Hi,
I was born in 1955 in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, USA. Wouldn't find out I was also born with a heart defect until I barely survived massive heart attack on a sweltering, humid summer night at age 41 in 1996. That was also when I was told this wasn't the first heart attack, there was pre-existing scar tissue from earlier events, in addition to two 90 percent blocked arteries (RC and LAD). Having lost consciousness and fallen down a flight of stairs during the on-going attack, I developed large blood hogging hematomas that created almost instant acute anemia one tPA was administered in ER. This required 6 units of blood transfused over the next 3 days and tubes in both groin arteries in an attempt to stent both blockages. Only the right one was able to be opened that night. The LAD stent had to wait until I was more stabilized 6 weeks later.
Odd moments that I hope other women will be spared: the EMTs, stationed 2 blocks from my home, spent 20 minutes arguing vehemently with each other over who was going to do the IV stick. At no time did they look at me or even touch me...rolled a cart in, told me m'am, you need to lie down. When I fell face down onto the cart unconscious they stopped arguing long enough to say, "maam, you need to turn over'...they were in the doorway, not touching or helping me in any way. They kept this up inside the ambulance until the driver hammered on the window...'what the hell? Are we going or not?" Meantime, my heart kept attacking, I was going in and out, could only gasp-talk. The hospital was a mere 8 minute straight shot but it took forever due to weird EMT personality conflicts.
At the ER: Extremely young dr asked incredulously, 'maam' are you still having periods?' YES. 'Really??? His voice rose a few octives as if I were some medical oddity...certainly a first for him. They tPa'd and gave morphine for the pain, then left for a long time assuming I was stabilized. When the dr returned much later I could barely gasp, 'no, the pain has never stopped.' The attack had continued on and on for at least an hour and a half from EMT arrival to this point in ER. At that time the ER doc jumped into action and called the heart cath doc who had driven home and now had to come back in...another 45 minutes. 3 hours of high stress fight the clock intensity in cath lab as the dr fought to insert stents and finally had to back off from the stent number 2. I was a sick, nauseous, vomiting and freezing so cold I had violent shaking and shivering that took 20 minutes under quickly piled on heated blankets to subside. 5 days in CIC were touch and go, often quite brutal.
