Just for the record, Disabro experienced chest pain and shortness of breath around 11:30 last night. After 2 nitro pills, a Xanax, and 2 muscle relaxers, he came into the living room and got on Mother's oxygen machine. The oxygen didn't help, and around midnight he told me we'd better go to the VA emergency room in B'ham. He got to feeling better on the way up there, but I encouraged him to go on - his chest was still hurting. And, he said it had been two years since he'd seen his cardiologist.
I don't know if the ER staff ran an EKG on him or not - it was several minutes before I was allowed to go back with him. They had already taked a blood sample, and placed an IV in his arm; however, the IV was capped off and not being used for anything. He was hooked up to a monitoring machine, and the male nurse was giving him a nitro pill as I walked into the room. Several minutes later, an x-ray technician took him into the next room for a chest x-ray.
By this time Disabro thought, because the monitor showed normal blood gas range, that it was not his heart; and as we talked, Disabro told me about the particular chest pain he experienced from time to time. It moved around his left pectoral area - one time it would hurt in the bottom, the next at the top, etc. Sometimes it would be severe, sometimes not. But it had never hurt as bad as this time. He talked about nerve damage, and I pictured the muscle tearing away from the rib cage. (He has had open heart surgery wherein they spread his ribs.)
The important thing to notice here is that the nitro pill the nurse had given him worked, and Disabro's pain went away.
Around 3:30AM I stepped out of the little glass-doored room to talk to the doctor - about 10 feet away - who was sitting at a computer in the middle of the ER. I asked if he thought Disabro had experienced something to do with his heart. He said there was a good possibility, and went on to say he would probably admit Disabro - he was just waiting for some lab results. I went outside to smoke and call Mother.
When I came back to the little room I told Disabro that the doctor would probably admit him because he thought it was something to do with his heart. Disabro didn't want to stay. Several more minutes went by before the admitting clerk came into the little room with some general info papers, and said, "Mr. Disabro, you know you're being admitted to the hospital...." Disabro said, "No. I do not know that." Disabro's attitude took a nosedive from that point forward.
The admitting clerk stepped out and the doctor came in. Among other things, the doctor said that just one blood gas analysis could be inaccurate, etc. (I got the impression that the doctor was basing his decision on the fact that the nitro pill had eliminated the pain.) But Disabro became indignant, arrogant, and tried to make the doctor look foolish - none of which the doctor played into.
Disabro wanted to go out and smoke before he was taken to a room. The doctor said, "I'm sorry, I can't allow that," and Disabo sat up and said, "You mean I'm a prisoner here?" At one point the doctor stepped out of the room while I argued with Disabro. When he stepped back in, he told Disabro that if he stepped outside the doors, he would be discharged and would no longer be a patient in the .... I didn't catch the last part of what the doctor said. At any rate, they took Disabro to a room while I apologized to the doctor. (I knew they'd had a busy night, and my arrogant brother was one of the last things they needed.) Then I went outside to smoke and call Mother.
In his arrongant and defiant state, Disabro signed a paper that prohibited the hospital from even acknowledging he was even there. This meant that I had to know what room he was being taken to before I stepped outside.
When I got to his room he was still being rude and arrogant, and I apologized to the nurses for his being such an asshole. Disabro turned to me and said, "You can leave." I said "Gladly." One of the nurses wrote the phone number down for me, and I came home and went to bed around 7:00 this morning.
Around 10:00 this morning I woke up to the sound of the front door opening, and Mother's voice talking to someone. Disabro had gotten an old girlfriend to bring him home.
I called the nurses station at the hospital. While the nurse couldn't give any specific information, she did acknowledge that no tests had been done on Disabro. And this is pretty much where the story ends for now. I won't be taking him to the ER again any time soon.
Molly McGee, it wouldn't do for Disabro to know that I called the nurse's station....
