Jericho: Heart Patient
At approximately 4:00 AM, Tuesday, 9/19, I woke up to go to the bathroom. On the way back to bed I realized my heart was beating pretty hard and pretty fast. Not only was it beating hard and fast, it was also beating irregularly. It was doing a kind of boom-boom-boom-WHAM-boom-boom-WHAM-WHAM ... not fun. Normally, when my heart goes fast, all I need to do is sit, breathe and relax and the heart will slow on it's own. I had an incident like this about two weeks ago. Same deal, got up for the bathroom, felt heart doing flips in my chest, sat and breathed - I was asleep within 15 minutes of waking up. This time it didn't work that way.
As it turned out, Steph was awake. We could both feel my heart banging along. We waited and it didn't stop. This went on for about 25 minutes. By that point, I was wide awake, so was Steph. I had some tightness in my chest, not much but it was there. Could have been from the heart beating, could have been from the anxiety of worrying about my heart. Either way it was there. My heart had slowed, but it was still faster than normal and irregular.
I thought about going to the ER. I looked at my insurance card, seeing it was a $100 co-pay, and not sure if I actually had a problem, I reconsidered. There was a 24 hours nurse line on the back of the card, so I called them. They told me that their standard was to see your normal physician in the next few hours if something was not going on and to hit the ER if there was something still going on. Since my heart was returning to normal, I decided to just call my doctor's office and leave a message for an early morning appointment.
Steph and I tried to go back to sleep, the alarm went off much too soon. I went into work expecting a call in the early morning. No sooner had I sat at my desk, my cell rang. My doctor tells me to report to the ER, they could do many more tests than she could do in her office.
After tidying some loose ends, and preparing our co-workers for us being gone the whole day, Steph and I headed to the ER at Virgina Mason. I got to the ER, reported some heart palpitations and chest tightness. A nurse lead me back to one of the rooms, asking me on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad the chest pain was, I said one. He told me to lay down.
At this point, things went very quickly for a while. People showed up en masse, it was like a ninja assault! Before I knew what was going on, I was topless, I had an I.V. line in my arm, a heart monitor on my finger, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, I was wired up to an EKG and someone was handing me an aspirin and a cup of water. In the midst of all this chaos was a woman operating a laptop computer on a rolling stand, saying she had ordered this and charted that. At some point, as I'm laying there wondering if I was going to live through the day, she asked me if I was an organ donor? Since my middle finger was occupied with a heart monitor, I just answered "yes" and went on with the rest of my ordeal.
After a few minutes, they gave me something I might become familiar with in the next few years - Nitroglycerin. Unfortunately, and yes, you are reading this correctly, the tightness in my chest faded after taking this. Most likely, something wasn't getting enough oxygen. This put everyone on edge. Had I had a mild heart attack?
Blood was drawn, twice, chest x-rays were taken, twice. We waited for the results. A doctor came in, explaining what she thought was going on. Explaining that my blood pressure and heart rate looked fine. She explained that my weight and my family's strong history of weak hearts was problematic. She explained I would probably need a stress test and possibly a heart monitor for a few days. A lot would depend on the results of the xrays and blood tests. So, we waited for the results. And we waited. The bed was thin and my ass was getting sore, but they wouldn't let me get up until they had the test results. We waited.
Finally, the results came back - all negative. They don't know what caused it, but there was no detectable damage. Good news, if a mixed blessing. As quickly as it began, it was over. They disengaged me from the machines, I put on my shirt, and I was told to go get some lunch, then report to a different floor to be fitted for a "King of Hearts" heart monitor.
When I think of "heart monitor", I think of the bulky thing my grandmother wore when she had her quad-bypass. It was the size of an old cassette recorder and had a few hundred wires leading from it. The King of Hearts from Instromedix is about the size and weight, even the style, of an iPod. To continue on with the analogy, the leads from it resemble a pair of ear bud head phones. The only exceptions being that instead of one stereo mini jack on the plug, there looks to be two, and it doesn't go into my ear, it snaps on to electrodes I glue to my chest. The electrodes thing is fun. For the next two weeks I'll be gluing these things on my chest. To do this, I have to shave the area, clean it with alcohol, then rough it up with a bit of sand paper included on the throw-away part of the electrode that protects the adhesive. All told, I'm going to end up with pimples and red marks on my chest for weeks to come. The idea is that this monitor records and holds the last 45 seconds of my heart beating. If I have another flair up, I'm supposed to sit, relax, then press and hold the Record button. This will save the last 45 seconds and record the next 15 seconds. All told I can hold five incidents. When I have five on the device, I'm to call the central modem, identify myself, place the handset mic over the holes on the record button and press the send button. This will transmit the incidents to the hospital where they can be examined. Very 20th century!
