I’m going to need a day or two to get back into the swing of normal blogging, which for me is making fun of everything else. I thought I would relate what happened to me on Saturday and the days following, not only to get it down for my own personal historical needs, but to be able to tell people “go to my blog and read what happened.” This makes repeating the story less necessary, even thought that’s what I’ve been doing since Sunday.
I had no sign this was coming. I was home from the YMCA for about 30 minutes, after what I thought was a decent workout and bike ride to and from the facility. The return ride was into a tough headwind and I had to push pretty hard in low gear, which may have been what instigated the problem.
Kelly left to meet her mother, sister, aunt and cousin for a trip to the movies. I put a piece of leftover chicken in the microwave. I turned on the TV, and finding nothing decent on, I put on TVG, the horse racing network, to see what was running. Right about the time the pain first hit me, I remember seeing the fifth at Aqueduct won by a colt named Gina’s Star and thinking what a great hunch bet it would have been, since Kelly’s visiting aunt and cousin are both nicknamed Gina (damn thing paid $22.40 to win, too).
The next thing I knew, I felt a sudden, sharp and steady pain the center of my chest. I didn’t have the common symptoms of arm numbness or pain spreading away from the center; it seemed concentrated in one area. At first, I thought it was a pocket of gas from my stomach. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten much that morning and I tend to get a bit hypoglycemic due to my diabetes, especially if I go too long without eating. I tried to burp the gas away, but it wasn’t working. The pain became more intense, and I began to realize that I might be in serious trouble.
My first thought was to find some aspirin. I went though the kitchen cabinet in vain, then went to my bathroom to look in my travel kit. I tried to stoop down to get the kit from the vanity under the sink and realized I wasn’t going to be able to stand and bend over. I sat down and searched in vain. I was sweating very hard, although my breathing seemed okay, but labored. I went back to the family room to get my cell phone to call Kel.
She didn’t answer the first time, which didn’t surprise me because the coverage near her mother’s house isn’t very reliable. I waited a moment, tried again and got her. “I need you to come home. I’m having really bad chest pains.” She told me she was on the way and hung up. A few second later, the cell rang again. “Did you call 911 yet?” Kel asked. “Should I call them?” I told her I’d call them on the house phone, since they could trace the address in case something happened while I was on the line. I hung up the cell, pulled myself into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. The 911 operator verified my address and told me to hang on as she contacted the local emergency folks.
The EMT team arrived a few minutes later, and from that point, most of what happened over the next two hours or so was a blur. As it turned out, Kelly arrived back at the house to find me on the floor and the EMT team over me. Turns out I flatlined shortly after they arrived and it took four whacks with the defibrillator to get me back. They got me into an ambulance and to a local hospital, where I was stabilized and prepared to be moved to another facility, St. Vincent’s Hospital in Jacksonville. They apparently figured out that I was going to need to have a stent inserted into an artery, and St. Vincent’s has the catheterization lab to do the work.
One bummer about the trip over to St. Vincent’s: they wanted to life flight me, but the weather was too rough to fly the helicopter. The county EMT crew put me back in their ambulance, invited Kelly to ride in the front seat and off we went.
At St. Vincent’s, they wheeled me into the cath lab and prepped me for the procedure. I asked for a priest, and the on-call chaplin came in to give me the Anointing of the Sick shortly before they began the procedure to insert the stent. That consisted of the cardiologist inserting a long catheter into an artery on my right leg, next to my groin area. He then inserted the stent in the artery. Within an hour, I was in a bed in intensive care, where I actually caught the end of the Jets-Steelers game. Scoreboard.
I later found out what I did to myself. The artery was totally blocked by a blood clot. There was muscle damage as well, and the doctor said what happened is that when the muscle tissue was damaged, my heart reacted (as it’s supposed to) by trying to clot and stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, the clot clogged one of my arteries. When the EMTs arrived, they tried to open my arteries up with a shot of nitroglycerin, but I didn’t react. After I flatlined and they shocked me back, they injected an anti-clotting agent which opened the artery back up.
I now have a giant red welt on my chest from the defib paddles, and I’m still sore in that area. I’m on a regiment of pills that you have to see to believe, and I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks in followup tests and resting before I go back to work. My parents and niece flew down from New York, and my sisters and brother-in-law will be here Saturday. Lots of family, friends and work mates have called, visited, sent cards, flowers and cooked dinner for us. I can’t describe the feeling knowing that so many people care about what happened to me.
This was life or death, folks. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes or any tunnels of light, but I suppose I got as close as one could get. Want you eyes opened about stuff? Have one of these. Better yet, don’t and take my word that it sucks.
I have more stories about this, especially about the Patient from Hell (update: you can now read that here) with whom I had to share an ICU room for a while. That’s for later; now it’s nap time.
Sam,
Send me your e-mail address (use the tiny contact link at the top of this page…make sure to remove the right part). I’ll mail you back privately.
