Surviving The Hospital

about worrying. On Thursday morning, got up, did my yoga, had my breakfast with ember oatmeal fruit tea, you know, prepared the show, did all that, walked to the park or actually drove my motorcycle to the park, got off the bike started walking around the park. Right about it the half mile mark, Ember comes up and claws up my right leg. Now that's her trigger because she's a service dog, and I thought, what like, I'm not an aphib And then all of a sudden, the park started

spinning and I grabbed the trash can. I was on the phone with my friend David Ethridge, and I said, David, something is very wrong, and he said nine one one wrong and I said yes, So I switch over to an empty line and I call nine one one and all I could do at that moment was lay down in the park. So there I lay with Ember on my lap, and I take an Apple watch EKG, and I wish I could show it to you because it

was the most terrific EKG I've ever seen. My heart was beating at one hundred and ninety one beats a minute. If you get above two hundred, very real chance it'll stop. And it couldn't tell me if I was in a fib because it was above one hundred and fifty beats a minute. The watch will only detect aphib up to one hundred and fifty beats a minute. So I'm lying there on the ground in the park, not knowing if this is a heart attack. I was a little short

of breath because of the racing of the heart. No pain, no chest pain, no arm pain, and it just didn't feel like aphib But there I lay, really wondering is this it? I mean truly, I'm lying in the park alone. Ember is on top of me. My heart is going almost two hundred beats a minute, and I was just I just I just thought, well, this might be the last place you see on Earth. So the ambulance and

fire trucks arrive. They take my poltse on the ground and immediately swoop me onto the gurney and Ember and David is in my ear on my AirPod. He's calling Steve, telling Steve that he's got to get to Spring Valley Hospital for Ember and me. And so they put me in the back of the ambulance. Like on my TV shows, you never really realize how scary the back of an ambulance is. You can watch it a billion times on TV, but you never really notice until you're in it. So

there I am. They're suddenly up lifting up my shirt and putting ekg leads all over my body. They're getting venus access, they're doing it all and then, of course, once they get me situated, they try to have me do these exercises that can sometimes slow down your heart. My heart says, f you, and so it's still beating at eighty beats a minute. They take off lights and

sirens Code three. They tell me they're gonna give me some medicine to slow down my heart, but first they have to put on the pads to shock my heart in case the medicine they give me stops my heart. That's a lot to take in while you're in the back of an ambulance. Okay, they give me the shot. It doesn't work at all, and I'm like, guys, I really don't want to die today. I really don't so could And I said this, So I'm also could we you know what's gonna happen here? Am I having a

heart attack? So they were going to give me a second dose of this drug, but they said, because it's the second dose, that it really could stop my heart. But don't worry. They've got the shock pads on me. And I looked at him and I said, so you're gonna give me a shot? That could kill me, and he goes, well, yes, but we have great results starting the heart. That's not comforting. We're then at the hospital, so he says, well, I'll hold this and the hospital

has better drugs. They get me an Ember in the er and right into a room and suddenly there's thirty people in the room and Ember is there on my lap. You know, she's a service dog. She's allowed. She's there on my lap. Stephen not gotten there yet. And I was terrified. Terrified He because your heart beating that fast can make you terrified, and b because I ain't ready to go. And my troponin levels were very high. They

were critical. That could mean a heart attack. Now no one's told me I had a heart attack, but those levels being that high could mean that I had a heart attack. Although also a fib with it being that high can release traponin. So but I mine were ninety eight, which you're not supposed to have any and that signifies it could be hard damage. So that's not looking good. They give me a shot. My heart goes from one eighty to one thirty. They're happy about that. Still out

of rhythm. Two beats, one beat, three beat, four beats, Steve arrives. They more doctors come and see me, and they've decided I'm in a fib with URVR, that's what they called it. They still can't get it to drop below one thirty, so they're going to admit me to the ICU. I hear that, and now I'm really terrified. Like the ICU, but they said because of the amount of medication I was on, it had to be in the ICU. They didn't want to let ember in the ICU.

