my SO had a heart attack...
he walked to a nearby McDonald's, ate, then on the way back he started having chest pains.
this is going to read as a detailed account... apologies for that beforehand. It helps me get my thoughs out.
He came home at around 11pm, and asked me for a stomach pill. Before I gave him one (which he did not take), he ran his blood pressure machine I though 3 times (turns out 4 later), and I saw a measurement of 209 over something. Now, I have the actual numbers as reported by machine:
201/22, 92 at 11:00
209/11, 90 at 11:00
206/08, 83 at 11:01
191/15, 78 at 11:02
He felt that something was wrong. He told me to get dressed. I did. He wanted to go to ER. Google Maps shows 15 minutes to get there but I think we made it in under 10.
I don't have exact times, or what happened in between, in terms of time, but I recall that I think we made it to ER by 11:30, maybe 11:25.
It took doctors a while to get us ready.
On the way and while we were waiting, it was horrible. His fingers and hand and arm started getting numb, he started moaning and that must've been severe pain, as I don't often see him complain.
The bad decision we made was to go to ER via our own car and not call the ambulance. stupid. I did not know any better. I don't know what he thought. Maybe he was not thinking at the time. He later said he did not want to disturb the neighbors or something.
He continued complaining of the pain, loudly, even after morphene shot and blood clot buster via IV, I believe called warfarin. The medical team took probably 15-20 minutes to assemble. They were paged and called from home.
Finally by 12:00 midnight he was wheeled into the operating room, and next I've heard was in ~1 hour 15 minutes. At 1:15, the doctor came out and told me the following:
* ekg showed symptoms of a heart attack, so that was original diagnosis
* he put in 2 stents in the Left Anterior Descending Artery
* said that heart muscle is quite weak ..
he said about me driving him that he could go into a bad rhythm, and he could die on the way. if taken by ambulance, they could shock him back. You cannot see when he would have a bad rhythm. That if you have chest pains suggestive of a heart attack you shouldn't be driven, should be brought in by the ambulance. I was lucky.
He repeated that it is definitely a heart attack, that main artery was blocked 100% He opened it with 2 stents, and that it looks very nice. He put in a baloon pump to help the heart.
I asked him about damage of the heart.
He said that so far looks very bad, but if it started symptoms at 11pm, most of it will fully recover.
so far it is too early to determine, to make a decision, it will take 3 months to get to full recovery.
He continued that sometimes we call it stunning, because of the shocking of the heart from no blood flow. And if we open it thoroughly enough if he comes early enough after symptoms start, most of the time we get it to recover most of it. So hopefully we are hoping for that.
He said that an EKG in 3 monthy will tell us how much he recovers.
The cause as per doctor was bad family history of heart attack, and it was atherosclerosis blockage, and the rupture blocked off and closed the artery which was 100% blocked. I can add that his eating of unhealthy foods, not taking his medications did not help either.
So now his pressure is under control, he is stable, in cardiac intensive care unit. He talks, he smiles, he looks good. Not full speed yet of course, but it's hard to believe he just underwent quite a surgery on one of the most important organs in the body. But the drugs and the IV/catheter and other ER things are still having him down. And of course the heart attack did not help.
Doctor stated that if you have chest pains suggestive of a heart attack you shouldn't be driven, should be brought in by the ambulance
what bugs me is... had we called an ambulance at about 11pm.. it would take 5-10 minutes to get to us but then at least the proceedings could start. The techs would assess the situation, would put an IV in, and be ready for anything. The ER room would make arrangements and page the doctors, techs and nurses to get ready. I am guessing he would be on the operating table at 11:30 or 11:40 the latest and avoid all the pain and direct damage to the heart that he had to endure for those times. stupid stupid stupid.
As it stands, it took us an hour (+ any time it took the doctor to get to the heart) from the moment symptoms began to the time he was on the table. There is hope.. And I hope, I hope. |
