Wednesday - 9-12-07

1830 while conducting business on my cell phone my heart started to race a little and I developed some tightening of the chest. Thought it was a little odd and continued on with my evening. Within an hour or so I was sweating and the tightness was still there. Finally I told my Tammy (wife) to take me up to Mercy Hospital emergency room to get looked at.

Mercy immediately got me in and hooked me up to heart monitoring equipment. Stuck an IV in me and gave me a bag of Sodium Chloride and drew labs to check my heart enzymes. An x-ray tech came in and to do a chest x-ray to be looked at by the doctor. Hooked me up for a EKGand told me to lay there silent and not to move for 45 seconds.  The whole time I had them speaking to Dr. Hauesslien my cardiologist.

They decided they wanted to admit me for observation and perform a stress test tomorrow. Well that leads to after midnight and waiting for a room. I decided what the heck I would start writing a post for the blog.  Now the big question is what in the world was I experiencing? Because I have had no issues up to this point they want to make sure something is not creeping back up.  I find it very odd at the time of the tightness I was on my cell phone crunched over which means it was pretty darn close to my defibrillator. Could be pure coincidence but strikes me as very odd.  I am extremely disappointed at this happening. I DO NOT want to see my heart issue to resurface after all I have been through.  I was just informed there are no monitoring rooms to house me. That means I stay right here in the emergency room for the night. Uugggg

Thursday - 9-13-07

0400 Slept for a couple of hours. The lady next door was having a catheter put in and she was not happy about it. That noise woke me up not to mention I needed to use the restroom. Still in the ER waiting for morning to do a stress test.

In hindsight I wish I would have just went home to lay down to see if this would have subsided. In my mind something was not right and for a little over two years have had nothing like this happen. That is what brought me in to be looked at I did not bargain for staying overnight.  If it were not for the sweating that came over me after the chest tightness I probably would have skipped coming into the ER.

0600 Damn just like clockwork someone came in to withdraw blood. Talk about being thrown back two years. It’s like I never left the hospital in San Francisco. Amazing how things like this can sure make you remember. For example breakfast is here and to my painful delight there are those famous powdered eggs I so do not miss. Needless to say I skipped those this morning. I ate the hash brown and two links of bacon skipped the eggs, oatmeal, OJ, and milk. I normally don’t eat those things anyways.

1100 asked the nurse when I was going in for the stress test. Wanda (nurse) informed me that I was not going in for a stress test. My labs came back with higher than normal heart enzymes (troponin’s were 2.7)  which indicate something happened to my heart and now I was going to be admitted into the Cardiac Tele ward to wait for Dr Russ to come talk to me about my ‘options’. Of course Wanda did not know what that meant.

1200 taken up to my room and hooked up to heart monitors and an IV. Was informed I am to have no food until speaking to the doctor. When in the world is that is the question no one can seem to answer.

1315 A nurse came in to withdraw a vail of blood to check my heart enzymesone more time. Here it is 1425 and Paul (nurse) came in with my meds. Had to inform him I do not take the lisinoprilthis early. So I took Coreg, protonix and a baby aspirin. Still no word on when the doctor will be in to speak to me.  Had a little lunch at 1518 and waiting for doctor.

1830 Doctor Russ came in and we discussed what he and Doctor Hauesslien decided. They want to do a cardiac catheterization to see if there is any blockage in my arteries.  I agreed and they had me scheduled for 0800 tomorrow and I will be staying in the hospital to do some preoperative procedures.

2015 told I will need to shower and shave the southern regions. This is in preparation of my procedure in the morning. They handed me this wet/dry shaver that did not help matters. I did what I thought was enough and my nurse did not agree she had to help finish it up and boy that was smarts. Back in bed talking to my Dad and finishing up some paperwork for the procedure tomorrow.

2315 I was awoken by a nurse yelling out ‘call a code Blue’, call a code blue and then within seconds people are running to the room across the hall. I heard people talking about someone falling out of the bathroom and had no pulse and was not breathing. A whole host of people ascended on to the room to revive this person. Sounded like they were able to revive him. Talk about dramatic, wow what an ordeal that was.  My nurse came in shortly after and checked my vital’s and gave me my Coreg med and time to try and get some sleep.

Friday - 9-14-07
Cardiac Catheterization day

0345 BEEP, BEEP, BEEP I was awaken by, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP my IV monitor was informing us it was about to run out. Nurse came in and turned it off and unplugged me from it.

0430 I was awaken by the morning vampire. They took two vials of blood, one for another heart enzymes test and the other for a CBC panel. Then my regular nurse came in and got my vitals.

0630 the nurse informed me that I had to take a benadryl and valium at 0700 in preparation for my procedure. Then they will be hauling me off to surgery about 0730. This will be my last entry until I get out of my procedure and get coherent.

