Being Dead Hurts Like Hell!

In 2009 I had a stent put in - just the one, the rest of my arteries were in great shape - why that one decided to clog I'm not sure, but there you are. It was a fairly easy procedure and I went home the next morning and never had any more trouble from it.

Fast forward 11 years to Wed past, I got up that morning with no issues, tho I noted my back has really been hurting up between my shoulder blades for about a week now. Then I started having some discomfort, so I took a couple of Tums (my usual check sum) and it eased so I thought nothing of it till afternoon, then things changed in a hurry so I called the wife in out of the back yard and said "We're going - now!"

The hospital is not far away, but even so my pain was moving up from the 5-6 to 7-8 in a hurry, by the time I got into the ER it was already 9 or better, by the time I got into the ICU it was over 11. It seemed like there were about 15 people scurrying around doing things in the tiny ICU room, getting me hooked up to machines and giving me baby aspirin, then nitro. By then they had the port in so they started giving me a whole cocktail of stuff to ease my pain and including more nitro, which they started at 10, quickly upped to 15 and then 20 and a shot of morphine. I heard the Dr. in the ICU telling the crew "this is the real deal".....and the level of intensity of everyone in there amped up some more. At this point I'm hurting so badly I can barely breathe and sweating like a pig, arm hurting, all the classic symptoms.

My heart Dr. has his office attached to the hospital and he was on that day, and about the time he walked into the ICU - already scrubbed, gloved and gowned - I coded. Heart stopped, breathing stopped, done. He sent Rose out of the room and they went to work on me......

I had been sitting up, when I came to (no idea how long, could have been 1 minute, could have been 5) all I remember is being flat on my back with the ICU Dr. right over my face saying "we got him back!"

At that point they wheeled me into the operating room, and this is where things really become surreal. They don't put you under to do a catheter or insert a stent. They do have a nitrous mask on you, but the whole time he's asking me questions, music is playing, people are singing along.....they go into the main artery in the groin and have a large X-ray machine going in real time, and they encourage you to watch what he's doing on the giant TV screen! I was too sick and out of it to do that and I was still in a LOT of pain so my eyes were squeezed shut tight, but at some point I heard him say "OK, we have flow, you should be feeling a whole lot better now".

I wasn't particularly feeling better, in fact I threw up twice while on the table and once more when they wheeled me into my room upstairs. I haven't thrown up since I was a teenager!

I also was still in a lot of pain from them using the jumper cables on me and doing cardio pulmonary resuscitation - where they tell me if you're not cracking the ribs you're not doing it right - I'm still really sore in the middle of my chest, and coughing is hell! By the way, you always see them on TV or in the movies where they rub the paddles together, shout clear! and jam them on your chest, where your body arches up in response to the shock - that's not how it works. They stick a pad on the left front and right rear and the wires connected to those pads are actually pretty small, not those big coils you see in the movies. The actual shock is very brief and you don't arch up like that - I'm told.

They said one end of my old stent had a plug in the end of it - that's all it takes to kill you.

They roto-rootered it out then he put in another, larger stent - I don't know the exact details, I'll find out later and I'm sure he'll have the "movies" for me to watch.

By that evening in the room upstairs I was pretty well relaxed and out of pain except for the center of my
chest where I think they must have at least cracked some ribs. By the next morning I was feeling almost normal again - which is just amazing, how you can go from being mostly dead to no big deal in 12 hours. However I am happy that they didn't have to put a zipper in my chest.

Yesterday afternoon they did an EKG and Echocardiogram - which is just a sonagram of the heart - she goos up the end of the wand and fairly jams it into my chest - right where my ribs are hurting. That took about an hour, and the doc came in this morning and gave me the word. Little to no damage to the heart muscles, one area is off about 5-10% in pumping efficiency but he says that's recoverable over the next couple of months. Even he was surprised that there wasn't more damage given the severity of the heart attack.

Really? Dead a few hours ago and now I'm fine with only a stent to show for all that pain (and money, I'm sure!) Pretty fucking amazing, if you ask me.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I already have all the bandages off and I'm home sitting on the couch like nothing happened, although I'm enjoined from lifting anything heavier than my 14 lb dog, I don't have any driving restrictions and I can even get laid starting tomorrow, if I want.

Lastly, thank you in advance to all the members here for the good wishes and attention - I really appreciate the community we've built here!

 

Well, Rose likes to channel the Princess Bride and says I was only mostly dead!

One thing I can tell you - it was like a light switch, none of that going to the light or seeing the face of god shit.....

 

I don't know if I can get any from the OR, I won't see my heart doc till the 30th

 

Hospital did a follow up call, I guess they want to make sure I'll be alive to pay the bill!

 

Nah they were thorough, checked to see how I was tolerating the meds, made sure I knew of my follow up appts etc.