My first heart attack that wasn’t. Part two, of two.

Remember that time I thought I was having a heart attack? What happened next?

Great question.

Here is the truth. Remember where we left off? Reminder: I won the symptom lottery and was pretty effing sure I was having a heart attack.

Well, what to do? Call the ambulance? Ignore it? Freak out and make it worse?

No.

I make my own way in life.

I rang a friend and said to them that if they didn't hear from me by 5pm could they take my dog for a walk.
They said for sure. But what was up? Oh, I googled symptoms of a heart attack, and so Im going to walk up the street to the local GP clinic. Just normal stuff. Totes what anyone would do.

Thankfully they were about to leave home to go shopping, and they met me near my house and walked me up to the clinic. I, much abashed, went to the reception and said "Oh, hi, I'm a patient here, bit random, but I think I am having a heart attack."

And they dealt with it.

They were super awesome. The Doc came out of a consult and hooked me up to some oxygen and a Blood pressure machiney thing, the nurse came in and put me on the ECG thingy. And the Dr sprayed something red under my tongue.

My blood pressure was outstanding! 174/120.
The Dr did say to me, I have to go back to my consult for a minute, but Bella, this is why we call the ambulance.
See, I've never called the ambulance before. So I had no clue what would make it ok. I remember when my Ma was sick with her cancer she forced us to carry her to the car (with a broken leg) as she was scared of how much the ambulance would cost. And I'm sorry we did that every day. But also, ambulance traumatised. Even though it's covered under my health insurance.

Turns out

I should have called the ambulance.
Also turns out my ECG thingy gave them assurance that my heart was functioning in the right rhythm, and it was just my blood pressure was outrageous. Outrageous!

I didn't really understand, and after being there for an hour and a half, and they bill almost giving me an actual heart attack, I got sent off with a script and a bunch of referrals.

I had to do a stress test. Which was super stressful, including not being able to wear a bra on a treadmill - in front of a bunch of people

But why?

The most annoying thing is that no one can explain to me why.

Why, post all the fucking awful stress of the last 5-40plus years do I now have this problem? Am working through the tests. I have (now) a new, good Dr and clinic, and I am trying to figure it out.

So that is my heart attack that wasn't.

My first heart attack that wasn’t. Part one, of two.

Remember that time I thought I was having a heart attack?

Fun times, not. And thankfully, as it turns out I wasn't heart attacking. I was having a hypertension event.

But who cares right? I have like 4 regular readers.

No, I care. I care. I love that I have 4 regular readers. Love you team!

I also care that I thought I was having a heart attack.

What heart-happened?

Well, nothing. Literally nothing happened, and then Saturday morning I woke up about 2am with pain in my chest. Like every Australian. I ignored it and forced myself to go back to sleep.

Saturday

Saturday I did all my chores and shopped, rode my bike to drop off my compost and lifted heavy things.

I had to have my asthma puffer with me every minute because woman was I short-o-breath. Phawww. Out of, inhales deeply, breath. Phew. Tired. Pfuh, exhausted. Wow. Like really sleeeeeeepy....zzzzzzz.

Sunday

Sunday I went to help a friend who'd just moved into an apartment put some things up on the walls (got me a Makita drill and what not), and generally check out their new space. I dod about 7 minutes work and I WAS KNACKERED.

Went home.

Had a nap.

Monday

I will never forget Monday. It was super annoying. I had to get up!

I had to go to work (from home), and be productive. I was in the worlds foulest mood. Potentially because I'm not sure if I ate anything the day before. And/or because it was becoming clear that there was something wrong. I could hear my blood pressure in my ear, my chest was very painful. I was out of breath all the time, dizzy most of the time and had a limited tolerance for msp (male, stale and pale) opinions. More limited than usual. No, but like seriously, logarithmically less than usual. Orders of magni-turd less (see the misspell?),

Then I had a meeting

I had a meeting with peeps whereby we talked about stuff we'd talked about last time, they bought up issues for which we'd agreed resolutions last time we met, and we got nowhere.

Needless to say, I was PISSED OFF. For serious. I was super over it. I lost my temper. In my head. But there was a moment. A moment when I remembered that one of the team members I was on the call with had had a heart attack last year. And so..... I GOOGLED THE SYMPTOMS OF A HEART ATTACK, and found this:

Common heart attack signs and symptoms include:

• Pressure, tightness, pain, or a squeezing or aching sensation in your chest or arms that may spread to your neck, jaw or back.

• Nausea, indigestion, heartburn or abdominal pain.

• Shortness of breath.

• Cold sweat.

• Fatigue.

• Lightheadedness or sudden dizziness.

I won the symptoms lottery. I HAD THEM ALL!

Got to be careful what you win.

I finished up the call, and proceeded to freak out.

How does someone who lives by themselves with no family, a dependant, one lovely animal, and a busy job deal with some fun like this?

To be continued:

Am I having a heart attack?