DEB’S BAD TUESDAY – HEART ATTACK!

While you have been reading my posts which I had previously scheduled, I’ve spent 2 ½ days in the local hospitals with a minor heart attack (and had my first – and hopefully last! – ambulance ride).

The only reason I’m telling you this is so that the women reading this will realize that our symptoms can be very different from a man’s.

On Monday evening around 11:15, just as the local news was ending, my right bicep began to hurt. (Notice I said RIGHT bicep – i.e. not the heart side). I thought I had pulled a muscle. Later that night my upper back started to hurt and between my shoulder blades. Then I felt some chest pressure. Forget that “it felt like an elephant on my chest.” It was more like a 16 pound cat – I know this for a fact since I used to have a 16 pound cat that would sometimes sleep on my chest and wake me because I could not breathe! Then I had some slight pressure on my right neck. This is why I didn’t think it could be a heart attack – everything was on the wrong side of the body. So then I thought I was having an anxiety attack and the more I thought about it the more anxious I became! The symptoms alleviated, returned, changed pattern, etc.

At some point I decided it could be a heart attack so I made my peace and decided that if I was alive in the morning I would have my husband take me to the doctor.

Tuesday morning when he came in from moving the cows I was dressed and ready to go – called the doctor and we went there first. He assessed that I was having (or had already had) a heart attack and my husband drove me to the hospital. Only one problem – this is a local hospital and all they did was stabilize me – had we thought it out better we could have gone straight to Cincinnati to a cardiac care unit. Oh well . . .

After spending Tuesday there they transported me at 5 a.m. to Mercy Fairfield and I had a cardiac catheterization. The doctor said it was a minor attack in a minor artery and no point in putting in a stent – it is only about a 2% blockage.

However, I’m now on 3 medications for blood pressure, cholesterol and heart (thankfully CHEAP!) and a baby aspirin each day – I chose chewable cherry!

I did not know that I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure - that has always been low. Apparently this has been building for a while.

So, hopefully by following a strict diet plan and taking my medication I’ll be back to my usual self in no time. In the meantime, all I want to do is sleep!