Waiting Rooms are Interesting

Today we took a trip to OSU Heart Hospital for Chris to have a Ct scan (Cat Scan) done. This test is to check to make sure that the veins around his heart and leading up into his head and in his head are functioning and looking ok. We were told we had to be there by 11:40 so they could get his IV started and ready for the scan that was suppose to start around noon. Noon came, 12:15 came 12:30 came and finally by 12:55 they took him in the back to start his IV and get ready for the test. They must have been running behind or over booked today. Who knows. I feel that if we have to report by a certain time then that is when they should be ready to. I guess it wouldn't be a hospital if they weren't running behind. When they came to take Chris back into the room to get his IV set up and prepared for his Ct scan they told me that I needed to wait in the lobby. No big deal I thought because I came armed with enough papers to grade to last me a few hours and the lobby had plenty of interesting magazines for reading as well. I sat and graded my papers and before I knew it an hour and a half had gone by. During this time I was also taking in the sites of the lobby and people watching. Sitting in a waiting room can bring you very interesting individuals to keep you entertained without them even knowing they are doing so. An older lady came in to get some kind of test done and she had to wait in the lobby for an hour and drink some kind of medicine before they could run her test. As she was sitting there she thumbed through the magazines and skimmed over the articles. What I found funny and interesting about her is if she liked an article or thought it was going to be a good read she'd close the magazine and quickly plop it into her bag beside her. By the time she finished her medicine and had to go take her test she had a regular newsstand with a nice variety of magazines in her bag. I think I counted four by the time she was done. Besides magazine lady there was a grandmother, mother, and daughter who came in with the thickest Kentucky accents ever. The mother was in for a test on her heart and grandmother and daughter were there for support. After a half hour of them trying to figure out where they should go smoke and if they should be a loud to smoke I had to leave and go to the next available lobby area. A person can only take so much talk over smoking in a Kentucky accent.
After my entertainment of people watching and grading papers for two hours a nurse finally came out and told me that they were having a hard time getting his heart rate down and that it was going to be another hour until they could even administer his CT Scan. You mean to tell me this whole time he wasn't even getting the scan done? I told the nurse that I should go back to sit with him because he might be nervous or just frustrated and maybe with me in the room his heart rate would slow down. Chris' average heart rate beats in the high 80s. In order for a CT Scan to work properly a persons heart rate needs to be in the 50s or low 60s. After several doses of drugs and who knows what they finally got his heart rate down to 64 and he was able to go and get the scan done. You guessed where I had to go, yep, back out to the lobby. This time it was 3:15 and I was told that the scan would take about 20 to 30 min and he would be out. Well an hour later the nurse came to tell me that the scan was done but they noticed during this whole ordeal that his heart rate would spike up really quickly for a few seconds and then come back down. From the time they first got him in the room to the end of the scan it had done this six times. They put a portable heart monitoring device on him that he has to wear for 48 hours to see if the spikes happen again or how frequent they occur. He wears it in a little pouch around his neck and has five electrodes stuck around his chest taking in data. Monday we are to return the device and they will hook it up to a computer and look to see all the lovely information this sucker took in over the 48 hour span.
Chris did really well today and through it all he stayed in good spirits and joked around. He came walking out of the room and into the lobby acting like a robot and greeted me in a robot voice. It was really cute and I got a good laugh out of it. We had a good rest of the night and enjoyed the evening before bed. When we turned the lights out we could see the green flashing light from the monitor blinking on his chest. He started to talk like Darth Vator and said that he would make a good flash light. I'm thankful that he is able to joke about these things and keep me laughing through it to. Humor helps in these situations and makes it seem less scary or difficult. He is fast asleep now but I've been having a hard time sleeping lately. I use blogging as a stress reliever and I'm hoping that I can get to bed soon now that I've got all of this off my chest. Tomorrow we are heading to Sidney to see my family. I always enjoy going home and am looking forward to being with them.