The Scariest Halloween Of My Life

And I don't mean scary in the spooktacular way. But more in the "am I dying?" way.

When I was brainstorming scary Halloween costume ideas "guy in hospital connected to wires" wasn't even on my list.

On Halloween of last year, I went into urgent care because I was having trouble breathing. I’d been in two weeks prior for the same thing. After spending the weekend with some cats (the furry kind, I’m not trying to talk like a ‘50s jazzman), I was under the impression that my allergy had gotten much worse and it made my long-dormant asthma act up. The doctor agreed, gave me an inhaler and some steroids then sent me on my way. It worked at first, my breathing was normal, but as time went on the returns were diminishing. I was a little freaked out by that, so I went back. 

They took my blood pressure, just like they had before, but this time the doctor freaked out and told me I needed to go to the ER immediately. Since I had been recently laid off from my job and was still trying to understand the ins and outs of my wife’s insurance plan (which I had been on for under a month), I didn’t want to immediately go to the ER. It was going to cost a fortune. A fortune I didn’t have since I’d been given a whopping five days' worth of severance. One of the joys of living in a country that refuses to join the rest of the world and have a form of socialized health care is doing this kind of math whenever you feel bad. I’d gone to Urgent Care because it was cheaper than the ER. Now they want me to pay for both.

The doctor had no patience for my bargaining. He looked me dead in the eyes and said that with blood pressure this high the hospital was my only option. I don’t remember the exact number, but my systolic blood pressure (that’s the top number) was in the 230s. Later it would be as high as 260. And in case you don’t know, you’re not supposed to go for a high score with blood pressure. 

Minutes later I was outside of the CityMD wondering if it was really worth going to the ER, despite what the doctor said. It sounds so incredibly stupid in hindsight, but all I could think about was how much money (that I didn’t have) the trip would cost me. Yet, the doctor was insistent, more insistent than I ever remembered a doctor being with me… so I called my wife and told her I was going to the hospital. 

Yes, I was wearing a bright orange Jack O'Lantern shirt during one of the most important moments of my life. Jealous?

She met me at the ER and I was admitted after a short wait. It wasn’t that they weren’t busy, they were, but I appeared to skip ahead of others. They brought me back by myself and took my blood pressure. The nurses looked concerned. Soon I was ushered back, put in a room, hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, and told to wait for somebody to come see me and establish an IV. 

Hold on. I need to interrupt the timeline for a second to explain how completely bewildered I was. While I was having some trouble breathing, I felt fine. Nothing hurt. I had all of my faculties. I hate to be this guy, but I didn’t understand why I was even getting into a bed at all. It just didn’t make sense. OK, sorry, back to the story…

The first nurse couldn’t find a vein. They poked and prodded for a little bit, but no luck. Oh, I should probably mention that needles scare the shit out of me. Yes, I know I have tattoos, but I don’t have any stick-and-pokes for a reason — you don’t see the needle when it’s in a machine. So I was turning away and biting my lip, refusing to look, like a big ol’ baby. 

Another nurse attempted to find a vein. Same routine. I looked away, and they poked my arm, my hand, another place on my arm. Same result. They decided to let another nurse give it a try. More poking, more anxiousness from me, no IV. It was around this time that the nurses started talking about the “IV guru” who could always find a vein. They sent for him. 

He came in with tremendous swagger and wouldn’t you know it, his reputation was correct and he did it! Just kidding, he poked me a bunch of times in both arms and hands, failed, then left to find someone else. 

It took 10+ attempts to establish an IV, but someone finally found a vein. I didn’t know that when your blood pressure is extremely high your veins sink into your body. I was just pissed off that it took so long and that they kept blaming my “dainty veins.” 

This is my arm about one week later. Both arms were like this from my shoulder to my hands for about a month. I am the kind of person who gets bruised when I lightly graze something, but this was at another level.

For a while I was laying in bed, trying to relax, and letting the medicine flow into me through the IV. The whole time the blood pressure cuff is automatically testing me about every 15 minutes. And you know how it normally pinches just a little bit? This time it hurt. It was squeezing so, so hard. And the cuff kept popping off my arm. 

For a couple of hours I was just in a bed, in the ER, wondering when I would be allowed to leave. At one point I needed to go to the bathroom and they said they would bring me a jug to pee into. I was still fully clothed, I did not see how I was going to pull this off without pissing all over myself, and besides that, I felt fine. I had no trouble with my balance, all I needed was to unplug the IV for a second and walk to the bathroom 10 feet away. They wouldn’t let me, so now I was further irritated. 

Eventually, I talked to a nurse who was asking me a lot of questions. 