I’m doing a case study on any person who had a heart attack, and I think I’ll do it on you
. I just want to know: What are the unhealthy aspects of your life? E.G: Did you smoke? Overweight? High cholesterol level?
And also, is there anything different you do now then to what you did before you had the heart attack?
Also, how old are you?
Thanks
Glad you made it through ok. I found this page through googling for the story of a heart attack victim in school. It’s for a paper in health class. Guess I’ll use it for the intro.
I had four heart attacks, and now have an implanted cardioverter defibulator installed. I also got lit up one nite with 58,000 volts it wasnt a picnic but saved my life. I hope im around for some stem cells.In the near future by the i was 52 at the time, Go see the doc for complete check ups. No two heart attacks are the same,as are the symptons , Thank You Dan
Well it’s me again with another story, Thur. March 3, 2005 at 11:39am I was sitting on my computer after coming from my kitchen to get a drink, I was sitting a matter of seconds when I started seeing cloudy around me, and then from out of nowhere I felt just like I was hit by a lighting bolt and everything around me went totally white. I just sat there for a bit trying to figure out what had just happened, I was feeling fine without any pains before this so I thought it couldn’t of been a heart attack with that implant kicking in. Well then I got up and told my wife right away and she called the doctors office and set up an appointment to come in, the whole time after the shock my body was shaking everywhere, I was really weak, then we got to the doctors office, which is also in the hospital, and I went into the examinationing room and they took this mouse like unit that was attached to a computer with the same name on it as the implant I have in me, well when they lated it over the implant the computer started humming and downloading info from the box, after it was done and printed out the doctor read it to me and showed me what was going on. Well the funniest part was when he said I was shocked once at 11:39am Thur. morning, the exact time I remembered seeing on my computer when it happened. What had happened was when I sat down at my computer my heart rate jumped to 240 beats per minute, the implant read that and let it go on for 8 seconds and then without any warning, shocked me trying to get my heart rate to come back to normal, which is around 60-80 beats per minute. Well it worked, after the shock my heart beat went down into the lower 100′s. The doctor told me that my heart could of slowed on it’s own without any shock but no one will ever really know that because normally a heart rate that high will kill you, so more or less, that night I was given that decision to either get that implant right now or wait till I feel more comfortable getting it I am so glad I made the right decision, I was thinking about going home without getting it and seeing if things would work out, well now I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t get that implant I wouldn’t of been sitting here already, that’s just something amazing to look back at. You know sometimes when you end up making the wrong decision and really regret it later, well that time I wouldn’t of regreted my decision of not getting the implant only because I would of been dead. Well just thought I’d send this telling people who might be one of them ones who might be thinking about having one of these implants put in, I’ll tell you this much, I feel I’m still pretty young at 39 and still want to live a lot more, well with this implant I might of already been given more time, and the implant itself I thought would be a big hassle with all the things you have to watch for, but really out of all the things you need to watch for, 99.9% of the stuff you’ll never notice, but one that bothers me a little bit is the arc welding that can’t be done with this implant, but the arc welding won’t set it off, it’s just at the time you’re welding, the defibulator part dont protect you, but the pace maker part still does, so in short, if you’re a person who loves taking chances, you could do the welding and hope that at the time you are welding, nothing will happen to your heart at that time, but after the welder is taken from the area of the implant it will start working perfect again. And one of my things that worried me was low batteries, well you get check ups every three months normally, but if you’re batteries run low this implant gives off a low beep every once in awhile like a smoke alarm to warn you, so no worring about the batteries, and these batteries last over 6 years to. Well that’s it, later…
Wow, Al, that’s some story. I’m glad to hear you came out of the second one okay. You’re right, you may just have a problem heart…sometimes no matter how well you take care of yourself, these things just don’t work the way they’re supposed to.
I think your biggest blessing is that smart son of yours who dialed 911. It’s amazing how much your first event sounds like what happened to me.
The most important thing is not to worry. Remember, just a few years ago, neither one of us might have survived. The fact that medicine has advanced to allow us to survive and even thrive amazes me every day. Having that implant wasn’t possible a short time ago, and as you said, you will probably make it into your 80s now. Or even further.
Thanks for the great story and come by and tell us how you’re doing.
