I don’t spend much time talking about my life in these spaces. But talking about a heart-attack can save lives. Everyone I speak with about this agrees because far too many people, men mostly, ignore the symptom or behaviors that lead to having one and despite all the skill and technology of modern medicine, a stopped heart can’t always be restarted.
Mine didn’t stop it just yelled at me. A lot. And I listened.
It was not difficult.
The loss of blood flow to the heart muscle didn’t whisper it screamed. Can you hear me now!?
Message received.
I can’t thank everyone involved enough, especially my wife, who went through a more complicated hell than I ever will. She had to watch and process the chatter while I laid there answering questions and doing whatever the health care professionals told me to do. I was busy. I had a job. The events came and went in a very linear fashion for me. Each step made sense and answered the previous question.
I was following the path to identify, isolate, and repair the damage in real time.
That’s not to say the Doctors, Nurses, and staff left my wife hanging. By all accounts, either a Nurse, EMT or one of the cardiologists explained things to my family as they went along. Based on this it looks like this. We’ll do this and that, and it should all be okay. But “you are having a heart attack” comes with a lot of possibilities and if you aren’t busy having it, you’ve got time to let your mind embrace nightmares.
But the before and during was cut and dry. Everything told them what caused it, the images confirmed it, and the procedure addressed it. The treatment makes perfect sense, and that’s where we are.
Now that it’s over my wife has a job. Well, another job. That would be, keeping me from doing too much. It’s a weird thing to hear her tell me to sit down or not help out. Some people would embrace such a change. I prefer to be active and busy. I’m not permitted.
But my biggest complaint? I have to think about food.
My cholesterol is not great. It’s not even good, but it isn’t exactly awful. But it is the manageable contributing factor. So, I have to think about everything I eat. NO “just grabbing” something on the way or picking it out of the fridge.
There are more ingredients (which means more shopping), more prep time, more cooking, and more cleaning. I don’t mind food shopping or cooking (not that I can go shopping yet, too much walking) but I don’t enjoy it enough to want to spend that much more time doing it. To damn bad. That’s what I have to do.
I don’t mind cleaning either, but I’m prohibited. Too much upper body movement. Too early. Too soon
Breakfast is easy unless you consider that I never used to eat it. I rarely eat before 9 am but now I must. Oatmeal or some high fiber, oaty something or other with ground flaxseed. Fruit or juice. Sometimes I add a piece of high fiber, oaty something or other bread, toasted. Yum.
They say eating is exercise. It is when you have to chew high fiber oaty or something anything.
Any pain in your neck or jaw? Yes. From chewing.
The other meals are a learning experience but not too steep a slope. I worked in restaurants for decades. I’ll figure it out. But I’m not eating kale, and I think we should leave the Quinoa in South America where it can feed hungry people who need it more than pretentious western foodies.
Eating will cost more. Even the less pretentious grains, fruits, and vegetables are an uptick to the grocery budget. It’s okay; I won’t be spending much money on dining out. Most restaurant menus are a stake to the heart health in the immediate wake of a cardiac event. Fat, salt, calories. Boom! Eventually we can work them back in if we are careful but for now, none of that. And even then, not often.
I have not had a beer in three weeks. Not a big deal but I miss them. The beers. But it has to wait. I need to get used to the chemistry experiment before we reintroduce the occasional beer.
Speaking of chemistry, we’re still tweaking the Blood Pressure meds. As I noted previously, I’ve never had high blood pressure, so the meds have been pushing it a bit low. Last week I had a series of bizarre symptoms that had me calling the nurse at the Cardiologist’s office to ask her opinion. It’s the BP meds. And drink more water.
We changed when I take one pill to before bedtime, and that seems to be working better. Or maybe it’s the water.
Moving too fast or for too long is still not a great idea. Stairs suck. I am planning all the things that need doing on any given floor to limit their use. Not forever but for now. Not bad, just different.
I go back to work tomorrow.
There are still lots of restrictions so that will be interesting but who wouldn’t want to think about how far or fast they walk to the coffee maker and back? Yes, I am still allowed to do that. Thank God!