After this, I was scheduled for a stress test for Thursday. I was told to call my doctor to arrange an appointment for the results, then go home, rest and behave like always. I did just that, went to work the next day, no incidents. On Thursday I went for my stress test. My mother and my grandmother have both had stress tests so I thought I was prepared. They link you up to an EKG, put you on a treadmill and make you get your heart up to speed. I was very wrong! That's old school. Or maybe they just decided I couldn't handle the treadmill, either way ...
They took me back to a little room, shaved me in spots for the EKG (my chest is a mess!) ran an I.V., took my blood pressure, etc. Then, a nice lady had me roll on my side, she began taking sonograms of my heart. It's a little trippy seeing your own heart beating on a screen. The big problem with this was that the only way she could get a good picture was to stab me in the left nipple with her probe. She apologized for the pain, but it was the only way to get a good picture. Somewhere along the line, I yelped a bit and a nurse commented that with all the strange breathing I had to do (deep breath, hold, breathe all the way out, hold, etc.) that you needed swimmer's lungs. I replied that I had the right lungs, but I sure could have used Schwarzenegger's nipples!
The doctor finally arrives, apparently this procedure has become quite popular and several of them were being performed that morning. They inject me with Dobutamine, this drug is used to get your heart rate up and simulate exercise. At first, I got tingly all over, then I got stabbed in the nipple again and all I could think about was that pain - she apologized again, saying "That is apparently where your heart lives." Honey, my heart doesn't live in my LEFT BOOB!
They upped the dosage, now I'm feeling hot all over. My heart rate is up around 130 (as I sit here in my chair, my King of Hearts tells me my heart rate is around 79.) More sonogram bad touching, or more precisely, echocardiograms. Then they hit me again, my heart rate shot up to about 140. At this point, my heart was beating about as fast as it had been during my episode - but very regularly, stone regular. All the while I'm doing the funky breathing and getting my nipple beat to a pulp.
They hit me again. I was really shocked. My heart was moving at this point, I couldn't imagine it going faster. They later told me that since I was so young, they wanted to make sure it could handle the higher stress. I was very worried about this, I mentioned this at the time. They injected me anyway. My heart went up over 150. I was breathing really hard and not sure I could keep going. The lady stabbed me hard and fast and got her pictures done. It was over fast, but not fast enough for my taste.
They injected me with a different drug, this one to bring me back down. I lay there for five or so minutes, letting the new drug do it's job, which it did just fine. When I did stand, I was very light headed. One of the drugs they used gave me the shakes, putting my shirt back on was a bit of a challenge. The doctor told me nothing glaring stood out, but I would get my results from my doctor later.
We grabbed lunch and headed home. By this time, our realtor was inspecting our house. We're considering moving, but that's a post all by itself. We had enough time to talk to him, then head back to Seattle for my results.
My doctor said everything came back normal. I'm pretty fit for a fat guy. They don't know what caused my episode, but I need to keep wearing the monitor to try to catch it. She told me I really need to take the weight off. I really need to go to the gym. I should get back on the hormone I was previously prescribed and I should stay on the aspirin regimen I had been given in the ER. She wants to see me again in two weeks, she wants to do a full physical and she wants to check my dieting progress.
In all, I knew some of this was coming. Between my weight and my family history, I am bound to have heart issues. My weight is back up to 472.5, nearly the 475 I had two years ago. With my weight, the stress at work over the last year and other stresses like our possible move, something had to break. Before I left my last job, I was getting very bad headaches. I got a new job with less stress and the headaches went away. Apparently, when under a lot of stress, my body manifests physical problems. I'd trade the heart palpatations for the headaches, but of course I thought I might have had a tumor at the time.
Either way, I need to force myself to stay on the diet, get my ass to the gym and maybe it is finally time to look for a different job. I'm not happy about any of that, but the alternative isn't much better.
As it turned out, Steph was awake. We could both feel my heart banging along. We waited and it didn't stop. This went on for about 25 minutes. By that point, I was wide awake, so was Steph. I had some tightness in my chest, not much but it was there. Could have been from the heart beating, could have been from the anxiety of worrying about my heart. Either way it was there. My heart had slowed, but it was still faster than normal and irregular.
I thought about going to the ER. I looked at my insurance card, seeing it was a $100 co-pay, and not sure if I actually had a problem, I reconsidered. There was a 24 hours nurse line on the back of the card, so I called them. They told me that their standard was to see your normal physician in the next few hours if something was not going on and to hit the ER if there was something still going on. Since my heart was returning to normal, I decided to just call my doctor's office and leave a message for an early morning appointment.
Steph and I tried to go back to sleep, the alarm went off much too soon. I went into work expecting a call in the early morning. No sooner had I sat at my desk, my cell rang. My doctor tells me to report to the ER, they could do many more tests than she could do in her office.
After tidying some loose ends, and preparing our co-workers for us being gone the whole day, Steph and I headed to the ER at Virgina Mason. I got to the ER, reported some heart palpitations and chest tightness. A nurse lead me back to one of the rooms, asking me on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad the chest pain was, I said one. He told me to lay down.
