No fire brigade, just pyromania

Okay, first and foremost — it was a great big no go on the MRI. When I had an MRI on my knees 2 years ago, the tech only put me in the machine up to my chest. It was no big deal at all, I could handle that. The guy today? Wanted to put me practically all the way into the MRI machine. Um. No. Not just no, but HELL NO! I really truly do not see the need to put me into the MRI machine up to my nose, just to get scans of my knees. I’m not claustrophobic per se, but when you put me into a teeny tiny tube? Yeah. Not going to happen. I had a hard enough time getting through the one they had to do on my brain last year, and there’s no way I could do that again.

If it was going to be maybe a 5 minute test, I might’ve been able to stick it out. But I was going to be in there for about 40 minutes per knee. Almost 2 hours. Oh god no, there’s no way. I started to have a panic attack when the guy put me all the way into the machine. I’m still having little mini-attacks now, heart going insane, but I’m slowly calming down. So, the front clerk gave me the phone number for the Plano facility, since they have an open MRI machine. I have to call them tomorrow and get an appointment scheduled there to get the MRI done. Thank god for open MRI’s! hah.

But. Yes. Now to finish the Halloween Hell Adventure. After I left on Wednesday, Deb & Barney & IT moved our PCs down to the first floor, as well as all my cash office equipment. We’ve been down there since, and likely will be until the end of this week, or beginning of next week. They’ve got our part of the 4th floor mostly dry, but it still REEKS up there. My work phone was ruined, but they got me a brand new one. Yay! Outside in the hall, directly under the flow of water, was a metal rack holding a couple of printers as well as a fax machine, tons of paperwork, etc. All of that was completely ruined.

Now, for the theories. The Fire Marshal claims that the sprinkler was set off by someone standing directly beneath it, and holding a lighter right up against the cover. Ummm. Sorry, but no way in hell. The big boss in my dept is over 6’3″ tall. He cannot reach the sprinkler without standing on something. Even the (rather tall) fireman who plugged up the sprinkler so I could escape had to have a chair to stand on to reach it. Now, if some one managed to stand on a chair directly in front of the open door of my office and hold a lighter to the sprinkler without me seeing it, wouldn’t they have also ended up pretty damn wet when the sprinkler finally activated? And yet, I was the only person who got doused. And if the Fire Marshal wants to imply that it was me who did it? HA! I invite their investigators to come meet me. I’m only a mere 5’3″ and overweight with bad arthritis in my knees. Not only that, but on Halloween I had that holter monitor which could not get wet, and I could barely walk (much less climb on anything) due to worse-than-normal problem with my knees.

The more plausible situation was provided by the building maintenance guy. He mentioned that apparently there have been people in the building for about 2 weeks leading up to (and including) Halloween who have been working on the sprinkler system on the upper floors. He wasn’t sure what they’ve been doing, he just knows they’ve been doing work. So, it’s a little too coincidental that there have been people working on the sprinkler system for a couple of weeks, right before it breaks. I have a hunch we might not find out what really happened, but I’m more inclined to believe our own building guy, than the Fire Marshal. Especially since I know there was no one standing outside my office with a lighter. Hah.

Black water keeps rollin’ on past

Time for (hopefully) the last of the big 3 posts. This one is all about Halloween. The evil was definitely strong that day; danger lurking around every corner, in every hallway, and in the pipes.

So, allow me to properly set the scene, if I may. First, there’s me. I am injured, hobbling around on a pair of bad knees. I am wearing a holter monitor, since my doctor picked up an irregular beat in my physical the day before. In addition to all that, I am also fresh off a nice little vacation. That is important to mention, because while I was out of the country, absolutely no work was done. So I’m back and have been working like crazy to try to get things caught back up.

It’s roughly 10:40am, on Halloween. I am at work, sitting at my desk. The recorder portion of the holter monitor is on my desk, to the right of me, wires running from under my shirt out to the recorder. I have just completed entering a check run into the system, and am about to print out the check register. And that is when what was a more-or-less good day takes a sharp turn for the worse.

There’s a noise in the hall in front of my office. In the split second it takes for me to lift my head to see what’s happening, I’m suddenly being sprayed with foul, black water. I screamed, grabbed the monitor recorder off the desk, shove my chair back and jump up, moving away from the water. It takes a second, but it dawns on me that my office has a door! I race (as fast as I can) to the door, pulling it shut, while trying to guard the monitor with my life. As I’m shutting the door, I notice one of my coworkers standing out in the hallway, staring towards my office. I stare around at my office in total disbelief and shock. It’s then I start to realise what was happening — that black sludgy water was pouring out of the overhead sprinkler. There isn’t a sprinkler head inside my office, only directly outside the door.

All of this happened in a matter of seconds — 20-25 seconds max — but it felt like an eternity. Everything was moving in slow motion, yet flying by at the same time. At first, I was only aware of two things – I was being sprayed with water, and I was attached to a heart monitor that I’m not allowed to get wet under any circumstances. (That monitor costs $1000 to replace, and I really didn’t want to have to pay for that if it got ruined, or have to do the test all over again.) I checked the monitor and luckily it had only taken a tiny bit of spray on the carrying pouch, everything inside was safe. After that, I start looking around my office, and see that everything is covered in this nasty, inky liquid. And it wasn’t just gross to look at — it smelled bad. I realised that my iPod and cell phone were sitting in the area of my desk that had gotten sprayed, so I snatched them up, wiping them dry with the hem of my shirt.

