When I think of someone having a heart attack it is always that image of someone grabbing their chest and falling to the ground, it’s never merely a pain near the left armpit and extending to the fingers, which is what it was for me. I didn’t really think this was ever going to happen to me.
Two weeks ago on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, I woke up at about 11:30 pm with that pain in my left armpit and arm. I got up thinking it may have been arthritis or some muscle or nerve pain from the day's activity. My blood pressure and total cholesterol are low, I am fit, exercise regularly, eat healthily and I have never had a heart issue or seen a cardiologist. I took an aspirin which didn’t affect the pain and then it hit me- heart attack. About midnight I awoke my wife Vicki. We talked about my symptoms and decided she would drive me to the Los Alamitos Health Center Emergency Room 5 minutes from our home rather than call 911. I checked in to the ER around 12:30 am telling an ER staff member that I had pain in my left armpit and left arm, and said I was concerned these were possible heart attack symptoms. My wife accompanied me.
The ER was very crowded and my wife and I were told to sit in two of the chairs in the packed ER waiting area, to await processing. An hour or so later I was taken to the ER operating area, given an electrocardiogram test, which was normal, and taken back to the waiting room. I was feeling better, thinking maybe my pain was merely muscle or nerve related. We waited for six hours before we were brought into the ER operating area and seated in chairs. At about 8 am a cardiologist talked to me and ordered a heart enzyme blood test, stress test, and an ultrasound test of my heart and legs immediately after the stress test.
At 5:00 pm that day, the cardiologist stopped by my ER room, saying my tests were normal which gave him 85% confidence I had no heart issue but my blood enzyme was elevated so he decided to do an angiogram the next day on Thursday just to make sure. My feelings eased and I now felt I was out of the woods and just going through a routine test to eliminate the doctor’s minor question even though an angiogram is an invasive process, which turned out to be life-saving for me. I was told no food after dinner on Wednesday before the angiogram.
As the cardiologist explained the angiogram, he said I would go to the test lab conscious, with just a local anesthetic applied. Using X-rays for guidance, a thin tube would be fed through a catheter and into an artery in my groin. The tube would be pushed through the artery until it reached my heart. A dye would be released through the tube into my blood, rushing along with my blood each time my heart pumped, to help the x-ray show any abnormality, which as it turned out in my case was narrowing of the artery. If the doctor found an abnormality, he would insert a stent in a procedure called angioplasty. Stents would be fed along the tube like a monorail system, deploying them to the exact spot that needed widening. The stents would expand and allow my blood to flow more freely, immediately relieving the symptoms of a narrowed artery. It’s pure plumbing.
Suddenly about 1:30 pm on Wednesday I was wheeled out of my ER room and into (and presumably admitted to) a hospital room. The angiogram nurse came by at about 3:30 pm and explained the test and said I would stay in the recovery room at least 2 hours after the procedure, although the total time was unknown due to possible stents. The cardiologist performed the angiogram and as I gained consciousness told me I had a 90% blockage of my right coronary artery and a 50-60% blockage to my left coronary artery. He had placed a stent to unblock the clogged right artery. He showed me a moving picture of the clogged artery before and after the stint insertion on a large monitor screen. That is the moment when my life changed. I had entered the test confident I had no heart problem and I had heard in my foggy state I had just missed a bullet that could have killed me and would forever be dealing with heart disease. My feeling of impenetrability was shattered in the most personal way possible.
Heart problems remain the No. 1 health threat to American adults. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women in the United States, accounting for about 1 in every 4 deaths each year. My heart disease was a wake-up call that I needed to make some changes in my life. I now know through an experience that allows no doubt that my health is only as good as the health of my heart. Diet, lifestyle, age, and hereditary factors can all impact my performance and my quality of life, and eternal vigilance on factors I can control- diet, exercise, sleep, and stress- is now my destiny.
The cardiologist saw me at 9:30 am on Thursday and said he now felt I should get a stent in the next few weeks to unblock the left side artery but said I was cleared to go home, which I was finally able to do about 3:30 pm.
I experienced the reality of the shortcomings of hospital care. Walk-in emergency room visits put a patient at the mercy of overcrowded ERs which 911 ambulance transport can help avoid. And unless a patient or family member (in my case my wife) is present in the ER and during hospital emergency treatment and advocates for the patient, the staff can easily ignore patient orientation, feeding, and communication, and treat the patient in an uncaring and unprofessional manner.
I am now focused on heart disease as my grandfather died of coronary artery disease and my mom had triple bypass surgery before dying of the same disease at age 89. I now see my family history as a strong marker of my heart disease and also believe it may be related to so-called long Covid from my Covid infection last May. But most important to me is the true realization of how short life can be, how dear each moment is, and how important it is to appreciate and be actively grateful for the time I have left. For this moment, I am grateful to my wife for advocating for me and for this class for inspiring me to write and share my experience with my loved ones and others in hopes they learn from it.
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