Holy Orange Bottles

chapter one.

Gracie Jennings ~

"In through your nose

Out through your mouth,"

Those were the thoughts I found myself repeating, over and over again. Had my mind been slightly more clear, I would have been mortified at the notion of anyone else hearing my internal dialogue. Unfortunately, though, there was no room left in my head for such minor issues at this time.

In the pale, artificial light of the Emergency Room, two of my fingers were super glued to the spot where my jawline and neck met, right on my jugular vein. I found myself routinely glancing down at my Apple watch, silently begging for the spiking number to fall. It had maxed out on 210 beats per minute over an hour ago and showed no signs of slowing down.

Like all other parts of my disease, an emergency room visit was an incredible inconvenience. When I first became sick, my mom and I would attempt to only go to the local urgent care, however, after getting turned away every time, we learned our attempts were futile. I had since begun college, which meant this was my first trip to the ER by myself.

"Gracie Jennings?" the nurse asked, glancing at the other families before his eyes finally settled on me. I calmly raised myself from my previous position. I felt my legs stiffen as they adjusted to support my medium-sized frame. Any time that I went into Supraventricular Tachycardia, my heart would only supply oxygen-rich blood to my brain and other vital organs. This, of course, left me barely able to move and made me feel much less in control.

He led me through a small door on the opposite side of the waiting area. This was the triage room, where nurses checked your vitals and symptoms to figure out who needed to be seen first. If it wasn't necessary that you immediately got a room, they would send you back into the waiting room until you became the most important person out there.

Knowing that they couldn't turn away a nineteen-year-old with such severe tachycardia, I gave a slightly abridged version of my story. I had been in this exact spot enough times to know precisely what to say to give nurses all the information they need without wasting time. His fingers quickly typed away at the keyboard as he gave me a knowing smile.

He had already placed the pulse-oximeter on my finger and the blood pressure cuff on my upper right arm. Having recently glanced away from my hand, the young brunette didn't notice when I, too, looked at the numbers on the monitor.

243 bpm
140/95

"Damn," I rolled my eyes and then shifted my eyes from the screen, not able to look at the steady numbers any longer. I had been having non-stop palpitations for the past few days. Each thump only made me more suspicious that my medication had ceased to work.

After quickly finishing his typing, the nurse calmly led me through another door into an actual room. He stepped out of the room, which allowed me to swiftly change into a scratchy hospital gown. In only a minute or two, he came back into the room and pulled the doctor's stool to the other side of the hospital bed. I was already laying down with my eyes closed and my head rested against the firm mattress. It was in no way comfortable, but it supported my head when my neck failed at its job.

I could barely hear the crinkling of paper and plastic over the pounding in my head as he ripped open the needle and vials he would soon need to collect blood and administer the iv.

"You're just gonna feel a little pinch. It'll be over before you know it."

I felt myself laugh drily at his stereotypical warning. It was never 'just a pinch' and it always seemed to last forever. I braced myself for the pain I knew was right around the corner. At my previous hospital, I had been what medical staff called a 'frequent flyer,' however, they knew that I never came unless I knew it was absolutely necessary. Because of this, I was acutely aware of the fact that I was also a hard stick. They were never able to get an iv or blood draw with the first three sticks.

I went back to the breathing exercises I had been taught when I was a little girl as I felt the needle get stuck in the same place over and over again. He tried a different spot but every time he ended up with the same result. Finally, he looked up at me in confusion. "I don't get it, you have some of the best veins I've ever seen but I can't seem to get a flash." He paused, I could clearly see him prepping himself to tell a lighthearted joke, "I'll call another nurse in here, she'll make fun of me later for not being able to get your iv."

I smiled. It was short lived and more for him than me. Glancing back at the monitor, I saw my pulse had dropped to 227.

My new nurse said something, but my head was spinning too much to comprehend her words. She sat down on the stool and immediately went for my thumb. This was going to hurt like a bitch. After about a minute, she got enough blood for testing but it blew soon after. I could already see the blood pooling and knew the bruising would be less than attractive.

Jokingly muttering about me being stubborn she switches to my other arm. This time, the iv slides in flawlessly.

"You should have told me which arm was your good arm." She said, shaking her head. I smiled and let her know I wanted to let them get some good practice in on me.

Ever since my first memorable ER visit, I had become the one who tried to make everyone else laugh. I hated the idea that because my body had decided to 'malfunction', it affected the people around me.

"I see that you're an expert in living with SVT."I hadn't even noticed that the ECG cables had been attached to my chest while they were getting my IV. "Have you tried any of the maneuvers that have previously worked to reset your heart?" my second nurse asked, aware that I was fairly used to being in and out of the ER.

"Yes ma'am," I answered, out of breath. "I've tried all that I can think of; bearing down, blowing on my thumb, the fetal position, lying upside down, blowing on a syringe. None of them have worked." She nodded and rushed out of the room.

In just a few minutes, she was back with the attending doctor. In his left hand, he held a vial of what I could only assume was adenosine, aka hell, and in his right was a bag of saline. I had definitely been trying to avoid the terrible feeling that came with needing adenosine but, unfortunately for me, I had been completely unable to convert on my own.

I shut my eyes, hard, hoping that when I open them I'll be back in my room with my heart in normal rhythm. It's safe to say that did not work and I was still in the hospital room, barely closed in this stupid gown. Have you caught on to the fact that I absolutely despise living like this yet?

Watching the on-screen EKG closely, the doctor gently lifted my arm above my heart. On the count of three, he first pushed the adenosine, immediately followed by a saline flush.

The feeling of doom hit me instantly. I felt a squeezing feeling in my heart and then my whole body was in pain. It took everything in me to keep from grunting. I didn't think that I could take another round of that.

Of course, with my luck, I found that I could take another round of that. In fact, I ended up having to have three rounds of adenosine before my heart finally converted back to sinus tachycardia. I felt a headache coming on and saw my doctor hanging the bag of saline on my IV pole.

Stepping back he said, "I saw on your labs that you were slightly dehydrated, which makes sense with your suspected diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. You were in fact in SVT this afternoon. I saw on your chart that you had been prescribed 25 milligrams of Atenolol six months ago. Since then, it has been upped multiple times until you got to your current dose of 50 milligrams, twice daily. Have you missed any doses recently?"

"No, I have not. I take my medication every morning after I wake up and right before I go to sleep. I've also cut all caffeine out of my diet, even what's in food." I knew that he was getting ready to say something I just wasn't sure what it was yet.

"Ok," he sighs, "There were a few... special notes in your chart that I'll have to call your Electrophysiologist about. For now, I'll start this bag of saline to help you get some of your energy back and kick any dehydration in the butt."

With that, he turned on his heels and left me alone in my hospital room.

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21:18 on Sat, June 18, 2022