A New Blog

As Serious As A Heart Attack

When a person has a confounding chronic disease as millions of people do doctors often miss the symptoms that would alert them to serious, possibly life threatening problems developing for their patients. They are quick to see any new or worsening problems as just being tied up in with the problems previously diagnosed. They are often even unwilling to even look into new problems at all when they do not fit with known disease profiles. I have been told by doctors "that while your symptoms may be indicative of you having problem X, problem X is quite nasty to deal with and you already have enough to deal with with what you have so let's not go there." and then later nearly died because problem X was exactly the issue that should have been dealt with. 

For years I have been showing signs of heart problems. First it was that my blood pressure crept up into the high range instead of the chronic low of my youth. The medication just added to my fatigue levels, but since fatigue is part of my ME's symptoms (along with PPS, Fibro and PsA) it was missed. My angina manifests as chest heaviness and breathlessness and was also slotted into the ME and into my asthma. It was never caught as being angina at all. Getting progressively weaker was seen as my ME getting worse. The last time I was this weak was when my gallbladder went bad- missed by doctors even when I went to hospital emergency when having severe pain due to gallstone's being stuck in the ducts- was causing my other organs to fail. 

On early April 24, 2018 I woke up around 4 am with a terrible backache.  It felt as if I had thrown my upper back out.  I have a bad disc right under the bra line- a common one for big chested women like myself. I thought that I had twisted in my sleep and thrown it out. There were shudders of pain that raced up both sides of my back from pelvis to mid back and needled of pain shooting from my mid-back through my chest. It hurt and it hurt bad but not worse than I had experienced before. Not as bad as a muscle bruising leg cramp that left me limping for days. Not as bad as the gut tearing cramps that had me in hospital for 5 days until the bleeding had stopped. Bad, but not the worst ever. No left arm or jaw pain. No elephant on my chest. Not enough to wake up my husband or call 911 for an ambulance. The pains peaked and subsided as quickly as they came anyways. Within an hour it was all over and done.

On early April 25th, 2018 I awoke again with an attack of pain. My chest felt not unlike it did when I the flu the end of last December, or when I had pneumonia years ago. My chest felt heavy and congested. It was a bit hard to breathe. I took a Mucinex thinking to clear out any congestion and went back to sleep. Nothing truly out of the ordinary of my life.

At 9 am of April 25th I awoke to the heavy, burning feeling in my chest and a knot in my mid back. My left shoulder felt as if I had twisted my neck in my sleep again, with pain up the neck to the lower jaw. With what had happened the past two nights I had had enough of whatever it was that was happening to me. Hubby was at work and I did not want to alarm him in case I was not having a true emergency. So I called 911 and asked for an ambulance saying that I thought that I may be having a heart attack.  My dear hubby has had a few of them but my symptoms did not match any of his, but my chest was quite uncomfortable- I cannot say that it was really all that painful- so I wanted to be sure that Dear Hubby didn't come home to a dead wife. I was walking and talking quite fine, but....

The ambulance came.  Two ambulances actually. They had been here before for hubby's last heart attack. This time it was for me.  I had chewed the aspirin as directed by the 911 operator, unlocked the door, and returned to my bed to wait with the phone in hand talking to the operator until the EMT's were inside my home.  Soon I was attached to their ECG machine while another fellow was writing down my medications off their bottles. "Mrs. Griffiths, you are having a heart attack, please do not be alarmed, we will take care of you. " They bundled me off to Royal Jubilee Hospital and soon I was in a special Cath Lab suite having emergency work done on my heart to open the blockage and stabilize my heart. The cardiologists put 5 stents into my heart that day. Dr. Nadra, the head of the department, had done the procedure on me. He happens to be my hubby's cardiologist.

I spent 3 days in hospital. Two days after I arrived an echocardiogram was done, a heart ultrasound to check that the stents had not moved and were seated properly. If there were any problems it would be back to the Cath Lab for me. They third day the staff cardiologist that visited me in hospital before I left told me that I had been assigned Dr. Nadra as my cardiologist. He also told me about what was stented and why, and gave me a map of my heart with the stented area indicated.  He told me that I have regurgitating (leaky) mitral valve and there was hope that once I had all the heart remodelling work done that the problem would resolve on it's own. I was also told that I would need more work done in about 4 weeks time. I also was visited by a pharmacist who explained a bit about the new meds that I would be on, some for the rest of my life. I was given a pile of papers to read, and a book on living with heart disease. It was overwhelming! I was so glad to get home to food I could eat and a good cup of breakfast tea! 

I felt better than I had in years for the first two weeks, then I slowly wound down again to where I was pre-attack.

Four weeks less a day later I was back to the Royal Jubilee, but as an out-patient, getting the rest of the work needing done on my heart. That trip to the Cath Lab suite was harder on me than the first emergency session was. One of the major arteries had clogged up badly in the past month and the cardiologist could not get through it, so a more experienced one was called in. Royal Jubilee has more than one suite in use at any time and is a teaching hospital. The procedure going through the wrist was pioneered here. I was in good hands. But knowing that I was in good hands was tempered by listening to the senior doctor ordering a surgical team put on stand-by and a surgical suite prepared in case he could not be successful in remodelling a blocked artery in my heart using the angioplasty tools being strung through my wrist! Plus the fluids being put into my IV were going straight to my bladder and it felt as if it would explode! What a time for the overactive bladder to act up!  But Dr. Nadra was again successful and put an additional 5 stents into the two major arteries of my heart. Now all three of the big arteries are stented up.  I was able to go home late that afternoon.

I am on a pile of meds for my heart. 

I was on three for blood pressure alone. They did such a good job that my pressure was too low and my lower legs were getting spongy due to it. My family doctor took me off of one that I had been on for years, a calcium channel blocker called Amlodipine. I was to see him every two weeks for two months to check my blood pressure. Not only did my long standing dizziness and the recent swelling problems go away so did 75% of my crippling fatigue, and my blood pressure normalize. 

The statin I was put on in the hospital also needs tweaking.  It is a massive dose of Lipitor, and it has side effects. My right shin started to hurt as if I had bruised the bone. At times it hurt worse than the first night of my heart attach had been. So my family doctor has had me cutting the pills that I have in halves and he will monitor my cholesterol monthly. There are other statins that he might try, but cost is a factor and Lipitor comes in a generic that is covered under the provincial drug plan, and third party insurers also like the cheapest options.

Last Tuesday, August 7th, 2018 I had the office follow-up with Dr. Nadra. Because of the bad arthritis in my sacroiliac joints and the sciatica and the post-polio dragging foot I cannot do the traditional stress test. I just fall when I try to move quickly. So I had an ECG done and next week I get an echocardiogram - an ultrasound- done. I will see Dr. Nadra again in 12 weeks. Dr. Nadra is willing to let my family doctor tweak my meds, but he wants a cholesterol done just before I see him if my family doctor hasn't done one recently to it. We will know then how much permanent damage has been done to my heart and how to precede with my treatment, with my life.

The Purpose of this Blog

In case you have not already figured this out this blog is about my journey in life after having a heart attack and two traumatic trips to the Cath Lab's angio suites. It is also about a person with ME dealing with heart issues. I may also write about heart issues in general, medications, and issues common in those with ME and with Psoriatic Arthritis as well as those like myself with a family history of heart issues as I explore them.