Its been months since my VA assisted Near Death Experience and I finally decided to post about it. I was in Big Spring for my monthly phlebotomy (Having blood removed) and something went terribly wrong! The blood is drawn in to a 1000 CC jar under deep vacuum and the nurse didn't get the needle in to my vein good which allowed the needle to suck air from the outside of my arm as well as blood from the vein, but also allowed a lot of air bubbles to enter my blood stream. If you recall the sound of sucking on a straw in a nearly empty drink well I actually felt that in my arm.
In no time at all my legs went numb and I had little control over my limbs and was one of the worst feelings I'd ever felt. The young nurse flipped out and rather than turning the flow off ran to the treatment room door yelling why are all the bubbles in the blood? In short order the treatment room filled with nurses and doctors and I had one male nurse lift me in to sitting position and held me upright from one side while another one was on the other side holding me upright and a doctor in front of me making sure I didn't keel over forward into the floor. The nurse that had been doing the procedure was standing in the corner of the room crying and everyone had a concerned look on their faces. I actually expected to die at any minute and evidently the doctors and nurses expected the same.
What did they do? Well they actually called 911 from the VA hospital and soon an ambulance arrived and transported me to the Scenic Mountain medical center (A civilian hospital). By that time I was pretty much a blubbering idiot and after several hours the grumpy old man in me started insisting that they discharge me (which wasn't a good thing) I could barely control my legs to crab walk with my cane and my arms didn't work much better either. The VA sent a woman to pick me up and on the 60 mile drive home I couldn't have driven any worse than if I'd chugged a gallon of whiskey. I would try to keep the car straight, but my left arm tried to steer one way and my right one the other way.
I finally made it to my sister's house and couldn't figure out how to get out of the car and it took her and my brother in law to help me in the house. For several days after that the only way I could walk was a crab walk with the cane and something like a wall to hold on to. Getting dressed and undressed was a total challenge because I couldn't even remember how to do that. Fortunately after a few days most of the side effects had worn off.
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