Member Profiles
SURVIVOR
Hi:
In Jan. of 2001 I drove myself to the nearest hospital which was about 30 miles
from where I lived. I had been having indigestion (or so I thought) and wanted
to get checked out. I had been seeing a dr. on a regular basis and had told him
I had had some chest pain on various occasions to which he replied "it's
probably just anxiety". I was told this for 3 years!! When I got to the hospital
they decided to keep me overnight because my EKG showed that at some point I had
had a serious heart attack.......I didn't that I knew of. When my labs start
coming back (by this time I was pain free and resting) I was told I would need
to go upstairs and have cardiac catheterization. This didn't scare me too much,
as I thought if there was anything wrong it could probably be fixed by
angioplasty. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would hear the
cardiologist say "you have 98% blockage in all 5 arteries, and without 5-way
bypass surgery you are looking at about 2 mo. max to live!
". I was completely stunned and remained so till I went to surgery the next
morning.
Nothing in this world can prepare anyone for the pain after bypass surgery. You
wake up on life support and paralyzed. I was hurting. I felt like my heart was
being bounced around in a bread machine. The next two weeks were the most
horrible of my life. I had been a smoker......and all of a sudden I was coughing
up a lung (which anyone can tell you hurts a lot after having your rib cage
wired together). It took a very long time to recover and I was in the middle of
moving into a new home when this happened. I was alone except for my kids,
because my husband had been killed in a car accident. I was 58-years-old and had
no idea of I would live to see another birthday.
It is now 4 years later and although my exercise is limited because of
arthritis, I feel wonderful, and very thankful to the wonderful doctors who
saved my life.
I guess I'm saying....doctors wake up. Women have very serious problems too and
a lot of times they are overlooked. If a man had been having the problems I did
for three years he would have been tested for cardiac problems years before.
It was a woman dr. who admitted me to the hospital that night and I thank God
for her every day. If I had not gone to the hospital...if she had not really
cared.....I would have been gone 2 months later and missed seeing daughters get
married and grandchildren married.
That is my story. I am a SURVIVOR and I thank God every day for giving me that
day.
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