But then Emberg got a vouching from the fourth floor where I was with the meningitis. The nurses there said, oh no, she's wonderful. So the ICU made an exception, so they transfer me up. They don't feed me all day Thursday because a vegan diet for this hospital is like I'm from Mars. All hospitals should have plant based diets, FYI, and this one does. They just couldn't get their act together. So the ice you is a busy place and it's scary, and there's nurses coming in at all hours, and my

heart just would not convert. It's called convert. So now they're talking about shocking me in forty eight hours. They're talking They put me on heprin, a blood thinner. They put me on this horrible drug called amiodorone, which the side effects are horrific. They put me on dijocts and they're they're throwing everything at my heart. What if my heart say, f you stays above one ten? Beating weirdly? The ICU nurses poked me so many times and they missed half the time and then had to call for

the bottomists. That was really annoying. The blood pressure cuff every fifth ten minutes. No sleep at all. You can't sleep with the blood pressure cough every fifteen minutes and people coming in every two hours. So how did this all resolve? How did it all turn out? And what did I learn? Where to tell you about that? We're going to talk about people in state. We're going to talk about composting. If we have to talk, don't go anywhere right back, hopefully she'll be standing here. Don't go

anywhere there. Oh good.

be without her. And literally, when she's without me, she howls, she cries. If they take her out to poor Pee, she does her business and then be line's right back. She knows the hospital floor layout, the e R or the ic You nurses loved her, so that didn't turn into a problem. But having someone there to take her out, Oh, my friend Sherry from the park, God bless her. She came over Heath my savior took my motorcycle from the park and brought it to his house, came and walked

Ember on Friday morning at six am. Oh, just these these angels in human form. And so Friday morning, after no sleep, no food, now I'm on a NPO because they say, oh, we're going to shock your heart. Then another cardiologist comes in and says, no, we're not. We're gonna try meds and send you home. So that was encouraging. But then they don't have any orders for it. So

we In my brain a lot was going on. Okay, in my brain, I realized that all the medical anxiety I've had all my life is basicly useless because I never worried about aphib sending me to the ICU. Ever, it never has. It's never been that bad. When it comes on, I'll take two pills. It'll go away in an hour or two, and that's that. So I was googling every drug they wanted to give me, and I refused several. I'm like, I'm not taking that, there's horrible

side effects. Well you need it, I'm like, find another drug. My blood pressure was one hundred over sixty and they wanted to give me a blood pressure pill. I said, if it's any lower, I'd be dead well, and you know what they kept saying to that, Well, you're in the ICU, so if anything happens, it's okay. I go not to me. It's not okay, you know, so we can manage it. Yeah, no, let's just not cause it so various doctors whatever. Then finally Friday morning comes and

they say we're not doing it. So I called down and cuss out the dietician and they get me a vegan tray up for breakfast right away. My heart is not converted, it's still in a fib and still above one hundred. At night it went down to fifty because of these drugs they gave me. When the drugs were off, it went right back up. It was not encouraging. I made a joke. I was in pain. I made a joke from airplane. The nurse said, how are you? And I said, well, I picked a bad week to quit heroin.

She put in my chart I was reformed heroin addict. I have to call today and get that taken out of my chart. She took my joke seriously, and so Sean stayed the night and or well, Friday day he got here. No one stayed the night Thursday, night. I was alone and afraid, hugging Ember, not knowing if I was going to see the sunrise. And I realized so much about my life that I can't tell you all

on the show. I can't explain to you everything that I realized about what a great life I have, about while it's not the career that I had or maybe we'll have in the future, there's nothing wrong with a show that makes you, you know, nine hundred bucks a month. There's nothing wrong with that that. There's nothing wrong with my life right now. There's a lot wrong with the world, and I don't want to be in Vegas and all of that, but that's just superficial at its core. There's

nothing wrong with my life. And the same with medical anxiety. Stress can be an aphim trigger. I know what triggered my aphib and you all are going to think I'm crazy. Tuesday, I had a brain MRI which came back unremarkable for a man of my age. I think my brain's remarkable, but whatever, And they did this injection of this doterim contrast in after market reports. According to the Dotorim website, in after market reports, there have been cardiac side effects

of arrhythmias, superventricular tachycardia or bracketcardia. I had SVT and then aphib two days forty eight hours after I got this injection. I'm the same guy that took the shingle shot and got shinkles. So you can't tell me that it wasn't that. Because I've gone without aphib for two years and then two days after I get this contrast that in aftermarket reports has caused APHIB, I go into the worst bout of it I've ever had. So I realized my life, I'm bad. Sometimes I let the haters

get to me from TikTok mostly. And I also realized that my medical anxiety does not serve me because anxiety through the roof can trigger a fib or make it worse. It can also trigger the benign muscle fisticulations. So I vow that Thursday night, in bed with Ember in the ICU, I vow to try to stop the medical anxiety, to kill it. I also watched the finale of The Pit. How weird I'm in an ICU on my iPad watching the season finale of a show about an ear. That's

