I got home Sunday afternoon from an 11 mile,pretty chilly bike ride.
I had severe pain between my shoulders in the middle of my back.
It got worse as I stood up and walked around.
My throat hurt.
We called 911 and got the bumpy ambo-ride to Greater Baltimore Medical Center. They did an EKG and it looked normal. When I got there they drew blood and did more ekg's. As the hours passed my results kept getting worse.
They admitted me and scheduled me for a stress test early Monday morning.
As late night,early morning grew near, doctors told me the I could not take the stress test because I would need a cardiac catheterization to find out directly what was going on. This was serious and I was scared shipless.
I was ambulanced to John Hopkin's Hospital in Baltimore city.
This is one of the best hospitals in the nation. They scheduled me for the cardiac cat. for that afternoon. My test results blood/ekg's got progressively worse as I waited. I was given Nitroglcerin 3 times which helped a lot with the chest pains.
The catheterization was kinda cool. I was awake in a twilight sort of mellow buzz condition. They fed little "tubes" in through the artery in my WRIST.
As the got their probes closer to my blockages I could feel more pain.
I remember hearing the cardiologist saying "Ok inflate the balloon. WOW that really hurt for a few moments until he said"deflate"
In an instant my pain was gone. For close to 2 hours they worked on me,
fishing around my entire plumbing system looking for more blockages.
They opened 2 arteries in my heart that were more than 95 percent blocked.
I spent the next afternoon getting blood thinners and who knows what else being pumped into me through IV tubes. I felt good again. I did have one panic attack which made my heart race to about 132 beats per minute, and my blood pressure did get pretty low at one point. Down to 85 over 50.
I guess it's all worse when you can see monitors showing every heart beat, blood pressure reading, pulse, respiration etc. You can freak yourself out.
Anybody that knows me already understands how easily I panic on a good day.
As time went on the doc's said everything was looking good for me to go home. I will be taking a bunch of different medications now for some time.
I've been a heavy cigarette smoker for 32 years, and have now quit....
Either quit or die. The chemicals in cigarette smoke can make the stents
dissentegrate.
This sure won't be easy for me, but I feel better and really don't want to leave my wife and 2 teenage boys behind.
If you smoke quit.....I know you've heard it before..
If you have pains, like mine that didn't resemble classic signs of a heart attack go get looked at immediately. It can save your life..
I'm glad to be back, and as an "older" guy to you others like me..
Please take care of yourself and never take tomorrow for granted..
TiM
I had severe pain between my shoulders in the middle of my back.
It got worse as I stood up and walked around.
My throat hurt.
We called 911 and got the bumpy ambo-ride to Greater Baltimore Medical Center. They did an EKG and it looked normal. When I got there they drew blood and did more ekg's. As the hours passed my results kept getting worse.
They admitted me and scheduled me for a stress test early Monday morning.
As late night,early morning grew near, doctors told me the I could not take the stress test because I would need a cardiac catheterization to find out directly what was going on. This was serious and I was scared shipless.
I was ambulanced to John Hopkin's Hospital in Baltimore city.
This is one of the best hospitals in the nation. They scheduled me for the cardiac cat. for that afternoon. My test results blood/ekg's got progressively worse as I waited. I was given Nitroglcerin 3 times which helped a lot with the chest pains.
The catheterization was kinda cool. I was awake in a twilight sort of mellow buzz condition. They fed little "tubes" in through the artery in my WRIST.
As the got their probes closer to my blockages I could feel more pain.
I remember hearing the cardiologist saying "Ok inflate the balloon. WOW that really hurt for a few moments until he said"deflate"
In an instant my pain was gone. For close to 2 hours they worked on me,
fishing around my entire plumbing system looking for more blockages.
They opened 2 arteries in my heart that were more than 95 percent blocked.
I spent the next afternoon getting blood thinners and who knows what else being pumped into me through IV tubes. I felt good again. I did have one panic attack which made my heart race to about 132 beats per minute, and my blood pressure did get pretty low at one point. Down to 85 over 50.
I guess it's all worse when you can see monitors showing every heart beat, blood pressure reading, pulse, respiration etc. You can freak yourself out.
Anybody that knows me already understands how easily I panic on a good day.
As time went on the doc's said everything was looking good for me to go home. I will be taking a bunch of different medications now for some time.
I've been a heavy cigarette smoker for 32 years, and have now quit....
Either quit or die. The chemicals in cigarette smoke can make the stents
dissentegrate.
This sure won't be easy for me, but I feel better and really don't want to leave my wife and 2 teenage boys behind.
If you smoke quit.....I know you've heard it before..
If you have pains, like mine that didn't resemble classic signs of a heart attack go get looked at immediately. It can save your life..
I'm glad to be back, and as an "older" guy to you others like me..
Please take care of yourself and never take tomorrow for granted..
TiM