So, I flunked the cardiac stress test.

This episode with my heart began a couple of months ago. 

Or maybe not.

Truth told, my heart has been an on-going cause of problems ever since I had my heart attack 8 years ago. The story is too long and too repetitive to tell you all the details. It would take a book. 

So, I’ll go back to the beginning of this specific string of events that led me to where I am now and tell you all about that. 

A couple of months ago, as I was dozing off to sleep, I felt something in my chest seize up. It was — as these things always seem to be with me — sudden and without any warning. One moment I was fine. The next moment, I felt a clench in my chest and the pain came right at me. 

It was not a little pain. It was heart pain that went through me from front to back and traveled up my throat and spread across my jaw. 

I thought immediately, well, crap, I’ve got to go to the emergency room. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. Modern medicine is a life saver. It’s saved my life several times.

But it ain’t no fun. Being a patient is definitely preferable to being dead. But, that being said, being a patient sucks. 

Going to the ER absolutely ruins your day, and probably your whole week. 

But, there is that “they can save your life” part. And there is also that, when it’s your heart, or a stroke, “you don’t have much time” part. Minutes can be decisive. 

I know that. I knew that then. But, still, I dithered. I waited. And, the pain rewarded me by stopping all on its own. So, instead of going to the ER, I went to sleep. 

And the next day, I did not call my cardiologist. I did what I knew I should not do and shrugged it off. In my defense, there had been a number of these episodes and every time they happened, I had to go through tests to find the problem and no problem showed up. 

My cardiologist believed me. He never thought it was nothing. But it wouldn’t show itself to a Holter monitor or an echo cardiogram. It just wouldn’t. 

Then, a week after the episode I just described, the pain came back, and this time it wasn’t playing. 

It was the same drill it always is. I was feeling fine. No problem at all. Then, like somebody flipped a switch, Wham! the pain hit. It hurt. It hurt a lot. And it kept getting worse. I was sweating profusely and I felt like I was going to throw up. 

I took a nitro. No effect. I took another nitro. The pain rolled on. It hurt. I mean it hurt. 

And I thought, man, this is for real and for certain bad. 

Hubs and I debated: Ambulance? Or drive to the hospital ourselves?

We decided it would be faster to just go. 

When we got there, the pain did not stop. But the monster wouldn’t show itself. My EKG was normal-ish. And the blood tests did not show any damage to the heart muscle.

But the pain rolled on. 

I think the hospital is under some kind of financial stress. The reason I say that is that I’ve been to the ER a number of times, and this time they were undermanned compared to what I’ve seen before. Also, the docs weren’t the same caliber as what I’ve encountered in the past. 

Maybe the difference is that this was deep night, after midnight, and both my stroke and heart attack occurred in the early evening. I dunno.

I just know that these were very nice people, but they were also not on point with what was happening 

The pain was bad enough that they had to give me IV morphine, and the morphine didn’t touch it. Then — I don’t know, after about an hour I guess — the pain stopped. As suddenly as it came, it stopped.

The ER doc decided the whole thing was GERD, which is kind of like acid reflux on steroids. Now, I do have GERD. In fact, I had an ulcerated esophagus that required the gastroenterologist to use some sort of thing to widen it back out so it would work right. I also had a pyloric ulcer.

So, the GERD diagnosis wasn’t off the wall.

Me, I was just glad the pain was gone. I was ready to get out of there and go home. 

But I have to say, knowing what I know now, they made a bad call. I think that, given my history and those symptoms, they should have kept me for observation and let my cardiologist take over in the morning. 

If the first team of docs who dealt with my heart attack had made this same mistake, I might have died. 

But that’s hindsight. And hindsight is always more accurate than taking your best shot in the middle of the night when the tests don’t show you anything.

And I didn’t die. In fact, I went home, went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. 

I called my cardiologist and my gastroenterologist the next morning and they started the hoodoo that they do. The gastroenterologist was not convinced by the ER doc’s diagnosis, but he upped my meds and scheduled me for a rotor rooter look-see .

My cardiologist — God love him — was even less convinced by the ER doc’s diagnosis. He started putting me through the do-wah-dubby-do of heart tests.

I won’t bore you or myself by dragging you through the stream of tests. Let’s just say, each one of them came back saying, well, yeah, she’s got heart failure, and no she doesn’t have a hole in her heart, and nope, and nope, and nope there is nothing to explain this pain. 

But, still, he wasn’t buying it. Then, I had another small-ish episode. Just like all the others, I was feeling fine and then Bam! the pain shot right through me from front to back. This time, it went into my left arm instead of up my throat and into my jaw. And this time, I didn’t get nauseous and start sweating. I took a nitro and it stopped. 

As far as I was concerned, that was done and done. 

Then, my cardiologist had me take a stress test. I had one of those 8 years ago, when I had my heart attack, and I don’t remember it being all that bad. But this test was a terrible experience. They juiced me hard with chemicals and made my poor old heart go from zero to 90 in one beat. 

There was so much tension in my chest, I had trouble getting a breath. For what it’s worth, I think what I call “tension” in my chest, other people describe as “pressure.” I think that may have worked against me. 

The test was a horrible experience, and it kept on being a horrible experience, even after it was finished. The test techs were concerned. They asked if I needed a wheelchair to get to the hospital door, but I thought, if I can’t walk to the hospital door, how am I going to walk to my car? 

They walked me to the front of the hospital — it’s a long serpentine through corridors to get there — and left me on my own. I stumbled to the car, then I called my husband. 

I should have just told him to come get me, because I was in no condition to drive. But I kept thinking that I didn’t want to leave my car in the parking lot. So, I asked him to talk to me while I drove home.

It took me several days to get over that test. I felt like I’d been drug by a runaway horse. 

I blamed the drugs they gave me and went on with my life. I was so sure the test would show nothing, that I put off my follow-up visit with my cardiologist so I could go to a school thing with the grands. 

But, long story short, I flunked the stress test. Or, as my cardiologist said when he walked in the room “Your stress test was bad.” The monster had finally shown itself.

When my heart is under stress, the whole bottom half of it goes cattywompus. It’s probably a blockage or blockages, and it is definitely big.

The good news — and I think it’s kinda fantastic news — is that my heart comes back when it’s not under stress. That means it’s still alive. And it can be fixed. 

So, we’re doing an angiogram right after Thanksgiving, and then, if nothing goes wrong,  I am hoping we’ll get it fixed.

I am hopeful that if it truly is fixable, and we do get it fixed, and nothing goes wrong, that I’m going to feel a whole lot better at the end of this. 

I’m taking my aspirin and all my other meds, plus the new meds my cardiologist has added. I’m avoiding putting my heart under stress right now because I don’t want to trigger this baby off before the angiogram. 

I’m also going to go to confession and get myself anointed. Other than that, I’m ready for whatever.

I don’t know how much I’ll be writing the next week or so. I have a lot of things I want to write about, but this deal is kind of an imperative. 

Plus, Thanksgiving. 

I do have one bit of parting advice for you. Stay prayed up. I try to live so that I am ready to go at any time. Because … well … you never know.