such a meta moment. Really so Friday, this one gorgeous cardiologist that no one on the floor knew who he was. We wondered if he was a rando off the street. Comes in and says, I'm gonna try dijoxin because sometimes that helps you convert. So they give me dijoxin me and we don't think anything of it because it hasn't converted. Finally, at two in the afternoon, I look up at the monitor and my heart rates fifty five and in normal

sinus rhythm. I cried. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was going to leave there with aphib It stayed in rhythm for four hours. So they determined to let me go home with medicines, and they over medicated me. They want me to go on Eloquist, they want me to go on amiotoone, and they want me to go on a metropolol, which lowers your heart rate, and they want me to take fifty milligrams a day. My resting heart rate is fifty five. If I take that much metropolol,

I may die. So I haven't taken any of the medications until I talked to my cardiologists later today or tomorrow. My heart has maintained normal rhythm. It has not thrown any PVCs and I'm here with you. But I learned so much. First of all, I know why Nevada's number forty ninth in healthcare and they're trying to be fifty.

My care was, you know, it was great to have access to it, and I'm so grateful that they were there, but not feeding me, not knowing who the doctors were that were treating me, and the ICU they had no idea who the two doctors were. I had to call my pharmacy and get the name of the prescribing doctor of the meds so they could then page her to find out what her orders were. I mean, no communication. The nurses are nice, but they couldn't hit a vein

to save their lives and that hurt. No sleep because they got to take blood at four so doctors can have it at six. It was an ordeal, but I've come out of it changed forever, changed, I hope for the better. I did obsess a little yesterday about the whole als thing. Oh and they called me from Cedars to say they could see me today, and I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna make that. You just leave me on the cancel list. But yesterday my right left

calf where it all started, cramped up. And I read that benign festiculations can do that, but of course for me, it was the ultimate symbol of als. And so yesterday and when I started going down that path, I said, uh, huh, you ain't doing this again. Nope, I said. I tried to stop myself. I learned that I love you all that I love being with you every day. I love our communication. I love talking to you. I don't care how big the podcast is. It doesn't matter if five

of you are listening. I love you. I learned I've missed you. Third, I wanted you with me. I really did. Hey Correll here, and I'd like to take a moment to thank all the patrons at Patreon. Your support means the absolute world to me and the show. If you'd like to show your support for the crazy endeavors of the Corel Cast, then please go to patreon dot com

forward slash Really Corell. That's patreon dot com forward slash really Corell, and please help get those numbers up by subscribing to the YouTube channel YouTube dot com Forward slash Really Corell. There's so much great free content there it's like having a network on your TV, phone or tablet. All social media is really corel including threads and Instagram. And don't forget the website that's had it all all along, Really Correl dot com. Without your support, the show simply

doesn't work. So please listen on all streaming services, watch and subscribe on YouTube, and so support the show through Patreon at Patreon dot com. Forward slash, Really Correl, Thanks for almost thirty years of support for the loudest, craziest, most unhinged gay guy and his little dog. And let's keep the party going as long as we can. So all of this was very traumatic and I really should take a few days off and just do nothing, but

that's not in my nature. Questions from the YouTube chat room YouTube dot com forward slash Really Carrell, and a couple comments from TikTok at really Carrell. James says, wasn't the contrast cleared for two days? Actually? Data lineum based contrast stays in your body for decades. It is a heavy metal wrapped and shelated, so it shouldn't escape. But it says the side effects can be anywhere from when they inject you to a hour or two later to

up to a couple days later. I fully believe it was the contrast, because I haven't gone into a fib like that ever, and so I fully believe that I am now very sensitive after having a reaction to that vaccine, very sensitive. And when I came home very stressed. I mean, that's stressed. Thirty six hours of your heart beating above It's like being on a treadmill for thirty six hours.

My body was stressed and my muscles were all twitching, and I was convinced it's because I have als, and really, honestly, I think it's it was because, oh damn, the TikTok video went out. Hold on, hold on, it's not to go with that audio. I really believe it was because of the contrast. Let's see what else. In the chat room, I had a lot of emotions. I love my life, I love my dog. I do not love Las Vegas.

