We have a useless emergency room in our county (rural Texas town). There is no point going there. The nearest decent hospital is in Abilene - 75 miles away.
My husband says he feels like there is a balloon in his chest, sometimes cutting off his air supply. He's been getting excessively hot today. He has a heart history (currently his heart function is good), mild COPD, very mild apnea, and no new blockages as of january - we just went through a ton of tests - all negative. His knee needs replaced (35 year old partial replacement is giving him trouble) and he has a lot of pain in the hip on the same side. He has had 3 strokes, 2 nervous breakdowns, 9 heart attacks, 6 stents and 4 bypasses. He doesn't smoke or drink. I did some checking on the COPD and found out he should be eating smaller meals more often. He is often very fatigued with that hip and knee pain; he has a severe allergy to black mold and we almost lost him last fall. He's been doing well and had a great day until about 4pm - went down like a sack of rocks. There have been two breaks in his neck - I suspect he has a pinched nerve because he is always having undefined seizures - they are short and he quickly recovers but they look like a stroke. No one can ever tell us anything. His vitals are consistently good even when he is having a seizure though I caught him yesterday stop breathing for a SECOND or two when taking his blood pressure during an "episode". I've asked about a pacemaker - his cardiologist says he doesn't need one. But his blood pressure routinely drops low, pulse gets low sometimes. If he doesn't get his coffee he's in real trouble. Tonight he's feeling rough, especially since he did too much yesterday and tried to get around quite a bit today. He hates to sit around doing nothing, just trying to feel good. The immediate problem is this balloon-feeling in his chest and difficulty breathing. What should I do?