“How often do you go to the doctor? How long have you been this overweight? When did you start feeling pain? What do you mean you haven’t had chest pain?” 

It was here that it finally started to dawn on me. They were worried that I was going to have a heart attack or stroke. Or that I may have already had one. Possible heart damage was mentioned. I started to understand how close I was to having a major episode. And at the time it felt so odd. Almost like it wasn’t actually happening to me, because, again, I felt fine. I had a little trouble breathing, but it was like being at a high altitude or the height of hay fever season, a heart attack couldn’t possibly feel this mild. 

I hate this photo so, so much. Not because I’m wearing cords with a hospital gown (it’s called fashion), but because of how completely helpless I look. And how the blood pressure number is terrifying now (175/100), but it was a sign of real progress at the time.

Around midnight I was admitted to the cardiac ICU. I was spending the night. But not just the night, I was spending the foreseeable future until my blood pressure came under control in the hospital. When I got up there I was greeted by the best nurse. He instantly put me at ease. He let me stand up to go to the bathroom, which after being denied earlier ingratiated him to me forever. We talked movies and video games. Things felt like they were calming down… until he needed to establish another IV. 

You see, when you’re admitted to the ICU they need to establish a second line in case you need a medicine that can’t interact directly with a different medicine. Like nearly everyone before him, he had no luck. Unlike the others, he hit something that made me spurt blood all over the floor. I wasn’t looking (needles are the devil), but I could feel the blood pouring out. Not great! And I saw that it took a lot of towels to clean it up. Even worse! This is when I learned about a midline. 

A whole other team came in with an ultrasound machine to find one of the bigger veins deeper in my arm. It was really fascinating to see my vascular system on the little green screen. It took my mind off of how scary everything was, at least for a moment. They found a vein, set up the ability to have a second IV and… never used it. 

Thus began a long night of trying to relax, trying to drift off to sleep. And I could for short periods, but it was hard to get comfortable with all the tubes, the cuff going off every 15 minutes, and my mind racing. I was so exhausted, but sleep wouldn’t come because I was so worried. Not only about my well-being but also about my wife, Kim. 

Kim was terrified. She had been by my side from the minute I got to the hospital, and by that late hour, I could see the toll it was taking on her. Every time my blood pressure cuff started (it was remarkably loud) she would get anxious and look expectantly at the numbers. It’s hard to describe the fear on her face. At first, I thought she might be overreacting. I got annoyed. It seemed like a lot of fuss over nothing. But the fear stayed on her face, even after eight hours in the hospital, and that scared the shit out of me. Finally.

Once I was afraid there was a slow vibe shift. As I understood the gravity of the situation, Kim seemed less scared. As I felt smaller and more vulnerable she seemed to get stronger. It was as if there was only a finite amount of fear that could be in the room and once I started having some she lost hers. Or at the very least did a damn good job hiding it. And her actions helped calm me down. Together we got through it. 

In the morning my numbers were better. I was visited by the cardiologist who carried himself like a real big shot, the kind of doctor you see on TV who is a pain in the ass to work with because he thinks he’s the best. And, somewhat annoyingly, he actually is the best. He was surrounded by his team of residents, sipping on a McDonald’s iced coffee, telling the flock, “We treat blood pressure at home. When his numbers improve, he’s going home.” 

It was a bit of a whirlwind there, but within an hour or so I was on my way home.

I despise making grand-sounding proclamations. They never seem sincere to me, and more importantly, being overly earnest makes my skin crawl. That being said, when I left the ICU the next morning I was a different person. Truly. 

Now, many months later, the thing that keeps me motivated is that I never want to see that look on Kim’s face again. Ever. She puts up with enough of my silly nonsense daily, she should never have to be that scared again. If I accomplish nothing else, I’ll consider this life a success. I’ve tried to put this concept into words for months, and I still think I’m doing a piss poor job at it, but once you see your suffering through the eyes of someone who loves you, you see the toll it has taken on them, how the fuck do you go on living without doing everything in your power to never do that again? 

So here we are, a year later, still standing. My blood pressure is in the 100s (as it should be). I’m 80 pounds lighter. I go to the gym 3-5 days a week. I almost completely stopped drinking. It’s so goddamned cliché, but I’m looking at life in a completely different way. 

This Halloween, Kim and I bought an absurd amount of candy to pass out to the trick-or-treaters we missed out on last year. Hell, we still had some stashed away from last year, but we don’t want to break any little teeth or be known as the house with the stale Twizzlers. Haunted houses, slasher movies, and clowns are terrifying, but it all pales in comparison to a Halloween night spent in the ICU, scared your heart is about to explode.