Tuesday 10 January 2012

Life changed...... in a heartbeat..........

Well, it finally happened………..

I've had a bleddy heart attack.

Yup, happened at 01:00am in the morning on Wednesday 7th December just gone (2011). It was a bit unexpected, to say the least. I'd thought it was wind or indigestion (or something) and ended up ringing the out of hours doctor (I was buggered if I was going to dial 999), after writhing around in unbearable pain for nearly an hour waiting for Ibuprofen and Paracetamol I'd taken to fix it to get a grip..... which of course, it never did.

Cut a long story short, she (the doc, bless her) insisted on calling out an ambulance .....once you mention 'chest pain', you kinda know you've pushed it over the edge. They ran some tests in the ambulance, and decided I needed taking in. I protested greatly, but I wound up being admitted to the Cardiac Care Unit when blood tests showed I’d had a heart attack, so I guess it was just as well.

So much for being invincible. {:o(

The pain had eased off a bit by the time I'd got to talk to her (the doc on the phone), and if it had eased off a bit earlier I most likely wouldn't have rung her at all. I told the cardiac consultant and he doubted I'd have been alive by the morning. Trouble is with living alone; had I arrested, it would've been 'Lights Out' and so I would have been unable to ring anyone. I guess I was lucky.

I had an Angioplasty on Thursday, late morning. Naturally it went tit's up (Wouldn’t you just bleddy KNOW it???!!!) when the stents were being put in, as one was put in the wrong place. It meant three needed to be put into the coronary arteries instead of just the two. The Cardiac Consultant doing it got the ‘markers’ mixed up and put it in the wrong place. In case you don't know it, it's all done under a local anaesthetic via an artery in either the groin or the wrist. I had it done via the Radial artery in my wrist and was watching it on the screen he was using. It was bloody fascinating. I don’t hold it against him… he was doing his best, and believe me, it looked to be amazing he could do it at all. He was a nice guy.... just one of those things.

No, I’m just pissed at my luck yet again, in the same way I am when I buy the only dodgy TV on the shelf…… only a bit worse I guess.

Anyway, …… the dodgy stent is sticking out into the Aorta (artery) like a car sticking out of a junction, so the blood flow has to go through the mesh from the side instead of flowing through the unobstructed open tube if it was ‘in line’ with the blood flow. It means I'm now on 'platelet' medication (prevents the blood platelets from being as 'sticky') for the rest of my life instead of just a year.

I ‘arrested’ on the table too and it took two defibrillating shocks to get my heart going again. It happens from time to time, so not that big a deal really and they kinda anticipate it happening. They have to cut all the heart’s blood supply off for a short while, and the heart stops, or ‘fibrillates’, sometimes as a result. He warned me that I would pass out for a while. My last words on this earth were very nearly ...'Oh, Ok' (Always thought it'd be 'FUUUUCK!'..... maybe it still will be... LOL) Had a nice burn to my chest…… you wouldn’t believe how sore a burnt nipple can be. Man, that is real serious voltage. I laughed to think that I've been saying for years .....

 'Baby, let me tall ya, this boy has absorbed a lotta voltage'

You gotta laugh, haven't you? {:o)

They had found that one cardiac artery….. one of three supplying blood to the heart muscle, (a third of my heart’s blood supply), had been blocked for ‘some time’. They unblocked it and inserted the first stent there, but can’t be sure if I will benefit from the restored blood supply…. depends on how bad the damage to the heart muscle has been. If it’s ‘dead’ it won’t recover. The second stent was put in to open another artery which was almost blocked, and this was the one which was put in the wrong place, so another was put in do do the job, and that one was ok.

Still, being positive for a rare moment… my heart is in better shape now and I’m not getting the chest pain that I was getting so often that I had been ignoring it. I'd thought it was either the usual ‘stress’ and anxiety pain courtesy of that fucking job and/or that of just being so unfit. It was actually angina, not just an anxiety ‘stress’ pain; to think I’ve been having angina pain for years and thinking it was stress and anxiety and when it got real bad, a ‘panic attack’ pain. Sometimes it would happen when I wasn’t feeling particularly stressed and I always thought that was real odd……

Those bastards at work over the years have a lot to answer for..... Yes, you fucking soulless, yellow-livered, weenie bastards.... you know full well who you are.

Sorry, to the rest of you...........

I was only in there for three days, and when I was back here, sat alone after Maggie had dropped me off and had a cuppa with me, I looked around and thought how quiet and empty this place would be if I wasn't here any more. How everything here would mean nothing to whoever cleared it all out and dumped it.

Trouble is, in many ways, it also felt like I'd just been to the dentist or something trivial like that.

Kinda weird, man.

The last thing on my mind was Christmas and like last year, I pretty much didn't bother with it. Sent off the cards again, and that was pretty much it really. Had an ok day though.... No Problem Pete called in for a natter and a cuppa late morning, and I took the little 350 Guzzi out for a spin to visit a couple of people in the afternoon. If you have nothing else, you have your mo'sickle, and she sure was a tonic to ride on Christmas Day. Took her for a thrash along some twisty roads on the way out. Got soaked on the way home in the rain.

Been finally getting off my ass and doing some exercise this week. Been out on the bicycle every day for the last five days and have worked up from going hard at it for three miles on the first day to doing sixteen and a half miles on it yesterday. (Yeah, I know, I know, but I’m an all or nothing personality, y’see…) Legs and backside, (especially my backside), don’t like it much, but, hey, no chest pain, ......so that’s good then. {:o)

Amazing what they can do so quickly now, …….even with a balls-up. {:o)

It's late, I know, ......but Happy New Year to y'all
K. {:o)