Giving thanks for magnificent care
Last Saturday evening while eating dinner, I began to experience a tightening in my chest.
I first thought to sit up straight, and so I straightened my posture. That didn’t help any. I sat for 10 minutes thinking, “What could this be? What’s going on?” I began to be frightened.
I went into the bedroom and told my husband about it, and he shot up out of his chair. I said I was going to take some medicine that was prescribed to me a little over a year ago, and I went and took one.
Nothing. Still the pain, and I didn’t have the medicine’s side effect of a headache. I took two more.
Nothing. The pain was still there. My husband asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, and I wanted to wait a few minutes, hoping it would go away. It wasn’t. In a few minutes, I said, “Let’s go.”
We went into the emergency room, and I said I had tightening in my chest and that I needed some help. They directed me to a room, and in two minutes, they had an EKG on me. I was told three days later at the hospital in ICU that my blood pressure had been skyrocketing. I guess they didn’t want me to be frightened. They ran more tests that didn’t show anything, and they put me on an IV.
The clenched feeling was still there. They didn’t know what was going on.
I was scared. Who wouldn’t be?
The care in that ICU is professional, and I did not see one long face that said, “I wish I was somewhere else.” There was a smile, a “How are you doing?” and “Is there anything we can do for you?”
I was there for four days, and the tests still showed nothing. I don’t know if God touched me. I don’t know if God removed something, but He did something in my life. You don’t have pain like that without something going on.
The care at CHRISTUS is magnificent, and with my condition, which was in need for some professional help, I think I received that. I thank God, I thank the nurses and the staff, I thank the administrators, I thank our town for having this kind of hospital. I’m glad to be alive today.
I want to thank the team of ICU nurses that took care of me. One of them came into my room, sensed my discomfort and started rubbing my back. It was not asked for. She didn’t have to do it. She saw the need, and she responded. To me, that’s beyond the call of duty. Her name was Chelsea.
Joan Elmore Henry
Sulphur Springs