First, let me preface this with the fact that I have an extremely low tolerance to any kind of pain. So, with that being said, I will tell you what happened last night.

I was in the kitchen and had popped one of those baby carrots in my mouth, munching away. When I swallowed the carrot, it went down the wrong way and I had a terrible pain in my chest area. I bent over the kitchen sink just trying to stay focused and thinking that I needed to get a glass of water to get the carrot down with. That was all I remember. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor looking into the face of my very concerned husband. David was asking me if I was OK.

I had fainted from the pain. I vaguely recall my bottom hitting the floor before my head cracked against the hardwood floor. I felt that and it hurt. From the fall, I “grew an egg” on the back of my head!!!

Well, David insisted that we go to the emergency room to get it checked out. I didn’t want to go so, we compromised with a call to the 24 hour nurse through our health insurance. She did a phone assessment and at the end told me that I should be at the emergency room within the next 2 hours. It almost took that long to figure out where to go and to get our insurance cards emailed to us…as our new ones are “in the mail”.

The Royal University hospital is only about a 5 minute ride from our condo…thank goodness. When we arrived, I spoke with the triage nurse and he asked me when I had fainted. I told him about 1 1/2 hours ago. He then asked me what I had been doing for 90 minutes. I told him that I was trying to figure out where to go, since we were new to Saskatoon!

The Doctor was particularly concerned with my chest pain….I told him it was the carrot..trust me, I know my body. Still, he ran a battery of test to check my heart, plus I had a cat scan and X-ray. Then, I waited and waited and waited. Around 11:30, I had to use the bathroom. When I sat up, oh my gosh, the room started to spin and I was very nauseous. That, eventually, settled enough and I a was able to go to the bathroom on my own.

Finally, the Dr came over and explained that although all of my test had come back fine; including the cat scan and X-rays (that was a huge relief!), he wanted to keep me until 4:00 for another blood test. This was to compare the enzymes in my blood…something to do with the heart monitoring. It was the carrot that caused the pain, not something with my heart!!!!

So, I sent David home to get a little rest. They wheeled me to a more quiet area and I was able to get an hour or so of rest. Mind you, I was sitting up as I was still very dizzy. They gave me an IV for the nausea. David returned about 4:00, they drew more blood, did another heart scan and finally told me what I knew all along, my heart was fine.

The Dr said, that due to my past history of fainting – yes, I have fainted in the past because of pain – that it appears that my body shuts down when I feel pain. I have a concussion, which is the reason for the dizziness and nausea. I was told to lay low for then next five days and then, I can try to resume my exercise routine. If I feel any dizziness or nausea, I am to hold off for another five days.

Today, I just took it easy and I am feeling OK. I have my dizzy moments and I am a little stiff; but I guess, that is to be expected. My thoughtful husband brought home the gorgeous roses that I have here in the picture. It is a tough way to get flowers!!

One thing that was interesting in the hospital was, once they discovered we were Americans, they asked if things were as bad as there as the news media projected. Granted, we feel the news media sensationalizes everything, but we also feel that our country is not the great leader that it once was. So, our answer was yes, it appears is bad but we also feel that after Obama gets sworn in and the hoopla and celebrations are over, that things will slowly start to turn around. At least, that is our hope. We want our country to once again be a world leader and have the respect that it once had.

Of course, David couldn’t let this episode go without a comment or two. I am always after David to slow down while eating or not to put so much food in his mouth. Oh, did he have a good time with this one!!! He did say, “We learned a valuable lesson, didn’t we? From now on, you should sit at the table and chew your food thoroughly before you swallow.” It made me smile. He was such a trooper through the whole thing. I have the best hubby!!! At least it was a carrot, something healthy I was eating and not a candy bar!!!

So, this is another “story” for my book….trust me, I am fine and we are smiling over this one!