0730 I was loaded into a wheel chair and wheeled down to the Cardiac cath lab. They opened the door to the room and I thought for sure it was going to start snowing in there it was freezing. They had me lie down on the table so they could start prepping me. Luckily they put 150 degree blanks on me which made it much nicer in there. People were preparing the area getting the monitors in place and preparing the tray of goodies they were going to be using. The anesthesiologist walked up and said she was going to give me a local to start the process and then all I remember was waking up and someone pushing on my groin. At that moment I thought I was being worked on and being a wake. I said wait I am starting to feel what you’re doing and the lady said well honey were all done. I was amazed at the fact that I slept right through the procedure. Don’t get me wrong that is a good thing. They said that some people watch what they’re doing but not feel anything. They put some sort of compression press on that sealed off my artery so that I would not bleed everywhere. They got me back up to my room and I was to lie there for the next 6 hours.

The doctor told Tammy that the procedure went well and that I had one area with plaque but was so minor that they would treat it with plavix. Other than that one area all looked good. Which all this means is they do not know what caused my episode? I know finding nothing is better than find a problem but darn it. Not know anything all the time sucks.

1200 I woke up from sleeping on and off once I got back to my room. I had to go pee so bad I called the nurse and he gave me my bottle and said that if I could not go myself he would have to put a catheter in to help me. Well I sat there for 10-15 minutes trying like heck to go cause I did not want to have a catheter put in. Well It got so unbearable I had to call him to discuss the options. Well there was only one option and that was a catheter. He got all the supplies needed for that and commenced to insert that thing in places I so DID NOT want him to go. It burned and hurt like crazy I was not a happy camper.

1315 Lunch arrived and I ate what I could of course I was not completely up to eating after getting that damn catheter put in.

1315 to 1700 did not move from that position and I was uncomfortable with that compression device on. Nurse came in a few times to take vitals and check on me. Other than that I just laid there talking to Tammy wanting to get out of there.

1600 My coworker Joe showed up and stayed to give me a hard time and give me a few good laughs. Him and Tammy were picking on me and give me a hard time. You know it was all good and I enjoyed the laughing.

1800 Mike my nurse came in and took the compression device off of me and said time to get up if I wanted to get out of there. As you can imagine I jumped up, well ok got up slowly and stood there and that felt wonderful. I was a little wobbly but sure felt good on my back. I told him I wanted the catheter out and finally he said my wound looked good and that he did not mind taking it out. I laid back down on the bed and he pulled that catheter out and boy oh boy did that sting. I got back up and grabbed the pee bottle and I stood there and tried to go I tell you what I went a little bit and it hurt more than taking the catheter out burn baby burn.

1845 Mike (RN) came in and took my IV line out and then took all the patches off that monitor my vitals. Taking those darn patches out caused patches of hair to be pulled out as well. OUCH!

1900 I was given my discharge papers and I got the heck out of there.  Mike wheeled me down to the car and helped me get in while Joe and Tammy carried my things down.

Saturday 9-15-07

I was instructed to take it easy and not to get up much other than to use the bathroom.  So all day I sat in my chair with my computer near by and did some reading. Also was instructed to remove the badge from my wound and take a shower and put a regular bandaids on the small insistion it was not as bad as I was envisioning.  As the day went on the throbbing in my wound area got less and less.  I got extremely tired and took about a 2 hour nap in the afternoon.  That night I just could not sleep so I stayed up until after midnight and finally dragged my butt to bed. 

Sunday 9-16-07

I was awaken at 0520 by the pain in my lower back.  I recall having back pain for about a week after my last surgery.  So I got up and closed all the doors and walked outside to get my Sunday paper to read.  Was a very nice cool crisp morning felt good.  Today I am to get up a  little more often but not to walk long or taken any stairs.  I not to lift over 10 pounds for 3 days.  Which means I will be off until at least Tuesday.  At least I have been able to catch up on my RSS feeds through Google Reader.  Now trying to finish up this post to get up on the blog.

So the question after all this is, Did my Cell phone cause interference with my defibrillator the pacemaker side or did I have a heart attack?  That still is yet to be determined.   The fact that my heart enzymes were elevated indicated that either I did have or will have something happen to my heart.  Let’s hope that neither happened and it was all a fluke.

This episode did remind me that even though I have lost over 180 pounds and Life before WLS shows a lot of my health issues have diminished I still have a heart condition and will need to be under constant care for a while.  Weight loss surgery has extended my life even if I continue to have heart conditions.  I still feel without WLS I would have been in and out of the hospital a lot more than this once in 2 years.

Needless to say I have had no fun the last few days.  Yet and blessed  to be able to post this article and not still be in the hospital or worse did not make it out.  Treat everyday as if it could be your last day on earth.  Tell the one’s you love that you love them and hug them daily.

I will be sure to keep you posted.

JB