me again how I was feeling.
"Ok.." I managed to choke out, now inhaling less than 5% of my lung capacity per breath..
"On a scale of 1-10, how much pain are you in?"
"Uh... 8?"
"Ok!" She said, "I'm just going to give you some morphine!" with a cheerful singsong trill.
"No," I said "actually it's not that bad.."
"I'm just going to give you some morphine.." She said with a slightly more worrying - less of a trill - intonation.

Five minutes later she returned.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better.." I say.
"On the scale?" she continues.
"3.." I say.
"Ok. I'm just going to give you some more morphine.."
"No, look-really it's not that-"
"Ok!" She chirps, "I'm going to give you some more morphine!", and proceeds to do so.

4 hours later, 3 x-rays later, and a blood test, I find out that I have what doctors call, a 'spontaneous pneuma-thorax'.
In layman's terms, it's a small tear in the lung, which causes a small bubble to form in the chest-cavity, in part collapsing the lung in question.
Apparently, according to 3 of the doctors, quite a common scenario in 20-something males. In fact, my step-brother (Hey Al!) got one last year during soccer practise.
It's not genetic, it's not pre-programmed, and it's not specifically related to any activity. It just happens. And when it does.. well it really sucks, but it is quite easy to cure.

Also, and on a more serious note, I would really really like to say thank you to Troy, Sean, Micheal and Jared. I sincerely appreciated you all being there through the whole thing, and to you guys that tagged along before the hospital, thank you also. It really makes a world of difference when you feel like crap, to know that you've got friends around that really care.
I hope I didn't put a dampner on your weekend..

-Epilogue-
So really, it was a great weekend. No, seriously I did have a great time, except the six-hour detour to hospital-land, which royally blew..
But what can you do eh? These things happen (apparently) and there's really not a lot you can do about it.
What I've learned from this experience however, is that if you feel chest pains, don't stretch, don't intake deep breaths.. and don't worry (unless you are, in fact having a heart-attack.. then worry..)
Just make sure you have appropriate health-care cover when you travel overseas, and that you're wearing underwear so that when you put on that patient-robe thing, you aren't completely humiliated, cause those things have more holes than a punctured lung...

Cheers all!

Jimzip :D