The Day That Forever Changed Our Lives

August 28, 2007:
Once again I found myself at the doctor, complaining of the cough that wouldn't go away, fatigue and shortness of breath. I had told my boss that morning that I was going to pop over to one of our clinics to see the same doctor I had been, this entire time... when I got there though, he wasn't there that day, so they asked me to see one of the other doctors... I was so miserable, I didn't care who I saw!

That's how I came to see Dr. Mario Pena. The man that saved my life.

So we go in and run through the usual spill... "I can't catch my breath" "I can't sleep at night because of the coughing" etc etc. We do the usual chest x-ray. Boom. I expected to be in and out in an hour, like usual. But after the chest x-ray, I'm sitting in the room, for what seems like an hour... I start to get really nervous.

Finally Dr. Pena comes in and says that my chest x-ray shows fluid around my heart, and I am in the middle of Congestive Heart Failure. WHAAAAAAAAT?! Why didn't anyone see this before? I had only had, like, a billion chest x-rays there! But it all made sense, the coughing, the shortness of breath, the fatigue, these are all signs apparently. I was being mis-diagnosed the whole time!

Anyway, he goes on to say that he has talked to my Primary Care doctor and I was going to be admitted to the hospital, just as soon as they had a bed available. He told me to drive straight home and rest, while waiting for the phone call about my hospital room.

I had never been in the hospital a day in my life! I was so nervous and scared! Of course the first person I call is my boss to tell her that I won't be coming back in and that I am going to be admitted in to the hospital. Then I call my fiancee and my mom. As soon as my mom started talking I started sobbing... which is pretty typical of me when talking to mommy. I don't care how old you get, mom is still the one who can make it all better :-)

So we get the call that UMC has a room for me, and off we go. I have my bag packed for 3 days, like I knew WHAT to pack, right?!