1 EAGLETON NOTES: Heart Attack Time

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Monday 31 January 2022

Heart Attack Time

I've just read a post by Bob (as in Mr Brague who rhymes with plague) upon an incident he had and a reminder that we should all listen to our bodies. 

Assuming you have either already read or now popped over to his post you will see that I commented as follows:

"Unlike you, when I thought I was having a heart attack (same symptoms as yours and age 56) I immediately went to the nearest doctor (I was away from home at a trade fair). He pronounced me A1 after doing all the tests. To be continued..... "   I am continuing.

Later that evening after my friends and I had been for dinner we were walking back to the place we were renting for a few days. It was a very bitter, windy October evening in Aviemore in the coldest part of the Scottish Highlands. I was breathless and when I eventually made it back I asked them to get an ambulance.

It arrived as did the local doctor I'd seen that afternoon. The general assumption was that I'd had a heart attack. I was carted off to Inverness and spent the night having tests and so on. 

In the morning I was declared A1 fit for discharge with them being able to find no indication whatsoever of a heart attack. I was very surprised but happy. However as I had nowhere to go and no clothes and no one to collect me (they were all at the trade fair 30 miles away) I was shoved into a private sideroom until the next day. During that day I wandered up and down the three flights of stairs (with the permission of the doctor!) to the ground floor, had lunch in the café and generally amused myself.

That evening my friends brought in my clothes and agreed to collect me the next morning. Whilst they were there two doctors and three nurses entered and, very accusingly, asked why, at 11pm the previous evening, I had had an ECG. No one had ordered one. 

My response made it clear that it certainly wasn't me who had asked for it and they were the medics. Apparently no ECG had been ordered so far as anyone could find. However, you guessed it, it showed quite the opposite to everything previously done. I was to go back onto the observation ward that very moment and, no, the bed would go with me in it, I was not to move a muscle until the morning.

The next morning a consultant whom I hope I never meet again came in and  told me that I was being flown to Edinburgh for an angiogram and probably angioplasty. (See sub-story below).

Next day I was duly loaded into a helicopter ambulance and flown down to Glasgow. In those days angioplasty was a much bigger job than it is today where they pop a line up your arm and bob's your uncle. So I'm told by people who have had recent stent insertions.

I found myself in a huge theatre with two consultants and heaven knows how many support staff and a television set to my left showing an x-ray view of my heart and its surrounds. This had the advantage that the consultants could see into my body and work out where the stents were going and, for me, it stopped any potential boredom. It was a long afternoon! I won't bore you with the details although some were very amusing and some were a tad unpleasant. I had 5 stents inserted. The 6th just wouldn't play ball. 

The Sub Story

I didn't know anyone in Edinburgh and it's the diagonally opposite side of the country to Lewis. I know lots of people in Glasgow and life would have been so much easier in hospital there. The Consultant was not having any of it and dismissed my request for Glasgow 'if possible pretty please" with an "I send people to Edinburgh!" Behind him the Sister gave me a kindly smile and a wink. I knew I was in good hands.  The next morning she explained that, regretfully, she hadn't been able to find a bed in the Edinburgh Hospital so I was going down to the Glasgow Western Infirmary.  

42 comments:

  1. Prayers for no heart attacks. Very Important message, thank you for sharing that
    I am glad you made it through. Scary experience
    Whenever I have chest pain, I insists on an EKG.

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    1. Maywyn, the first doctor gave me an ECG (Cardio in UK) but it showed normal as did the others in the hospital until this mysterious one taken at 11pm that no-one seems to have ordered.

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  2. It is a little disconcerting to think that you could have just been sent straight back to your Trade Fair as A1 fit and a serious problem overlooked as a result.

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    1. JayCee there was certainly something looking after me that time. There is more in heaven and earth.....

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  3. I read Bob's post and thought about how much chance pays its role. I've now read yours and thought the same again. How do I work out the overall chance? Do I add or multiply them?

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  4. I sometimes have trapped wind.Similar symptoms to a heart attack pain.Both my husband and brother have been blue lighted to A&E and it was just trapped wind.
    A drink of something that is very fizzy and a good burp usually sort it out.

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    1. BeeJay, I was just about to say that I don't drink fizzy drinks (I don't drink pop, cola etc and never have done even as a child) and I suddenly realised that a year or two ago I started drinking my water carbonated rather than still (I drink a lot of water) so I shall bear what you said in mind if I get the pain. It's the sweating, shortness of breath, pain down the arm and the other symptoms that clinched it for me though.

