So I was on the treadmill at the gym, and my right hand began aching. Plus, for the past week before that, was having trouble doing my 40-minute, fast-paced walk on the treadmill, and now was having trouble staying on 20 minutes. So I got off and went into the steam room, and the pain in my hand traveled up my arm and I was feeling too tired to sit up. So I left the steam room, wearing only an attractive aqua towel, and had to lay down on the floor, where I notice the pain was now in my hand, arm, and shoulder. Then I started throwing up. Fortunately, a woman ran to the front desk for help, and soon I was ambulanced to a hospital. Was given some morphine for the pain, and next thing I knew, I was watching a monitor showing some tool snaking through my arteries and where a balloon-thingy was used to unclog a 100% occluded stent. Then I spent two days in ICU and another day on a regular floor.
It's so humiliating! Having a heart attack at the gym. And now I need your help. Please read on.
Two years ago, I got a stent put in an artery, because I was having trouble breathing, but I didn't have an actual attack. This heart attack was a quite different experience. It seems to have quite an emotional effect.
It's like my heart has been blown wide open. I'm so sensitive and vulnerable to everything. Had to stop reading news because the horrors of the world were so painful . . . I could literally feel pain in my heart reading about all the tragic inhumanity our species commits. Car accidents, murders, torture, kidnapping and selling females, abandoned animals, war, genocide. Everything felt like it was ripping my heart apart. Very interesting how a physical heart attack effects one's emotions so much.
And love. I'm so filled with love and compassion. Downright weepy, and damn, there's no shortage of people and things to love and to feel compassion for.
Meanwhile, physically, after being a gym rat of sorts, I've been very sedentary for the past two months. Doc won't let me start cardiac rehab (monitored exercising) for another month. Though he says I can do 10 minutes on the treadmill now. But I've been laying low and not getting out much. Couldn't bear to do loud Christmas parties, etc. Almost been like a shut-in. Fortunately, I live in a family commune kind of situation. One cousin and her daughter and granddaughter live on the first floor apartment, and another cousin and I live on the second floor. So there's lots of love and support in my living situation. My two cousins and I are kind of like the Golden Girls of Chicago. So I'm safe, warm, well-fed and cared for. And very grateful for that.
And fortunately, I'm covered by Medicare (80% of bills) and a great Plan F, Medigap policy (covers what Medicare doesn't), so don't have any medical expense worries. Also a relief, since before getting on Medicare two years ago, I had no insurance for 6 years.
So why do I need your help, you may ask? Well, I want to hear your heart attack stories. Have you had one? Or has one of your loved ones had one? How did it affect you/them emotionally? How long did it take to recover one's normal physical routine? Was there any depression? Anxiety?
This terrain is very new to me, and I want to know how others coped with all this emotion and this lengthy recovery. Any signposts you can point out? I'm so tired of being like a shut-in, but not ready to push myself to be more active. Maybe cause it's winter. But I'm hoping this is just part of the recovery, and not my new way of life. Help!
Update:
Wow. The rec list. I've been around DK for a long, long time, and this is my first rec list. Thanks so much to you folks for sharing your experience and wisdom.
Thought I'd share this amusing tale about my heart, which I should have put in from the beginning. In 2008, right before the presidential elections, my heart was pausing for 12-40 secs at a time, and I got a pacemaker. When I went back for a checkup a week later, this male nurse came into the room and said to me, "You're famous. You're a star."
Now I was in bands and am a published poet, but my circle of significance was small, and I didn't see how this guy could possibly have heard about me. He says, "You don't remember me do you?" I shook my head.
He said, "I was your nurse when you were getting a pacemaker, and as you were going under, the doc asked you if you wanted a pacemaker. And you said "No. I want to wait until after the elections, and if McCain wins, I don't want one." " He was laughing. "You're just lucky you had liberal doctors. We've been telling that story for two weeks, and now you're famous around here."
I have no memory of that!
Happy All The Days to everyone. Let's not confine happiness to one month a year.