I realized that if I had the money to move back to Long Beach, I would, but I don't love Vegas. I don't love the heat, and I have built a community here. Heath and Sherry, they were beyond helpful, but still I don't love it here. I haven't found my tribe. I don't have enough in my inner circle. The fact that I was alone Thursday night and there was nobody to be with me. No, I need to find a community. So that'll be making a change of location here, hopefully

in the next year. I also realized that my life ain't crap. I have food, I have a roof over my head at the moment, I have an income, and so things aren't as bad as I like to paint them. And as for medical anxiety, it serves me not like it doesn't help a thing. And I have it because I want to control what's gonna happen to my body. Well I just learned you can't control it. You can't. Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. You're gonna get the

diseases you're gonna get. You can't worry about them because there's over fifteen thousand conditions you could get, and you're going to No one gets out of this alive, and no one stays completely healthy until they die. Okay, they can die healthy, meaning they die as healthy as a person can be, but no one dies healthy completely. Something was going to kill you. I learned a lot and over the Next week we'll be talking about some more of my life lessons. But let's talk about billionaires and

millionaires in space. Katy Perry and Gail King went up today, Oprah did not. And at first I thought, three hundred thousand dollars a seat six people, So that's one point eight million dollars that they get for this. I'm sure it cost them half a million or more, maybe even a million, to send them up and down. And I thought, what a waste of money these rich people could give me three hundred thousand dollars, They could give the homeless

in their community three hundred thousand dollars. That's what I at first thought. But the one thing, just like my ICU, has changed me, when they step out of that blue whatever it's called, they're changed. I saw every interview this morning.

They are profoundly changed when they see this little blue dot, this small little planet below them, and how fragile and how there are no real boundaries and there are no real lines that humans draw, that we are just one planet, all in this together, and what happens to this person over here at this side of the blue dot affects what happens over here, and that there's no reason to be as vitriolic and divided as we are and have been.

So they come down profoundly changed. And I thought to myself, well, then we need the rich to be profoundly changed. We need the rich to care about the planet. We need the rich to care about vitriol and the attitude of difference. We need the people that can actually change things, the rich to be changed and not be so selfish, and

not be so mass consumption. And so if this experience changes the richest among us, to make them more in tune with the planet, the people on it themselves, and what they do with their money, then it's worth it. At first, I thought, that's a ridiculous waste of money. Millionaires in space. What the hell? Now I realize that they're changed, just like I'm changed from the ICU. They're changed, and that change is worth. It's worth the conspicuous consumption.

So Katie Perry, who's saying, what a wonderful world while she was floating in space, all of them came back changed, And I say, yes, let's change the rich. Every politician should have to go up, Garbagew met in Yahoo Trump. They should all have to go up and look down on this planet. Maybe they'd come back changed too. All right, Tomorrow we're going to show you how you can help save the planet by composting at home. I got a new device. I want to share it with you. That'll

be tomorrow. Also tomorrow, we'll talk about this Netflix documentary called Kid Fluencers. You should go watch it. I was not aware this phenomenon was happening. I saw it over the weekend and I'm gobsmacked. So we're gonna talk about is letting your kid become a kid fluenzer a form of child abuse? Because I believe it is. I truly believe it is. After watching this documentary. You got a kid that's pulling in six figures a month from and

that's how much they make from their YouTube channel. That's child abuse. You're pimping out that child and they're they're not. They're doing harmful things. So we're gonna talk all about that. So watch it today on Netflix called Kid Fluencers. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Also tomorrow we'll review the Jemmy G E M E versus The Loamy. We'll talk about that and not a lot more medical talk on the

show because I'm letting my medical anxiety go. It'll still come in and I'll still have to, you know, fight it. But I'm gonna fight it because even if I had ALS, worrying about it every day ain't really going to matter. And it wasn't ALS that sent me to the hospital. It was a fib still at a just different letters behind it. So it's time that I realize I'm happy. That's profound in our times today, it's hard to realize if you might be happy. I'm happy. I'm happy with Ember.

I have loving friends, I have people that would drive from Long Beach to help me. I have people here in Vegas. It'll go get my bike and come walk my dog. I am one of the luckiest people alive, and I'm lucky to have made it out of that. I may have had a heart attack. We'll find out this week if I had my first heart attack. God knows I worked for it, but we'll see. But they did say my diet of being a vegan, even though they couldn't feed me, and my exercise routine helped everything

that happened in the hospital. They said someone my age with that condition the way it was iffy fair. But I do I am Parrel. Damn it, Phil, be who you want to be, so long he doesn't hurt anybody. I love everyone. Thank you for being by people, for being by tribe. Thank you.