She’s Baaaaack!!!

Well, I’m home with my Honey and I couldn’t be happier.  All is well and, as my dear husband Bob declared some time ago, I have a good heart.

And it is a happy heart.  This experience has been both uplifting and annoying, as I am easily annoyed when my hands are idle.  But the overwhelming emotion is gratitude.  I am so thankful for the clean bill of health and for all those dedicated doctors, nurses, and health care workers who work around the clock to care for us.

My cardiologist was quite certain I would need “intervention” (read “stents”) at the end of the heart catheterization, as almost every indicator was present.  From the initial symptoms to my family history of heart disease, a red flag echo cardiogram, a worrisome stress test, etc. it didn’t look good. But like 20% of his cases, my arteries are all clear and my heart is strong and healthy.  Some may call this luck, but to me it is proof positive of the power of prayer.

I thank each and every one of you who offered up prayers on my behalf.  Clearly, you all have God’s ear.  Your comments and messages of support and even offers to send me handwork meant the world to me.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  What warm, caring ladies you all are!

Now, I am stuck at home for a week, feeling perfectly fine.  The wound from the procedure must be given time to heal so I stay quiet a good bit of the time, smocking contentedly.

PlayGroup Mamas, as usual, are on top of things and dinner is coming in every night for a week. Woo hoo!   Of the eight Mamas, two of us don’t like to cook and I am one of them.  The others are all gourmet chefs, so this is a real treat.

Summary:

GOOD NEWS:  good heart, good medical staff, good friends, good smocking, good meals!!!!

BAD NEWS:  I’ll be watching Saturday’s Florida/LSU game from the couch.  Groan…  It almost breaks my heart!

Seven year old Robert, who loves football as much as I do, made this sweet card for me.  He explained that he’d like to watch the game in the sky box with me where I would be more comfortable than out in the stadium (or on the couch!).  He would wear his #15 Tim Tebow jersey instead of his flag football uniform jersey #4.  He drew half time, he explained, because he couldn’t draw all the players on the field.  Note the score.  I hope he’s right.

I love the inside as much as the cover.  He knew I was missing my sewing machine.

I am blessed.

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Please read and heed.  I have included this because I care.

NURSE’S HEART ATTACK EXPERIENCE

I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. Please read, pay attention, and send it on!

FEMALE HEART ATTACKS

I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I’ve ever read. 

Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have … you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor that we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack. 

I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.

A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation–the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR).

This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening — we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack!

I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else… but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in. 

I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery. 

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents.
Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned firsthand.