L. Dice
Yurgens
Eng 111 Sec 215 Paper 1
9.15.15
It was like living a poetic death, knowing that it could happen again at any moment. With a racing heart, watery eyes, and hands that trembled with fear, I knew there was something seriously wrong. As I crawled down the hallway to get help from my mother, I had tears streaming down my face and was overcome with anxiety. The pounding in my chest was enough to make me think I was dying. On the night of October 24th, 2014 my life had drastically changed. Suddenly and without warning, I had uncontrollable PVC’s and was unable to breathe. Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVC’s) are extra or skipped beats that originate in the ventricles of the heart. These abnormal heartbeats disrupt normal heart rhythm and cause a flip-flop feeling and discomfort in the chest. The pattern during premature
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I literally thought I was having a heart attack because it was such an intense experience. My heart began pounding for several minutes and then began fluttering like there was no rhyme or rhythm to it. There would be a short pause of relief, then the process would start over again. After a nerve racking trip to the emergency room I was told I had nothing to worry about; however, it was recommended that I change my stress load and make some lifestyle changes. I made immediate changes through diet and exercise, but unfortunately that was not enough because the PVC’s only intensified, and I began to experience them more frequently. I would constantly have dizzy spells and a strange feeling in my chest. As my symptoms worsened it began to affect my sleeping patterns which, in turn, affected my grades and attendance at school. Lack of sleep put me in a zombie-like state where all I wanted to do was lay in bed for days on end. On the days that I had particularly bad PVC’s, I would have to take a day or two to rest and alleviate the
Olshansky, B., & Sullivan, R. M. (2013). Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia. Journal Of The American College Of Cardiology (JACC), 61(8), 793-801. doi:10.1016/j.jacc. 2012.07.074
Though there are several patients featured, the story centers around Cody Curtis, a woman who was diagnosed with liver cancer. At 56, she is a beautiful woman who doesn’t appear to be sick. She seems healthy and happy. However she is in constant pain and is suffering greatly. She is given a diagnosis of only six months left to live and sets a date to choose to die. She has complete control over when she will die. She can make peace with those around her and complete her life before she dies. She says that death with dignity won’t be easy, but it would be easier than the alternatives. However, she outlives her diagnosis and her quality of life continues to improve. When things take a turn for the worst, she decides to end her
Although in many occasion of heart palpitation, there can be sign of a serious, chronic underlying problem which may be like:
After a gradual build up of symptoms and discomfort, I received the diagnosis that I had developed a Staphylococcus aureus infection in my lower left lung. One of the symptoms of this rare strain of pneumonia, besides fever, sore throat, and night sweats, I would discover, is pleurisy: inflammation of the lining of the chest cavity. It started with a strange slight throbbing of my ear, then a sore shoulder, and finally the most excruciating pain I can imagine. I woke gasping and half expected to see a large gash beneath my lower ribs and an exit wound in my mid back. Moaning to myself with tears boiling in my eyes, I tried to muster the air to call for help. Movement intensified the pain but I finally crawled to my parents’ bedroom and my dad rushed me to the ER. Heading up I5 in the middle of the night, I cursed the demon that was inside
That all changed. During the Fall of two thousand eleven I noticed I got sick with the flu or a cold easily. I was diagnosed with mono in the winter of that same year. I never fully recovered from the mono and noticed other strange things happening to my body. Many pediatrician's thought that I was depressed or had sinus infections combined with a bad cold. One night I was rushed into the Emergency room with a heart rate of one hundred and fifty nine. The Doctor on call that night referred me to another Doctor who has seen all of the symptoms I was having. I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or P.O.T.S. This is an autonomic disease in which the blood pools to the heart and, upon standing the heart rate increases to create dizziness headaches and, pain in the legs due to improper blood pooling. I was a normal happy and healthy teenager until this time. The symptoms kept me up at night and forced me to stay in bed all day. This made me become an unhappy and
Envision that you're laying in a hospital bed hooked up to numerous machines knowing that your life is ending. Nurses and doctors come in often to check in on you, yet they know nothing they will do can keep you alive. You’re tired and feeling the effects of the many drugs you’ve been put on to control the pain, breathing is hard and you don’t enjoy food like you used to.Doctors have told you there is no chance of survival and you will die very soon. The only thing that matters now is when you will die. You have said goodbye to your family and friends and have come to terms with the harsh reality. If you had the chance to choose how your life would end you could do it now. Yet you can’t. This is because in the place you live, physician assisted