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  5. Just seeing your headline in my sidebar, you almost gave ME a heart attack! (wondering if you were referring to a more recent "time"...) (relieved to find out that you weren't!) ♥

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    1. Sorry about that Monica. If I had had you'd have learned earlier!

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  6. I think I know the answer, but my question is, "Did you send a huge bouquet of flowers or other suitable gift to the lovely sister with the knowing wink?"

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    1. That's very interesting, David. I do always send a thank you note and something appropriate when I've been in any medical facility (I think the local ambulance paramedic who comes and collects me in the middle of the night has a rather embarrassing collection). However on that occasion I only saw the Sister twice and didn't get her name. It's been an irritation ever since.

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  7. That guardian angel of your sure does his job well. I hope he doesn't get worn out any time soon.

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  8. I have to agree with Pauline that there must have been an angel at your side (or whatever supernatural beings help atheists ;)

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    1. As I said in an earlier comment, Kylie, there is more in heaven and earth.....

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  9. Heart attacks are stressful at the best of times and when you have a few idiots missing things it can be very stressful.

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    1. Red, stressful is the least worrying thing. It can be fatal. It stops you worrying but it's helluva inconvenient for those left behind.

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  10. A few years ago I was listening to a top heart specialist. She was asked what one should do if you feel as if you're about to have a heart attack. She replied to cough several times as hard as you can. It seemed a very strange reply, but I keep it in mind!

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    1. I have seen that, Cro. From what I've also seen it's of no benefit at all.

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    2. Like Graham, I've seen that advice too, but also seen it reported as false. (I'm thinking: Maybe it it helped someone who wasn't *really* having a heart attack...)

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  11. Like Monica, I saw the title of this post appear on my reading list and nearly had one myself!
    Apparently, heart attacks are often overlooked in women because their symptoms can be quite different from what doctors normally expect.

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    1. Meike, I believe that is correct and that, as a result, women are less likely to survive than men. That's not good.

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  12. I am glad they figured out that you did have a heart attack before they sent you off! Thank goodness, too, for the sweet nurse who got you to Glasgow. I hope you have been healthy and safe since then!

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    1. Thank you, Ellen. I've not had the slightest heart murmur since then.

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  13. So glad you are all right - it's really confusing sometimes, that certain digestive ailments and certain anxiety ailments mimic heart problems, and vice versa. I have done the whole EKG / stress test / wear a monitor thing too ... no heart issues detected, made me feel a bit silly for going through all that, but when your heart is beating funny or you feel panicky and short of breath, you think the worst.

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    1. Thank you, Marcheline. It's better to be safe than sorry. I've had heaven knows how many heart function tests and AKG/ECGs for routine, cancer drug trials and for other reasons.

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  14. Oh my, what an interesting and exciting story. I am so thankful, as I know you are, that it all turned out well for you in the end.

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    1. Thank you, Jill. I seem to have the luck of the devil....fortunately.

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  15. I wonder how many women get false diagnoses when Dr. dismisses you pain? Too many, I suspect.







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    1. Susan, I don't know of any but there may be lots. I do know both men and women who have the signs of all sorts of thing and immediately go into denial. Often with certain cancers until it's too late to do anything.

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  16. Regarding both my post and your post, I find it amazing how certain moments are frozen in time in our memory so that years later we can re-create conversations verbatim. It's almost as if our brains are a sort of computer or something (he said facetiously). As someone wrote three thousand years ago in a Psalm, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"....

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    1. Bob, you are absolutely correct. I have a very bad memory as any reader of this blog knows. However I can remember incidents from quite a young age which were obviously important enough for me to recall almost as a re-run of the incident.

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  17. My oh my! You really got your money's worth out of the NHS in those few days! Thank God for the NHS. Anyone who wishes to slight them, put your fists up!

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    1. YP, I had my money's worth from the NHS when I had a partial lung removal at the age of 16. I had a disease which, even today, kills thousands in the Pacific Islands in particular. If it had been 14 years earlier I'd have died because my parents could never have afforded such an operation.

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  18. Graham I've read your post several times and I too am forever thankful of the outcome!

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  19. That was quite a story, Graham, and glad there was a such a good ending.

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  20. That must have been a scary business. Bill had his first heart attack when he was 39 and a second and third when he was 42.It was due to a blocked artery which managed to clear itself but the damage was done. things went well for the next twenty years but then his heart developed an electrical fault and he suffered from tachicardia and had to have a Implanted defibrillator. But he still suffered from Atrial Fibrillation and has ever since now he has a pace maker to keep his heart beating. I'm amazed he has lasted so long. Hope you keep going well.

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    1. Diane, that's a wonderful tribute to the health service and what can be achieved these days. Long may Bill keep soldiering on and enjoying life.

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