HAC - The Attack Begins
Having a heart attack was nothing like what I expected. Yes, I had thought about it prior to actually experiencing it and, much as one would assume, it was nothing like in the movies. I was lucky (a theme you’ll note I’ll repeat many times through these posts) in that my heart attack wasn’t a “lights out” attack. I was also stupid (another theme you’ll see again) in that I didn’t recognize the symptoms. I was even dumber when I suspected what the symptoms were pointing to and I continued to ignore them, and luckier that my lights didn’t go out before I got to the hospital. So what was having a heart attack like? That’s what I’m going to be writing about in this post - part two of the “Heart Attack Chronicles”.
It was the end of September, 2007 and I was taking a week off from work for no other reason than I needed to burn some vacation days. I can be a bit of a workaholic and had lost two weeks of paid vacation the year before because I didn’t take enough time off (and that’s after carrying over the maximum-allowed of 5 days). I had no plans except to go visit my family over my last vacation weekend. I’d spent the weekend doing nothing but sitting around, playing games, reading, drinking and watching movies. During the nicest parts of the day, I’d tool around on my motorcycle but I’m not much of one for aimless drives (or aimless anything, really) and there’s not a lot of quiet, relaxing roads in the vicinity of my little city, so the bike didn’t see a lot of use. Besides, I just wasn’t motivated enough. The opposite side of being a workaholic is that, when I do take time off, I like to dial it all down to zero and just vegetate. I’m also a bit of a drunk and enjoy drinking plenty of bourbon and beer. Come Monday I was beginning to get the urge to get out and do some stuff. I even contemplated heading up to Mt. Monadnock and hiking up to the summit to relive some of my favorite college memories. I remember reading about the various hiking trails and all the warnings about hiking alone, so I kind of put it on the back burner. Man, am I even glad I did.
Wednesday night rolled around and I was sitting in my recliner watching something on TV. I’d decided I needed a bit of a break from the drinking so I’d lightened up on Tuesday and was taking Wednesday off from the sauce. It was probably around 9:00pm or so when I first started getting the gassy sensation in my chest. It was a pressure in the center of my chest that kind of backed up to my throat. It felt very similar to other gas symptoms I’ve had in the past and which are usually cleared up by a deep, gut-rumbling belch. Problem is, it takes a while to get that belch out so the gas hangs around for a while. There was something different enough about this gassiness, though. Something felt different enough that I took notice. It was my teeth. Each of my teeth ached as though I’d been rinsing with pure sugar and it was eating through the enamel. It wasn’t sharp pain, it was, as I said, an ache. I had no idea what that meant and brushed it off as something I’d need to get checked out at the dentist. My teeth have been a pain in my ass since I was a kid, so new aches in the toothal region didn’t really concern me all that much, they just annoyed me. The pain lasted for a couple of hours before fading a bit. I was able to get to sleep without any issues and felt pretty good in the morning. I was a little off, but I wasn’t really feeling bad.
So Thursday night comes around and I’ve decided that the reason I felt like crap the night before was because I was on vacation and not drinking. This situation needed to be remedied, so I went out for dinner and had a couple of beers. The symptoms had already started to return and I figured a steak and some Sam Adams would do the trick. When I got back home, I crashed on my recliner and had some more beer and bourbon. By this time, the symptoms were worse than the night before and I’d started to sweat, even though I had the AC on and I wasn’t very active. The aching teeth had also returned, and worse than the night before. At one point, I flossed and brushed my teeth well before I even thought about going to sleep in an attempt to alleviate the aching, obviously to no effect. I’d also begun to notice an aching in my left shoulder, though it never really went down my arm. The tightness in the chest was back and this time, instead of a gassy sensation, it was much more like constriction. Yet still I didn’t know what to make of the symptoms. The idea that I was having a problem with my heart had floated through my mind a few times, but the aching teeth and the lack of a numbness or shooting pain in my left arm made me question whether it could be possible. That and denial. I was only 36 and though I didn’t lead the most healthy lifestyle, I was moderately active and not so overweight as to be disgusting (at least in my eyes). The symptoms lasted longer, but still I was able to get to sleep without too much difficulty, though it did take longer.
Friday morning and I woke up feeling…odd. The symptoms from the night before were gone except for a lingering tightness in my chest. I was also noticing that my energy was low and it didn’t take much for me to feel as though I was exerting myself. I just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, or a symptom I could point to and say “that ain’t right”, rather it was just a feeling that something in my body was off kilter. It was a beautiful day and I was planning on riding my motorcycle up to Vermont, but before I got on the road I decided to do some research on my symptoms. The logical part of my mind was suspecting heart attack, but the rest of me was sure that there was no way that I could be going through something like that.
First off let me say that searching for symptoms is a surefire way to make yourself sick. Look up a symptom online and you’re bound to find a boatload of information indicating that you’ve got the worst disease imaginable. Still I was feeling strange enough, and the symptoms had been strong enough, that I needed to try and confirm whether or not I was having a heart attack. The results didn’t bode well for the parts of my brain that weren’t all that logical. Everything pointed to heart attack, though I must admit that I still didn’t find anything about aching teeth. Yet still I wasn’t convinced. I assumed that with a heart attack, I’d be completely laid out flat on the floor. So off I went to Vermont, riding my cruiser up the highway and into the woods.
