December 14, 2015
It was Father’s Day 2012 and my husband was getting ready to head out for a day of golf with our son. I decided to stay home and enjoy my time alone. In the process of fixing my bed and picking up, I realized I was having mild chest pain and I was feeling some pain up through my neck. So I decided to take five and the pain was completely gone. So I thought I’d finish up the few minor things left to clean up but my pain returned. I called my daughter since she was an RN in the heart Cath lab at a University hospital 70 miles away. She asked me to go in with my husband since he was heading there to play his golf game. I had been diagnosed with vascular spasms causing angina so I had been prescribed nitroglycerin. She asked that I take a nitro to see if it helped the pain and it did help as did resting. But this pain and discomfort was not as painful as the pain I had previously experienced with the vascular spasms,I felt rather foolish going in to see my daughter.
When I arrived at my daughter’s my husband dropped me off and asked if he should cancel his golf game I asked to please go and enjoy his day. I walked into my daughter’s and she immediately drove me to the ER. I was given an EKG as well as chest X-ray. Nothing abnormal! But the young intern and my daughter thought that I should be admitted. I protested this since I actually felt better.
The following morning I was the first patient in the Cath lab and the Chief of Cardiology started my angioplasty and found that I had scad in two of my arteries. The Dr placed three stents. One each for the two affected arteries and an additional one for the first stent that accidentally came loose and floated until he nabbed it and deployed it. So I recovered and the surgeon did tell me that I had pristine arteries! But I still have to take Crestor and I did have to take plavix for two years. Oddly I only take one or two 5 mg of Crestor a week and my cholesterol levels are too low according to my Dr..
The scariest part of all this? The pain was not that bad and I almost decided to stay home that day.