Health Crisis

Last night I was out for dinner with a couple of friends (friend M, friend B, and friend B's hubby). Good times. Eating, talking, being merry.

As we were finishing up, friend M said she was all of a sudden not feeling well. A wave of nausea, then some funky breathing. I scooted out of the booth so she could walk around. She does have asthma so thought maybe she was having an attack. I walked with her to the end of the restaurant to get some air and to have a drag of her puffer. It didn't help.

So then her breathing started to feel constricted to her, so she thought maybe it was an allergic reaction. She recently found out she has a sort of allergy to potassium...things like bananas and kiwis, so she usually carries Reactine with her just in case, but she didn't have any in her purse.

She got all shaky (like someone might if their blood sugar dropped fast, but she had just eatten dinner), then she got all hot, and she said her breathing was worse and worse. Like she wasn't intaking any air on her right side.

We were just offering to drive her to a clinic or the hospital when she decided that she wanted 911. Freaking scary. I sat with her and held her hands while she kept grabbing ice cubes and holding them to her chest trying to cool down while friend B was on the phone with 911.

Thankfully the paramedics only took a couple of minutes to arrive, so by the time we walked down the stairs from the pub, they were pulling up (I do have to say that they didn't move very "urgently" though....sort of sauntered along...it was frustrating to watch). They talked to her and by then her breath was catching and she could barely say her own name. They got her over to their ambulance, and were checking her vitals, etc. Friend B went with them in the ambulance, friend B's husband followed in their car, and unfortunately I just came home. I felt so helpless...but what was I going to do?

Friend B called me when she got home 2 hours later. Friend M's hubby had made it to the hospital to sit with her, so B and her hubby could go home. After the 2 hours, she was still sitting on the ambulance gurney waiting to even go through triage at the emergency room. Like seriously? Good thing she wasn't actually having a heart attack or something (which is what the paramedics thought might be happening).

In the end, I heard from her this morning that they finally did some blood tests on her at 4:30am, but she had to wait a couple of hours for the results...and of course, really never figured out what the problem was. They recommended that she see her own doctor and get tested for more allergies...maybe seafood or citrus or something...she'd eaten calamari and a pesto chicken sandwich. Her breathing ended up returning to normal on it's own and her chest wasn't tight anymore...but not due to anything the hospital did for her.

I can't believe she waited that long. This country needs some serious help in the emergency care departments.