I’m a dumbass, what can I say?
The absolute worst part about being a dumbass like me is realizing too late what you’re bringing to your family’s doorstep. I know something is not right with me and yet I still climb on my bike and ride up to my sister’s house for the weekend. There I’ll be hanging out with not only my sister and her husband, but my brother and his family, including my young niece and nephew. What better way to say hello than keeling over in their house? Nothing like causing trauma to say “I love you”. Needless to say I didn’t feel all that much better while I was up in Vermont.
Symptoms-wise, I was experiencing a burning pain in my chest when I walked. I remember walking from the detached garage at the end of my sister’s driveway back to the house and having to take it extra slow because of the pain. I would run out of breath easily and it didn’t take much to get me tired. Climbing stairs was also difficult, what with the exertion and the burning pain. I spent a lot of time that weekend just sitting and trying not to move too fast when I did have to go somewhere (which isn’t all that different from the way I’d spent most weekends up in Vermont, but this time it was pain dictating the circumstances, not relaxation). I was very cavalier about the entire situation, because I still didn’t really believe I could be that seriously ill and not be on the floor. Of course, looking back on it, I wasn’t all that far from being on the floor. Didn’t stop me from making a lot of off-color and morbid jokes and just generally not taking things seriously. Of course, when I military-pressed my nephew over my head, my sister-in-law wasn’t all too pleased. Didn’t even occur to me that I was weak and putting my nephew in danger by hoisting him up in the air when I could barely walk anywhere.
Still I didn’t change anything about my habits that weekend. There was a lot of eating and plenty of drinking. Maybe the buffalo wings and burgers weren’t a good idea, but the blood-thinning effect of alcohol might have been good. Maybe? Perhaps? Meh, probably not. I stayed up late, drank a lot and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings.
Then Sunday morning rolled around. I was sitting on the deck late at night, well after both my sister and her husband had gone to sleep. I was watching the dying embers of the fire in the outdoor chimney and draining yet another beer when this screeching howl echoed through the woods. Now wildlife is common near both my sister’s and my brother’s house seeing as how they both live in the woods, but this was something I’d never heard before. My first instinct was coyote, but that didn’t seem to fit. Then I wondered if it could be some kind of owl, but I couldn’t say for sure. It sounded a lot like a human screaming at the edge of their vocal range. It was a bit unnerving and after listening for it to sound off again, I decided to finish my beer, get off the deck and get to bed. Incidentally, it apparently sounded again later on because it woke up my sister, who rushed down to the deck to protect her brother, who she assumed was still out there drinking, and only realizing once she was on the deck in her bare feet and pajamas that she had no idea how she was going to protect me from some wild animal…gotta love family.
So off to sleep I went after making my way up the stairs in a slow and methodical manner (the pain in my chest, remember). I did my usual routine and hit the sack, falling asleep without any problems. But around three in the morning I woke up in a cold sweat. I was gripped by the most powerful sense of doom that I’d ever felt, and I was a pretty moody kid. I truly and completely believed that I was about to die. It was an intense sense of impending death, something that couldn’t be shrugged off and ignored. It cut through the haze of sleep and all my rationalizations and I was sure I was dead. I was trying to imagine what was going to happen next, trying to imagine not being able to draw another breath, trying to imagine the impending blackness that I felt sure was to come. But I also realized that this was another symptom. An overpowering sense of impending death, a sense of doom, is another symptom of a heart attack. Sometimes, in so-called silent heart attacks, it’s the only symptom.
I’d already turned on the light because I didn’t want to face death in the dark and now I sat on the edge of the bed and focused on my breathing. I thought about the example of my family, of those I respect, of the Gods and I worked through the emotion, the sensation. I realized then that I absolutely could not die in my sister’s house and leave that memory in their happy home. I finally realized how selfish I’d been and vowed to get on the road first thing in the morning. It was time for me to check into the hospital. My sister had already extracted a promise from me that I’d get checked out, but now I truly understood that I was having a heart attack and needed to get to a hospital.
Of course that didn’t mean I’d go to a hospital up there. I was still pig-headed enough that I rode my bike back home, walked into my apartment (oh the pain of that walk), got into some fresh clothes, got something to eat, hit the head and then walked back through the apartment building, through the parking lot and to my car. The pain in my chest was ridiculous now and unlike earlier in the weekend, it wasn’t fading.
I drove to Lahey Clinic (yeah, still too dumb to call and ambulance) and, parking in the absolute farthest spot from the emergency room entrance because I don’t like parking in crowds and I needed to lock my gun in the trunk (better to do this where the fewest people could possibly see you, given the average person’s reaction to firearms), I walked into the hospital. I was in a lot of pain and didn’t hesitate to tell the nurse that I was having chest pains. And from there started my adventure in the hospital.
Learn from my example. If any of you ever have symptoms like I describe or symptoms described by the American Heart Association, don’t fuck around like I did - just get your ass to a hospital. I got lucky, but that doesn’t mean that you will. Time is a factor. Don’t be an asshat like I was.