Squatting on the ground, I was weeping. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand although it was not far from me. I made my eyes widely open to make sure if my eyes went blind or not. When it was around 8pm, I started looking for the window. Touching my hands on the corners of the room, I finally found it. I used up all my energy opening the window, but it was covered with hard dust and it was rigid. I fell down, and cried a lot. I couldn’t sleep throughout the whole night, because I was hungry and thirsty. In addition to this, it was cold in the middle of that night. I was shivering and coughing persistently. Time passed, and it was early in the morning, but nothing
When I first arrived “Lisa” The girl that I shadowed told me that there was an emergency with one of the animals. It ended up that a one-year-old beagle ate an entire thing of metabolite, and then slowly started to die. The liver had shut down, and the heart rate was up to 300. Lisa told me that taking a thing of metabolite was like taking 50 cups of coffee at once. The owners of the beagle were there and bowling. The beagle’s name was Murry. Murry's body slowly was shutting down one thing after another. The owners made the decision the dog was going to be put to sleep. We got the dog ready to be taken out. They undid all the cords from the dog so they could take it to another room. I said goodbye to the dog, and then they took it into the other room so that the owners could be there when they put him to sleep. After that happened they then had to put a sleep a little hedgehog that had cancer on its mouth. We then did two regular checkups with one cat and with one dog. Those when great. After that we had a dog come in and it ended up having an affection that might end up killing it. I never heard the end result. The last thing that I did there was that a black lab had been bitten by another dog, and that dog ripped a hole in the neck of the black lab. The doctors had to perform surgery on the dog to close up the holes in the neck. They first had to clean it out with qutips. And blood stated to come out right then I was a little dizzy and I thought I was going to faint. But thank god I didn’t. I saw a cat get dental work on it. And a cat get a bath and they had to blow dry it and brush the hair while it was a sleep.
affecting the patient so badly, that he or she ends up dead. Authors Gail Powell Cope, Audrey
Cardiac dysrhythmias come in different degrees of severity. There are heart conditions that you are able to live with and manage on a daily basis and those that require immediate attention. Atrial Fibrillation is one of the more frequently seen types of dysrhythmias (NIH, 2011). The best way to diagnosis a heart condition is by reading a cardiac strip (Ignatavicius &Workman, 2013). Cardiac strips play an chief part in the nursing world allowing the nurse and other trained medical professionals to interpret what the heart is doing. In a normal strip, one can clearly identify a P wave before every QRS complex, which is then followed by a T wave; in Atrial Fibrillation, the Sinoatrial node fires irregularly causing there to be no clear P wave and an irregular QRS complex (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2013). Basically, it means that the atria, the upper chambers of the heart, are contracting too quickly and no clear P wave is identified because of this ‘fibrillation’ (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2013).
January 12, 2006. It was my birthday and the most tragic event of my life. I had come home to hear the horrible news that my uncle, whom I adored dearly, had passed away. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I was heartbroken, baffled, and overall miserable. When I approached my mom and asked for the cause of his death, she replied with a downcast expression and informed me that it was due to a heart attack. At the time, I didn 't understand why him, out of all people could have had a heart attack. Our entire family had claimed that he was a born athlete. He would never touch any sort of junk food, and worked out every other day. It didn 't make any sense. Only unhealthy people had heart problems right? Two days later, a toxicology
Paramedics squeeze my arms, staining their gloves a deep red. Doctors and nurses scream at each other as they run across the hallways wheeling me into the operating theatre. I look over to my wrists as clear fluids begin their journey into my veins. My heart is in my throat, my pulse is echoing throughout the room, my limbs are quivering, and my lungs are screaming. Nurses force plastic tubes up my nose, as jets of cold air enter my sinuses, giving me relief. Inkblots dance before my eyes like a symphony of lights. A sudden sleepiness overcomes me and slowly my vision dims.
My vision went hazy. My lungs and neck burned hotter and hotter, and dizziness settled in. I deserved all this and more.
Altogether, PVCs and PACs can be bothersome to patients, but they are not harmful or serious in most cases, unless they are paired with another heart issues. If a patient is experiencing frequent heart palpitations, it is important that they get them checked out to make sure that symptoms are not due to a larger problem. Patients should try lifestyle changes before considering medication. Many suffering from PACs/PVCs find ways to live a healthy life and some find that they even go away after a period of time.
...rt. I could taste real blood leaking out of my mouth. A bolt of lightning jolted every nerve within me and an aggravating pain caused me to collapse. I was shaking and by eyes bulged out as a sharp pain forced its way through every nerve and vessel in my body. My brain was closing; I knew this was the end. My intestines felt as though they were being ripped into thin strips and blood was gushing out of me like a fountain. My ribs were being crushed into powder and a cold air entered my half open body freezing every part of me, every cell, and every drop of blood. I was iced until I suddenly froze. My eyes were still open and I could still see a little. They went. They disappeared. They ran like the wind, rushed like the waves and vanished into thin air.