Pericarditis: Surprisingly, not as fun as you would expect.

A few weeks ago, back at the beginning of November, I awoke in the middle of the night with a strange chest pain, difficulty breathing, and a sensation of nausea, fainting, dizziness, and tingling in the hands and feet. That and the inability to stand up. Now, I know what you're thinking: "where can I sign up?" But trust me, it wasn't nearly as pleasant as it sounds. After about a half-hour of feeling like I was going to die, the sensation gradually eased and I was able to sleep again. When the same sensation began to recur the next evening, I wasted no time in getting myself to the nearest hospital, which was fortunately next door.

After a couple of tests, I was informed that I would be staying in the hospital for observation and that, "it looks like you had a heart attack."

"Um, no, I'm pretty sure I didn't."

"No, really, you did!"

"Look, I know I'm not a doctor, but no, I definitely didn't have a heart attack."

"Well, these tests show that you did."

"Is there anything else that could cause the same results in those tests?"

As it turns out, there was, and further examination showed that I had instead had a bout of pericarditis. Not something fun, by any means, but about a thousand times better than having a heart attack. (I planned to post something on this earlier, but I wanted to get a confirmed diagnosis first.)

Google Earth Rules Our World

If any Kansas City dwellers missed the latest Google Earth update, check it out right away! Turn on the 3-D Buildings layer. It's slow to load, but patience pays off, because they have done just about everything in photo-realistic 3-D. No, not the entire city out to its furthest limits, but as far as I can tell everything between the Plaza and Downtown is in there, down to individual single-family houses. It is unbelievable. They even have cranes on the construction sites. It's quite possible that Google Earth is now more real than the real Earth. Or something like that.

Anyway, enjoy that and I'll explain about my adventures in the hospital in the next post.