100 PAGE ONE HUNDRED

On Thursday, they wheeled me down to the gym and just had me do the stairs, without the walk in between.  I went up and down the stairs twice and sat down in the wheelchair.  That’s when it started to happen again.  My heart rate spiked, and I got dizzy and started to sweat.  They quickly wheeled me back to my room and got me into bed.  I didn’t pass out this time, but I sure wasn’t feeling good.  Initially I was going to skip the afternoon session, but was feeling better, so I went for a short walk.

These pass out sessions resulted in yet another battery of tests.  I had a ECG done to determine if I had developed a heart problem.  It came back negative and the Doctor came in to tell me that there was no indication of any problems.  He said there was an indication that I had suffered a heart attack in the past, but that was false.

I was also sent down for an echo-cardiogram on my heart.  This test lasted for well over an hour and was basically the same test as done on pregnant women, only instead of looking at a baby, they are watching your heart.  I really hit it off with the technician and we chatted for a long time, even after the test was over.  He said that my heart looked to be in great shape for someone of my age.  There was no indication of any irregular rhythms, but he was not allowed to do a full analysis and present it to me.

When the Doctor came in to tell me these results, he saw my hands shaking badly.  My hands have always had a little tremor even when I was a young child.  It was far more pronounced now.  I put it down to side effects from the sepsis as well as the fact that I was so weak from the loss of body mass and being in bed for so long.  Because of his observations he sent me for a CAT can of my brain to rule out the possibility of Parkinson’s Disease.  Nobody ever came to tell me the results, but I assume it was negative, because I’m sure they would have told me if I had it.

But, then the problem was solved by me, quite by accident.  One of the little treats that I really got into was gum.  I had not chewed any gum in years, but it helped to keep my breath fresh and was a little treat to boot.  It all had to be sugarless gum because of my diabetes.  Caitlin and Renee would bring me Trident and one-day Caitlin brought me a plastic container of Dentyne.  I was sitting eating my dinner and had my reading glasses on and happened to glance at the Dentyne container and glaring out at me was the one word, Aspartame.  I am highly sensitive to it and in larger doses, like a soft drink, it will trigger a migraine.

Seeing that I began to wonder and looked it up on Google.  In the list of many side effects of Aspartame were the words, may cause elevated heart rate.  Curiously enough on both days that this happened to me I was chewing the Dentyne gum while doing the physio.  I immediately stopped using the Dentyne and threw the rest away.  In fact, I stopped chewing gum altogether, even though the Trident doesn’t use Aspartame.

RUNNING SHOE ON MY LEFT FOOT
TO BALANCE OUT THE CAST. MADE WALKING
SLIGHTLY EASIER

Come Monday morning, I told my therapist what I discovered and having gone three days without the gum, I was ready to try again.  I walked all the way down to the gym, went up and down the stairs twice and then walked all the way back to my room, with absolutely no ill effects.  I was a little tired as it was a long way, but I was in no danger of passing out and my heart rate remained steady.  I was back on track for my newly revealed release date of Thursday, August 29.

It, the parole, didn’t happen on August 29, I had to wait another two days before I was finally released.  The holdup here was waiting for physio to present their findings to a medical board of Doctors, nurses and physios and that was not going to happen until August 30^th.  Oh well, what’s another couple of days in this lengthy adventure.

How about that, my long, long ordeal was coming to an end.  Well, at least the hospital portion of it.  Now that it was so close, my “1” mantra was getting very difficult to maintain.  I had a date and I was now starting to focus on getting out.  Along those lines I ordered a rental walker from the Red Cross that Renee could pick up on Wednesday, the day before my release.