Friday, July 12, 2013

Emergency Knitting

I spent a lovely morning yesterday interviewing stitch patterns for a new design I am brewing. It's a 2 color piece but I haven't yet made up my mind as to its look.  Definitely with fingering yarns and not difficult, but it still has to be interesting enough to keep the boredom away yet allow for social knitting. Cafe au lait but not skinny sugar free decaf latte.

   These are in the running for stitch pattern winners.
Obviously the curled up one will not make it.  Jim likes the blue and red sample.  I thought I liked the grey and sea green one but it might be too fussy.  Well.......then I realized it was 11:30am and I still hadn't sent out Thursday's Newsletter so got myself up to the shop and started that several hour procedure.

A little after noon Jim called me to say he thought I should take him to the Emergency Room. HUH?  Well his pulse was erratic and he has a history of atrial flutter. OK immediate change of gears!!!!
I shut down the computer and started to get myself ready.  Finished getting dressed, well I was dressed but not for public consumption.  Then I asked Jim if he had called his cardio dr. No. So while he answered a zillion questions I got my iPad  and cell into my purse then started collecting enough knitting to get me through the day.  One never knows how long one will be in the Emergency Room.
Last time they admitted him and he was in ICU for a week.  We kinda knew it wouldn't be like that this time as we know what causes his flutter.  Sleep Apnea.

Into my Michelle knitting bag I threw the two almost complete socks I have been working on and off for the last 6 months as car knitting.  Plus a little dress I started for a darling little girl and just in case I finished both socks, some yarn to start my sister a pair.  That felt like enough to get me through the day.

Around 1pm, I let him off at the Emergency Room door and went to park the car.  By the time I got back into the Room he had already had an electrocardiogram.  From our cardio experiences there Cayuga Medical has a very good Emergency Room.  Then they moved him into a much more 'decorated' room with carts and charts and tubes and bells and whistles and beeps.  The NP really listened to both Jim and me as to history and Jim's allergies to certain meds.  His heart rate was fluctuating between 90 and 145 but his blood pressure was good and so were his other signs.  Of course they took blood and gave him an Xray.  The Dr in the Room said all those looked fine but we would wait for the cardio Dr on call.  They gave him some intravenous meds and fluids meanwhile to see if his heart would reconcile itself.  Well, it did moderate his pulse and lower it but there was still fibrillation. Yep, no flutter, real atrial fibrillation. The Dr on call turned out to be Dr Swisher whom Jim really likes so that was a good thing.

Meanwhile Jim was very thirsty and rather hungry as he hadn't even had breakfast.  At one point he was allowed to suck on 3 ice chips but nothing else.  Turns out if he had eaten anything they would need to wait 8 hours to do a cardiac inversion and that looked more and more possible with each half hour.  Then we had shift change which seems to slow everything down for an hour.
The new RN's were great, very motherly, efficient and also listened well besides being very upbeat.

Meanwhile I tried to write the newsletter with my iPad.  Got only so far and then the screen kept freezing.  I called ConstantContact and was told that I needed a special app plus would need to kinda start over with a new app template to use that app.  "OK.  Let the work end of the day go." I told myself.  "Just be there for Jim and knit."

Somewhere around 5:30 Dr Swisher made the decision.  They gave Jim the forget everything drugs and shooed me out.  I went to the cafe to have a snack, having not eaten lunch in all the excitement.  About an hour later Dr Swisher came out to tell me all went exceedingly well as one very small jolt righted his heart rate.  We now only had to wait for the drugs to wear off and for them to make sure his pressure stayed stable.  Long story short, we got out of there about 7:30.

AND the best news is: Jim is cleared to paddle in the DragonBoat races tomorrow.

As for all that knitting.  This is what I accomplished.