Doctor's Visit

It all started around 9:30pm on April 18th,06; pain in my upper abdomen just below my ribcage. I had this same type of pain a couple of times before and it had lasted a few hours. The attacks always happened on a weekend and by the first of the week I had forgot about the pain thus no visits to the doctor.

This was excruciating pain on both sides. The hours kept rolling by as I tossed and turned on the bed like a ship on the ocean. Trying to find a comfortable spot. When sunlight had peeked it's way into the room, I still had not been to sleep and the pain had not let up. I decided that I would go see my doctor. Maybe this had to do with my gall bladder or something.

I arrived at Dr. M's office around 9 am. on April 19th I explained to him what was happening and what I thought it could be. He decided to run and EKG and compare it with one I had from a physical last fall. While I was not having typical symptoms for a heart attack, he wanted to rule out  that from the equation. He saw that one of the squiggly lines was quite different from the one in the fall. He said it could be a lead placement issue but wanted to check a bit further. He gave me some nitro under the tongue to see if it would take away the pain. That's what it did.

At this point he thought it would be prudent to go to see a cardiologist to totally rule out the heart being an issue. So, off to see the cardiologist! At this point I had some concern. After having another EKG done and I think an x-ray I sat down and talked with the doctor and he said the abnormal squiggly thing was due to lead placement. However, with me being overweight (fat) he wanted to do a nuclear imaging of my heart. This allows them to see how the blood flows through the heart. I guess I'll really have a glowing report to give you. We scheduled that test for the following Tuesday April 25th.

I arrived Tuesday April 25th for my test at 11 am and I was a bit scared but it needed to be done. They did another EKG ..imagine that. Then my blood pressure it was 106/70 , I felt a bit more at ease then. The week before it was 142/90 ( they said this was probably due to being stressed) The next step they shot the isotopes into my bloodstream and then used a gamma camera to take pictures of my heart. Next they had me do a stress test on a treadmill.

The goal of this test was to get my heart rate up over 148 bpm. ( 148-175 range).  This took almost 10 minutes. I was pumped about that because that meant all my time on the bike was paying off. My heart rate recovered very quickly as well. This all looked good. So I went home expecting to hear everything is fine.

Two days later I get a call with the test results. They were abnormal at that point my brain kicked into overdrive about all the things it could be. They scheduled me to come in an see the cardiologist the following Tuesday. I got off the phone without being told what abnormal meant. I have an active imagination so my mind went through quite a few scenario's . none which were pleasant.  I was not going to wait to find out what abnormal meant. Heck, did it mean I had an enlarged heart, blockage, valve problems, no heart or what.

I called back to the doctor's office to find out more details. This took quite a bit of time to actually get to speak to someone that could explain what was going on. Finally, I was able to find out that there was an area of the heart that was not getting proper blood flow--- translation Blockage. Well while I did not like what I heard at least I could be at peace until I talked to the doctor.

Tuesday May 2nd I met with the doctor and he explained the whole test results to me and showed me the area of concern. The test that had been done was around 70% accurate. Then he said they would need to go in and do a Cardiac catheterization to be able to see what is going on. GULP! This test would be 100% definitive as to if there was a blockage. If a blockage was found they would do a cardiac intervention with stent and angioplasty. Sounds fun , huh!

After talking with family and friends and praying about the situation I decided to go ahead with the Cardiac catheterization. It was scheduled for Friday May 5th,'06. They told me I would need to get to the hospital early. They weren't kidding. I had to be there by 4:30 am. yes you read right 4:30am. The procedure was scheduled to begin at 7:00am and would last about an hour, depending on what was found, if a blockage was found they would do the cardiac intervention with stent and angioplasty.

We left the house at 4 am and arrived a few minutes early. After checking in and waiting a few minutes I was taken back to a room to be prepped for the procedure.

                                                                        This looks fun

And now the rest of the story