Boy did this story hit close to home, I am 39 now and in May, 2003 I had a major heart attack that was something right out of the blues, the same thing I thought was I was just having a gas attack but couldn’t burp anything, my two boys were right by me the entire time I was going through all of this and I told my oldest not to call 911 yet because I thought it was just something that would pass. Well I’m so glad he didn’t listen to me and went off in another room and called anyways, here in a matter of about 7 minutes or so I just fell to the floor, and then I dragged myself to the couch and my chest pains were so bad at this time I was really wishing I would just pass out or something. I was then seeing everything all bright, and at that time the first responce team got there, and then things got really blurry after that, then the ambulance got there and done a EKG and right away rushed me to the nearest hospital, I remember looking at one of the EMT’s in the ambulance and asked him if I was going to die, he said nothing and then I have no memory for awhile and then opened my eyes to look above me at two EMT’s looking down at me asking me if I was ok now, the first thing I remembered was looking towards the window in the ambulance and it was dark, but I knew when we left it was just getting dark, here they told me I had to be shocked back four times, then I noticed we were really speeding and I heard the sirens blarring. I was so scared at that time I held my eyes wide open, worried that if they closed again that would be it. We finally pulled into the hospital and I was wheeled into the ER where a whole team of doctors and nurses were all around me. I finally asked one of the doctors what was going on, am I going to be ok, he responded slowly telling me I was in the middle of a major heart attack and needed to be takin to the cath lab to see what was going on, in the lab I remember this so well, I was looking at the ceiling and everything in the room was darkened, the table that I layed on was thin and metal and I had computer monitors right above my waist area. I remember the doctor that was doing the operation told me while he was looking at one of the monitors at this line that he inserted into my groin area artery and said there is a major 100% blockage and he was going to try and free it and insert a stent into the artery. At the time he was talking I noticed above on the ceiling these lights that kind of looked like light reflecting off of crumpled tin foil, just the way the lights were twinkling. I then heard the doctor saying something to the effect that the blockage wasn’t breaking free, and as he was saying that the lights on the ceiling became brighter and brighter and started turning faster, and before another word was spoken all of a sudden I felt this extreme warmth all through my head and brain. I know it may sound silly but at that very moment and that feeling I thought I had just died, but in just a matter of seconds I heard the doctor say he broke through and is inserting the stent. After a few minutes I told the doctor about the lights and then about the extreme warmth and he told me that was my brain starving for blood and it was dieing, the warmth was when he had broken the clot and the blood started back on it’s path again through my brain. That was a very scary time of my life, I managed to work myself back and was doing great till Feb. 11 of 2005, it was all totally different this time, I was having pains in my chest and up and down my arms and into my jaw, I was having these pains off and on from 6pm till we finally called 911 at 1:30am that same night. Here it was almost the same kind of story, I was rushed to the hospital but this time I made it to the ER and then I remembered I was having so much pain that I couldn’t lay on my back, so they let me lay on my side. Well it was just like a blink and here I was looking straight up at the ceiling, everyone around me was racing and finally I asked, how did I get to be looking up at the ceiling when just a second ago I was looking sideways at the wall. A EMT told me I went out and needed to be shocked back, I was once again told I needed to be taken to the Cath lab and find the problem, when I was in there this time I didn’t see any funny lights, but while the doctor was working this time, they told me there was a artery blocked that controled flow to two arteries and they both had to be stented open this time. This all took well over an hour this time and then it was done and I was in ICU for several days after. The doctors still can’t understand the clots because my colesteral is very good and I have been on several blood thinners for many years. Well this visit to the hospital proved to them that my heart now was very weak and could now stop for just about any reason at all so they gave me some things to think about while I was in the hospital, the one thing they told me that would be my best choise was to have this defibulator implant inserted in my chest that has two lead wires that go right into my heart, whenever my heart would jump or not beat right the pace maker part would kick in and try to regulate the beating, and then if the heart would stop, the defibulator part would restart my heart and if I had any other clots, this would give me time to make it into the surgery room. Well today hold almost two weeks since I gotten the impant and so far so good. But I’m really hoping this last attack will be my finale one till I’m at least 85. I do admit I am much more worried about anything now, but I am getting around and so far I haven had any bad chest pains, nothing really more than maybe the feeling of a burp that won’t come up. I had many things that happened during both of the attacks but I wanted to cut the story down some, one thing being with my first attack they couldn’t understand why my body was jumping up and down and I couldn’t control it. Well this is my true to life story, but one thing I can tell others is you may not want to jump the gun and call 911 but really it could mean the difference between life and death.
Anchoress: Thanks. Tell hubby to take care of himself. If what happened to me helps someone, that’s satisfaction enough for me.
What a story! I found you by way of the Carnival of the Vanities, and I’m going to print this out and hand it to my husband! I praise God that you received the timely help and care you needed and are on a road to wellness. Good luck to you.
Thanks, guys. Chuck: I can’t tell you how good my EMT team was…their work saved me, there’s no question. I’m going to do something for them as soon as I’m better, but how do you repay people for bringing you back from the brink? I hope they like steaks.
God bless! As an EMT, it’s nice to see a call that works out so well. As odd as it may seem, “denial” is considered one of the symptoms of a heart attack.
The shocks were given to you because your heart was in a life threatening rhythm, V-fib or V-tach most likely. An electrical shock stops the heart and allows your natural electrical system a chance to reset and resume a normal rhythm. Use of blood thinners is a pretty advanced protocol, and I applaude your region for adopting it.
Again, glad things turned out well.
I can’t imagine. Joe… You’re a tough son of a gun. –s
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