Friday, January 14, 2011

A heart attack at 26?!?

It all started on Monday, I was having horrible chest pains and upper abdominal pains. Finally on Tuesday I decided it was time to go in because I could feel something was wrong. I called my dad and he came over to watch the kids and we took Allen with us. When we got to the ER I signed in and waited about 2 minutes before being called back. When I got back there, they were asking me a ton of questions and they checked my heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels... All of them were off.. My heart rate was 32 which means my heart was beating every other second, Not Good! My blood pressure was 150/86, again Not Good. And my oxygen levels were in the 80's, and again Not Good!.

Right away the bring in a EKG Machine and hook me up. The nurse said "Wow, has your heart rate always been this low?" right then and there I knew something was wrong. I told her that Ive never had problems with blood pressure or my heart. I was born with a heart murmur but it hasn't affected my daily life. She goes out of the room and I can hear them talking and all of a sudden I hear "Mild Heart Attack." I start to freak out. The nurse comes in and says that I have Brady Cardia and they are putting me in a room for more tests.

I get into the room and break down crying, I don't want to die.. Dave reassures me that everything is going to be okay. First they start an iv so I can start getting meds and fluids. They hooked me up to a lot of monitors and even a crash cart, just in case. I swear it looked like I was wired for a damn sound system. They gave me some meds in my iv that gave me the absolute worst migraine, I felt like my head was going to explode. Then I had some sort of cocktail drink that had meds in it too.

Finally the chest xray guy came and did an xray, then it was off to my ct scan. I had to lay on the table and they inserted a dye in my iv. That was a weird feeling and the metallic taste in my mouth almost made me throw up. When they were done with that, I headed back to my room. A few minutes later I had to go to an ultrasound to make sure there weren't any blood clots in my legs. Then it was back to my room. The Dr wanted me to see if I could keep my heart rate and oxygen levels up if he turned the oxygen off. Right when he did that, everything dropped fast. Right then and there he said that I was going to be admitted. All of a sudden I started coughing and having a really hard time breathing without coughing.

Everything came back okay and my chest xray looked a little bad. So the verdict is Pneumonia. I was completely surprised. I haven't been feeling sick or anything. So a nurse brings in a breathing treatment for me, no wonder my kids wont take theirs they taste like shit! I told Dave to go and that I would call him if anything was going on. He left and I started crying so hard. I had just had a baby and now I have to stay away from my family overnight. I finally get to my room and whoo hoo for getting a private room!

I got some sleep that night, even though I was getting poked and prodded by needles. The next morning I had more breathing treatments and an Echo cardiograph done and that came back well too. They decided to take me off oxygen and have me walk around my room and my heart rate went up. After a few hours without oxygen and they got back all of my results, I was finally able to go home. I called Dave and had my dad go to our house to watch the kids.

The next day I started getting really bad pains in my lower back/spine and a stiff neck with a gnarly migraine. I was in tears and Dave made the decision to have me go back to the er. When we get there I have to have another CT Scan, EKG, and Chest X-Ray. Not to mention the 8+ vials of blood they took from me. My arms are so bruised from all of the needles and iv's this past week. They get me into a room and start an iv and the Dr says that my migraine and neck pain is a "Stress Migraine" and decides to give me some meds. They also decide to give me some morphine, Bad Idea! My face, chest, neck, arms and legs broke out. Apparently I am allergic to Morphine, so I had Dave go get my nurse and she came in and gave me some Benadryl.

My blood pressure was sky high at 179/92, so they gave me some blood pressure medicine to make it go down. After about an hour it was hovering around 170/85-189/117. With everything that was going on they told me that I have Pre Eclampsia. They said that you can get it up to 4-6 weeks after delivery. I have never had high blood pressure or a low heart rate, so this is all new to me. They decided to send me home on Blood Pressure meds, Anti-Nausea meds and some Norco for the pain from the migraines.

This past week has been a very emotional week. I went from having a baby to the er thinking I had a heart attack to pneumonia to migraines... I am so ready for things to slow down and for me to start feeling better.

{If you made it through this post, Congratulations & Thanks!}

1 comment:

Priscilla said...

Sorry to hear what happened to you - hope your doing better though. I know I just had a rough recovery after having my 2nd baby..I had high blood pressure, low pulse etc..But I started to feel better about 2 or 3 weeks postpartum. Hang in there!