Heartbreaker

The only good thing about the story that follows is that the author is around to write it. And, I guess, the fact that it allows me to post a video of Don Johnson's biggest hit. Gather 'round, kids, and listen to Squeaky tell you about his weekend. Gonna make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Hell of a debut.

Where does one begin when not one to share good or bad news as a trait. I don't like to be the focus, unless I'm drunk, then I'm a repeating robot mess.

Well, I guess it starts on a normal Saturday night watching TV with the wife when my elbow starts to get a burning sensation and an intense pain. 

I get up to shake it off, thinking this is a weird feeling. Sit back down to continue watching TV.

A heartburn-like sensation kicks in to add a tightening feeling my chest to the radiating pain in my elbow, left to exact. Get up again muttering, "this feels weird". 

My wife finally asks why I'm pacing around the family room and kitchen.

Of course I say nothing's wrong a few times before finally saying, "yeah maybe we might want to call an ambulance".

9:25 pm, or seven minutes later an ambulance shows up and the wild ride begins. Fun little white stickers for the electrode to attach wires for an EKG get plastered on my chest, arms and legs. These are awesome for someone with a slightly hairy chest. 

Off to ER in the next town over, 15 minute ride. Another round of white stickers because no one is using the same kind, even though they do the exact same thing. Spray of nitroglycerin under the tongue and four chewable baby aspirin during the ride.

Arrive at ER around 10:20ish (time starts to warp at this point). Blood work. Troponin level at 89 units, normal range 0-23. This biomarker indicates how hard your heart is working, as explained by the doctor. In other words how bad of a heart attack you are having. 

Pain completely goes away, later find out it's due to nitroglycerin. That's the good news. Bad news is this hospital only does catheterization and is unable to install stents during that process. So they want to transfer me to another one...in Rhode Island. I'm in Massachusetts with a glut of amazing hospitals. Mention I'd rather stay in Mass.

Hour or so later the ER doc says I got lucky. Brigham and Women's can take me. This very good news. It's a Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital with a world-class cardiac practice. They request an ambulance for transfer. MLK is a good holiday for this kind of thing, as it turns out. Normally can take 3-4 hours. Ambulance shows up in 30 minutes for the 45-minute trip to Boston.

Arrive at Brigham and Women's ER at 1:30am, and because you can't transfer to the cardiac floor directly I'm in the ER until they can move me. I did not see a horse in the hospital.

New set of stickers for EKG. So second round of a free wax job in a random pattern on my chest. More blood work. Also find out their assay method of identifying the level of Troponin in your blood would be more precise that first ER. ER Doc says so don't be surprised if level is different with their more precise measurements. Result 78, which sounds better but falls higher on their scale of severity. 

Fall asleep in a bed on the cardiac floor at 4am Sunday morning. Couple IVs and meds. Then basically sat in a bed until 2pm today when they finally brought me down for the catheterization procedure. Which is basically threading a wire through the vein in your wrist to examine your heart. (Editor's Note: GAAAHHH)

Typically they would insert a stent or burn off any heart disease, or worst case stop if too much damage and do bypass surgery, or sometimes nothing because is everything looks good. Thankfully, I fell into the latter category. Only downside is not knowing the exact cause other than watching GLOW with my wife. It can be a deadly show apparently.

My first post was going to be about beer but this is a little more important. 

If you feel weird without drugs or alcohol in your system go to the doctors. Don't hesitate.