4mylife

Hello All -

To those of you who have taken the time to read my blogs so far, thanks for your time and support.  Today’s post will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.

As stated in my previous post, I had triple bypass surgery on December 30th.   11 days later on January 10th I was awaken at 4:ooam with chest pain very similar to that before my bypass.  I tried not to panick.  I took a couple of nitro - it went away - came back 15 minutes later.  Nitro made it go away again.  It did not come back.  Saw my surgeon later that day to get staples out from surgery.  Wanted me to see my cardiologist.  Appt. scheduled for the next Tueday, Jan. 15th.  No more pain.  Cancelled appt.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Jan. 17th normal day.  Eating small, healthy meals, walking out to get newspaper and doing a little here and there.  Went out to get mail.  Not there.  Mail came 10 minutes later.  Walking back to house I noticed I was out of breath.  By the time I got into the house, I was doubled over with excruciating chest pain, sweating, left arm felt like it was going to explode.  Called 911.  Took 20 minutes for ambulance to arrive (live in the country).  911 operator wanted me to stay on until they got there.  After 10 minutes I was throwing up and told him I could no longer speak and throw up at the same time.  Told him I was dying and to please ask EMS to hurry.  Arrived at the ER of hospital where I had my bypass.  EKG looked slightly abnormal.  Blood tests revealed my heart enzymes were positive and climbing.  18 days after triple bypass surgery, I was now having a heart attack.

Because of recent surgery and the fact that I was stable, I was placed in cardiac ICU until next morning.  Heart cath. revealed I had a blood clot in one of the bypass grafts.  They said it was a coincidence it had occurred there and so soon after surgery.  Said anyone can get a blood clot at any time anywhere in their body.  I had been giving blot busting drugs all night and the clot was then completely disolved in the cath. lab and a stent was placed in my bypass graft to make it less favorable to a clot in the future.

I asked them if that 1/2 cup of sherbert I allowed myself as a treat could have caused my heart attack.  They said no.  I was lucky.  It was a mild heart attack with minimal damage to my heart.  Still, to say this has blown my mind is to put it mildly.  I spent 9 out of 18 days in cardiac ICU and had triple bypass and a heart attack in that time span.  Mentally, it will take some time to deal with all this.  I am calling cardiac rehab tomorrow as they were already supposed to have started working with me after my bypass.  I have developed an EXTREME fear of food now.  I have to force myself to eat because I have to in order to heal from all of this. 

If I don’t get the message after all this and change my lifestyle, I am the biggest fool walking the earth.  I know I will do it this time.  I joined this site with the screen name 4mylife never knowing how in a few short months that would be more true than I could ever have imagined.   Wishing us all success in this journey to get healthy and get fit.

Dianna