At this point, I’m also starting to really wonder what’s going on, what happened, why the sprinklers had gone off. Time keeps ticking by, and yet all I can hear is the sound of water coming out of the sprinkler, pounding against the door and walls. I look down at the floor at the front of my office, and see that water is pouring in underneath the door. I back up, moving away from the water that’s creeping into my office, heading for my feet. At this point I’m beginning to panic and worry. It’s been a little over 5 minutes, and the water is still coming down outside. I’m still in my office, and no one has tried to contact or rescue me. I’m afraid that I’ve been forgotten in there, that no one knows I’m still trapped inside my office, unable to leave because I cannot get the holter monitor wet.

I finally decide I need to work as hard as I can to stay calm. I’m being monitored because my heart was acting weird, so I didn’t want to risk anything happening to me because I freaked out. I used my cell phone to snap a couple of pictures of the disaster area that was my desk, as well as the encroaching flood waters. (I’ll include these pics at the end of this post.) After what felt like an eternity, my boss called my cell to check on me. She let me know that they’d evacuated the entire building, and the fire department had arrived. She’d let both our building maintenance crew and the fire department know that I was trapped inside. After we hung up, I started to listen very carefully, and finally was able to hear the fire alarms going off. They were barely audible over the sound of the water forcefully pouring out of the sprinkler, beating against my door.

The flood waters were slowly coming further into my office and I found myself backed into a corner with nowhere to go. A few minutes later, my boss called me again to let me know the firemen had just shut off the water, and that the last of it should work its way out of the pipes within the next few minutes, then I’d be able to evacuate. One minute passes, then two. Minutes three and four tick by, and the sound of the gushing water hasn’t slowed at all. Seven minutes pass, and there’s no change in the volume of water at all. Deb calls me back again to check on me, and I let her know that I’m still very much trapped. She informed me that the fire men were on their way up to rescue me.

I gathered together my purse and carefully trudged my way through the sludgy waters towards the door. After a couple of minutes, I decided I was going to be brave. I made sure the monitor recorder was behind me, and that the electrodes on my chest were covered, then I cracked open the door to peak out. There were a couple of people standing at the end of my hall — one I didn’t recognize (who later turned out to be the volunteer marshal for my floor) along with the building maintenance guy. He saw me peeking out, and I waved and he smiled and waved back. Right about then, I saw a couple of firemen come up to them. I shut the door so I didn’t get any wetter, relieved that rescue was now close at hand.

A bit later, my office door opened, and a fireman came in. Another one was checking out the sprinkler head, trying to figure out why it was still going off since they’d supposedly shut off the water. He grabbed a chair out of another office, using that to stand on so he could get closer. He knocked the sprinkler head off, and was able to put his hand over the valve and temporarily stop the flow of water. As I was waiting on the firemen to correct the problem so that I could escape, I heard another set of sirens headed for our building, ambulance sirens. Once the fireman on the chair was sure that it’d stay stopped while he had the end plugged, he motioned for me to come on out of the office. I hobbled out of there as fast as I possibly could, and over towards the maintenance guy. That was when I made an interesting discovery — ONLY the sprinkler directly in front of my office was going off. None of the others on our floor had been set off.

The floor marshal made sure that I was okay, then had me follow him towards the emergency exit. He opened the door to the stairwell, and I had to shake my head no. I have a note from my doctor on file that states I’m not allowed to take the stairs during any emergency — I have to be evacuated via the freight elevators. (Those stairs would destroy my knees on a normal day. As much pain as I was in on Halloween, I wouldn’t have made it down more than 1 floor before I could no longer walk at all.) I made my way to the freight elevator, and headed on down to the first floor and outside to where everyone else was waiting. I quickly found my boss to let her know that I was okay. Apparently they’d only evacuated floors 3-5, and not only was my sprinkler the only one on my floor to go off — it was the only one in the entire building to activate. Lucky, lucky me. Deb had gotten very worried when she heard the ambulance pull up, since we hadn’t talked for a while and I still wasn’t out of the building. She’d called our emergency liaison, to find out that someone on the 6th floor had a heart attack from all the excitement. 🙁

My boss and the admin for our area got me away from the crowd, and found me somewhere to sit down and rest for a while. A bit later and they came over to let me know I could go home for the rest of the day, and Deb said she’d call me when she knew more details on what was going on, and if I was going to need to come into work the next day. It was on the drive home that it really started to hit me, and I got shaky and upset over the whole ordeal. Once I got home, I changed out of my wet clothes and curled up in bed. I desperately wanted a shower, but I couldn’t take one because of the heart monitor. (Once I got home from turning that in later in the afternoon, though, I headed straight into the shower. hah.)

