Looking for Zebras

I think my husband and I learned a valuable lesson the last few days. Don't go to the ER unless you are truely dying or injured! He called me at work yesterday morning and said he didn't feel right. He said he had broken out in a sweat and his fingers were numb and tingling and he was short of breath. He sounded very anxious on the phone, so I (being a nurse) became concerned. I left work and picked him up and we drove to the ER at Vanderbilt. Now, keep in mind Vanderbilt is an excellent place for sick folks and true emergencies, but apparently not for us. I must say, the doctors (two very young women) were very thorough. They checked him from head to toe for everything from a heart attack, possible stroke, pulmonary embolism, and dissecting aorta....all the right things for emergency room docs to do with a person presenting with his symptoms. But there was one small problem. They were looking for a zebra in a field full of horses. That means that they were overlooking the obvious. They were trying to treat what they saw on the monitor instead of treating the patient. I kept telling them it was a panic attack or severe anxiety, but I was ignored while Rob was scanned, stuck, and x-rayed. Several hours later, after being admitted to the MICU, an older attending physician came to see us. He was what my mother-in-law would call a "hand patter". He saw no medical reason to keep Rob overnight and said he was comfortable with the readings on the monitor because Rob was not symptomatic with a heart rate of 48. And so he ordered them to discharge him immediately. Today, I took Rob to see his PCP after receiving another panic stricken phone call. Dr Hill is great! He listened carefully to the symptoms presented and said, "this sounds like a panic attack"!!! BINGO!! That's what I tried to tell them the day before! Armed with a prescription for Xanax and Paxil, we happily left the office. Now, here we are several hours later, and no more anxiety (thanks to the xanax). And the lesson to be learned is: If you know that all you have is a plain old horse, don't let the doc look for a zebra. If he does, then find another doc......one with some good, old fashioned common sense.