Though it works, too.
Working a twelve-hour (plus) shift and having it be too nutty to eat much. Then, being so tired, the next day you sleep until ten, and then, by the time you get ready to eat, it's eleven, so you might as well just eat lunch instead of breakfast.
Piece of advice: If you have chest pain, you should almost without fail go to an emergency room at a hospital. No one should fault you for going to an emergency room if you have chest pain. Most clinics/urgent care clinics do NOT have all the testing available to rule out the dangerous things that could be causing chest pain, namely heart attacks, blockages in heart arteries not yet causing actual heart attacks, blood clots to the lungs, and more rare deadly things. Yes, most chest pain is NOT due to these things, but then that's great! You can be happy knowing that!
Do not come to urgent care because you have chest pain and are worried it's your heart. Then, when the doctor agrees that it could be your heart and explains that you need to go to the emergency room where that can be determined, do not say that you are not going to go because you know it's not your heart. You came in. You just said you were worried it's your heart. Now you say you just wanted me to tell you it's not your heart. I CAN'T DO THAT here in the urgent care clinic. You're in your 50's. You're a guy. IT COULD BE YOUR HEART.
Lawsuits, lawyers, and malpractice aside, I couldn't live with myself if I just told you you're fine and you walked out and keeled over.
I may look young to you. But I'm out of medical school 13 years in a couple weeks, almost 10 years out of residency now. (Holy crap!) I've worked in the middle of freaking nowhere, and I've seen a lot of shit.
I've seen people I swore were having heart trouble end up not having heart trouble. I've had people I didn't think were probably having heart trouble have abnormal cardiac enzyme tests showing they were in the middle of heart attacks.
My own mother went to urgent care with chest pain and was annoyed to be sent to the ER by ambulance. The ER docs told her they didn't think she was having heart trouble (the story she told me while she was waiting in the ER for the tests had me scared shitless). She was planning to be sprung from the ER after her cardiac enzyme tests were normal and go out for dinner with her friends. Surprise--they weren't normal, she had had a heart attack, and she earned herself a weekend in the hospital and an angiogram (test to look at the arteries of the heart).
Don't be dumb people. Don't gamble. Yes, the odds are frequently with you that it's not your heart. But, if you're wrong, you're dead.
I know the people who read this blog, if any, are smart enough to know better--this is really more of a rant. This happens far too often. This and drug seekers make me have bad days and drink a beer after work (Stella last night--not as good as Spotted Cow) and remind me that I should buy more lottery tickets. BTW, I'm new to beer drinking. I realized it after the free beer after the walk a couple weekends ago. I have a lot of catching up to do.
It happens often enough, the one you think for sure it isn't the heart, tests come back positive. you just can't tell by the symptoms.
ReplyDeleteWe had a guy do just that. Come to urgent care and die right in front of his young son. We were not prepared for heart attack either and could only do CPR until the ambulance got there. He didn't make it. It sucked the life out of everyone who stood there helpless to do anything. Go to the ER like the good doc says. It may save your life.
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