I ended up being trapped in my office for almost 30 minutes that morning. I do have some info now from the fire marshal as to what they believe happened, as well as info from building maintenance as to what they think really happened. But, all that is going to have to wait for another post because A) this one is getting too long already and B) it’s time for me to get ready to head out to my cardiologist appointment. heh.

But, as promised, pictures behind the cut! Just remember these were taken on my cell phone, so they aren’t the best. Continue reading “Black water keeps rollin’ on past”

Heal me, wake me from this day

I’ve been flipping back and forth on which I should post next. Both posts I’m planning on writing have a little bit that ties into the other one. So, either way, the first post is going to have a bit that’s going to create a “huh? what? when did that happen?” type thing in it. I should probably stop over-thinking it and just start writing and see which one comes out first, huh?

Or.. or I could just pick up from the last post — coming home from Toronto. My seat on the flight home was at the back of the plane — only about 4 rows from the very back and I had the entire row to myself. So, I was one of the first people on the plane, after those in first class. I tossed my backpack in the overhead bin, then moved into my row since there were people coming up behind me who wanted to pass me. I kept scooting all the way in the row, and turned to sit in my seat. (I try to always get the window seat.) As I turned to sit, my left leg didn’t move right and the knee turned funny and it hurt like Hades. I managed to get into my seat, and I sat there for a while, practically in tears from the throbbing pain. I wanted desperately to cry, but there was no way I was going to let myself cry on an airplane full of people. So, I managed to grin and bear it, and like I said in the prior post, I just played Sudoku the entire way home, listening to my iPod, trying to keep my brain too busy to think about the ouch.

When we landed, I was very glad that I was at the back of the plane. I just stayed seated as I let everyone around me go ahead and get off the plane. I think I was the second to last person off the plane, as I limped my way down the aisle and out to the baggage claim. Mom was picking me up from the airport, and before I left Canada, she had let me know that I was going to have to drive us home, because she wasn’t feeling well. Once I got into baggage claim here in Dallas, ma got my luggage for me, then we headed to the car. After we loaded in my luggage, she started to get in the driver’s seat. I said, “I thought I was supposed to be driving home?” and she responded with “You were, but you’re not exactly in any condition to drive, are you?” Apparently my limping was bad enough that she didn’t think I could manage to drive home.

I had thought that the bulk of my knee pain was from the temperature change (and likely a large portion was), and figured my knees would get better within a few days of getting home. They didn’t. The way my knees were hurting felt different too, not my normal type of arthritic pain. In addition to hurting when I walked, my knees (especially the left one) were hurting when I was sitting still, and even when I was laying down in bed at night. I have a very difficult time getting to sleep at night. Skipping forwards a few days — by Thursday I was beyond miserable with the pain. I finally decided I really needed to call my orthopedist for an appointment.

I went to see him on Friday morning. At first, he didn’t seem to be that concerned about my knees. But once I was on the exam table and had to straighten my left leg so he could measure range of motion, he was instantly concerned. I have always been able to straighten both legs completely. In fact, I thought it was straight during the exam on Friday, only to find out the knee/leg wasn’t fully extended at all. There was also swelling along the back of the knee that concerned him as well. After the knee exam, we started talking about options. He said that he didn’t think a steroid shot would help this time, and I had to agree with him. He also thought there was a possibility that I have torn the meniscus in my left knee. So — I go in tomorrow to have an MRI on both knees, to find out exactly what’s going on. I have a follow up appointment on the 12th to get my diagnosis, and to discuss options.

Now, to back track a few days, to the beginning of last week. I had my yearly physical with my doc on the 30th. During the exam, she noticed a few irregular beats when she was listening to my heart. She listened a while longer to see if maybe she’d just timed it to when I had a “normal” irregular beat, or to see if it was something more. She didn’t like what she heard as she kept listening, and was also concerned that I wasn’t aware of these beats. So, after the rest of my physical was done, she sent me to the main hospital to get a holter monitor. I had to wear the monitor for the next 24 hours, to record my heart beats. Let me tell you — those damn electrical pads itched like crazy!!! I turned it in to them in the evening on Halloween, then it was time to wait for the results.

After I got back from the knee doc on Friday, my regular doc called me with the results from the holter monitor. During the 24 hours I was monitored, I had 14,601 irregular heart beats. That is way too many. Based on the results, she diagnosed me with something called PVC — Premature Ventricular Contractions. Basically, my heart contracts too soon, and then skips a beat, then beats even harder. If I have too many of these irregular beats in a row, I could pass out, or worse. She referred me to a cardiologist, so I can get an EKG, heart ultrasound, and possibly stress test, to figure out how bad this is and what we can do to get it under control. She also gave me a prescription for a beta blocker to take.

So, tomorrow is going to be one very busy day for me. Work in the morning, then I go to the cardiologist at 2pm, and then to the MRI center at 5:15. If the MRI on my knees does determine a meniscal tear in my left knee, and if surgery is necessary, I have to wait. I cannot have any kind of surgery until we get my heart under control, since the anesthesia could be dangerous for me. Hopefully all of this is nothing serious and it can be fixed pretty easily, though.

I think post #3 is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I’m too sleepy to write more now. heh.