The first question people ask after they hear I had a heart attack at 40 is "What did it feel like?" My first symptom was heartburn. Heartburn is not new for me. I experience it often and always know where my bottle of Tums is! This night was no different. I had spent the evening overindulging in treats while watching Super Bowl LVIII. So my first thought was I shouldn't have eaten so much! By the time I had taken the Tums, the pain had intensified and had begun shooting into my left shoulder. Being trained as a nurse, I know all the signs and symptoms to look out for, but I also thought this could just be a panic attack. My nurse brain said, "Take an aspirin," so I woke my husband up and asked him to get me an aspirin. By the time he brought me the medication, the pain had spread into my left jaw and was excruciating, and I told him, "Something's not right." That was the only way I could communicate my impending sense of doom. After a few moments of discussion, it was decided that my husband would drive me to the hospital. As I said, we live in a small town outside of DFW, and it would have taken an ambulance ages to get to us. My husband was able to get me to the ER in 12 minutes. This drive normally takes about 25, but at 3 a.m. there was very little traffic!
Once checked in, I was immediately triaged and labs were drawn. Even in my current condition, I voiced to the nurse that I had a good right AC for an IV! An EKG was done, and everything looked NORMAL! All the while, I was in terrible pain. I can't even begin to describe this pain, and I have a very high pain tolerance; I had two babies without any pain meds, for goodness' sake! They tried everything to get my pain under control: Nitro, muscle relaxers, and numerous other things that I don't remember. My main memory is thrashing around in the stretcher because I was hurting so badly. My pain was at a 9 on the pain scale, and I promise you I was not scrolling on my phone. (My fellow nurses will know what I'm saying!) Finally, after 2 hours, they redrew my blood and ran another troponin. This time it came back elevated, which is an indicator that your heart may have damage, possibly caused by a heart attack. They decided another EKG was in order. As soon as the nurse finished the EKG, she rushed out of the room and yelled something to the doctor, but all I heard was STEMI. I turned to my husband and said that means I'm having a heart attack. Immediately, my nurse returned and looked me straight in the eyes and said, "A lot of people are about to come in here, and a lot of things are going to happen really fast." I burst out crying and said, "I work here! I know what that means!" She chuckled and said, "I KNEW you were something medical!" She was very kind and told me they were about to call an RRT, and I would be going straight to the cath lab. At this point, I had just been given IV pain medications, and my pain was tolerable. I don't remember much about this time frame because it was a flurry. I remember being wheeled back and telling Mark that he needed to call my PCP and cancel my appointment for later that morning and yelling down the hall for him to call my mom.
Once in the cath lab, I was prepped and waited for the surgeon on call to arrive. I was given medication to help with the pain, but I was awake for the entire process of placing a stent. The surgeon tried to go through my wrist, which is less invasive, but was unable to due to it pulsing too much. So he had to go through my femoral artery. A stent was placed in the circumflex branch of my left coronary artery, which was 100% blocked. Once the stent was placed, I felt immediate relief. I was wheeled to recovery and soon after to a room where I was met by my family and friends. It was a joyous reunion and had us all realizing just how precious life is!
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