There I was in the back of an ambulance.
Back in 2011, I wrote this title about a cardio problem. And now, 11 yrs
later, things repeated themselves.
In hindsight, I must have had some signals I didn’t get. Easier tired than before, an afternoon nap. And, trying to find clever ways to make heavy tasks easier. I’ll write this week’s experience because it’s not as common as ‘chest pain’
Last Monday I lifted endless wheelbarrels with leaves. I tried to clean my lawn before the rain would come. During the night I went to the bathroom and when I returned to bed, I felt a nasty pain in both my shoulders; as if I been working above my head. I went to sleep again (despite the pain, I fell asleep) and on Tuesday morning all started fine. In fact, I’d forgotten about the pain in my shoulders. Until I walked into the kitchen.
Again the pain in my shoulders hit me. So hard that I was unable to breath! Still, there was no sign of
pain in my chest. But the whole situation was
so severe that I called an ambulance. The lady on the phone recognized the symptoms.
The ambulance professionals reacted quickly when they’d entered the house (and oh
man, it took aaaaages before the ambulance arrived; exactly 12 mins… But ot felt differently! My BP was 210/130(!) and a dose of nitro under my tongue should help. Too good in fact. In no-time it dropped to 95/60(!). A very nasty experience! I felt completely helpless I can tell you. They gave me
something (I have no idea what, I was too far gone) to balance it out. That worked in seconds they said and I was ‘back’ again.
With ‘blues and twos’ to the hospital where they found out that I didn’t had a heart attack, but one of my artiries is blocked; it looks like a string of pearls, the one with the stent is A+ and the third one is good. And my body had made new artiries near the stented one. That was considered positive by the surgeo who did the tests.
Take-away from this: you don’t have experience chest pain when you’re having cardio problems.
Up for a new stent tomorrow 11 am. I’ll keep you posted.