At this point, things went very quickly for a while. People showed up en masse, it was like a ninja assault! Before I knew what was going on, I was topless, I had an I.V. line in my arm, a heart monitor on my finger, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, I was wired up to an EKG and someone was handing me an aspirin and a cup of water. In the midst of all this chaos was a woman operating a laptop computer on a rolling stand, saying she had ordered this and charted that. At some point, as I'm laying there wondering if I was going to live through the day, she asked me if I was an organ donor? Since my middle finger was occupied with a heart monitor, I just answered "yes" and went on with the rest of my ordeal.
After a few minutes, they gave me something I might become familiar with in the next few years - Nitroglycerin. Unfortunately, and yes, you are reading this correctly, the tightness in my chest faded after taking this. Most likely, something wasn't getting enough oxygen. This put everyone on edge. Had I had a mild heart attack?
Blood was drawn, twice, chest x-rays were taken, twice. We waited for the results. A doctor came in, explaining what she thought was going on. Explaining that my blood pressure and heart rate looked fine. She explained that my weight and my family's strong history of weak hearts was problematic. She explained I would probably need a stress test and possibly a heart monitor for a few days. A lot would depend on the results of the xrays and blood tests. So, we waited for the results. And we waited. The bed was thin and my ass was getting sore, but they wouldn't let me get up until they had the test results. We waited.
Finally, the results came back - all negative. They don't know what caused it, but there was no detectable damage. Good news, if a mixed blessing. As quickly as it began, it was over. They disengaged me from the machines, I put on my shirt, and I was told to go get some lunch, then report to a different floor to be fitted for a "King of Hearts" heart monitor.
When I think of "heart monitor", I think of the bulky thing my grandmother wore when she had her quad-bypass. It was the size of an old cassette recorder and had a few hundred wires leading from it. The King of Hearts from Instromedix is about the size and weight, even the style, of an iPod. To continue on with the analogy, the leads from it resemble a pair of ear bud head phones. The only exceptions being that instead of one stereo mini jack on the plug, there looks to be two, and it doesn't go into my ear, it snaps on to electrodes I glue to my chest. The electrodes thing is fun. For the next two weeks I'll be gluing these things on my chest. To do this, I have to shave the area, clean it with alcohol, then rough it up with a bit of sand paper included on the throw-away part of the electrode that protects the adhesive. All told, I'm going to end up with pimples and red marks on my chest for weeks to come. The idea is that this monitor records and holds the last 45 seconds of my heart beating. If I have another flair up, I'm supposed to sit, relax, then press and hold the Record button. This will save the last 45 seconds and record the next 15 seconds. All told I can hold five incidents. When I have five on the device, I'm to call the central modem, identify myself, place the handset mic over the holes on the record button and press the send button. This will transmit the incidents to the hospital where they can be examined. Very 20th century!
After this, I was scheduled for a stress test for Thursday. I was told to call my doctor to arrange an appointment for the results, then go home, rest and behave like always. I did just that, went to work the next day, no incidents. On Thursday I went for my stress test. My mother and my grandmother have both had stress tests so I thought I was prepared. They link you up to an EKG, put you on a treadmill and make you get your heart up to speed. I was very wrong! That's old school. Or maybe they just decided I couldn't handle the treadmill, either way ...
They took me back to a little room, shaved me in spots for the EKG (my chest is a mess!) ran an I.V., took my blood pressure, etc. Then, a nice lady had me roll on my side, she began taking sonograms of my heart. It's a little trippy seeing your own heart beating on a screen. The big problem with this was that the only way she could get a good picture was to stab me in the left nipple with her probe. She apologized for the pain, but it was the only way to get a good picture. Somewhere along the line, I yelped a bit and a nurse commented that with all the strange breathing I had to do (deep breath, hold, breathe all the way out, hold, etc.) that you needed swimmer's lungs. I replied that I had the right lungs, but I sure could have used Schwarzenegger's nipples!
The doctor finally arrives, apparently this procedure has become quite popular and several of them were being performed that morning. They inject me with Dobutamine, this drug is used to get your heart rate up and simulate exercise. At first, I got tingly all over, then I got stabbed in the nipple again and all I could think about was that pain - she apologized again, saying "That is apparently where your heart lives." Honey, my heart doesn't live in my LEFT BOOB!
They upped the dosage, now I'm feeling hot all over. My heart rate is up around 130 (as I sit here in my chair, my King of Hearts tells me my heart rate is around 79.) More sonogram bad touching, or more precisely, echocardiograms. Then they hit me again, my heart rate shot up to about 140. At this point, my heart was beating about as fast as it had been during my episode - but very regularly, stone regular. All the while I'm doing the funky breathing and getting my nipple beat to a pulp.
They hit me again. I was really shocked. My heart was moving at this point, I couldn't imagine it going faster. They later told me that since I was so young, they wanted to make sure it could handle the higher stress. I was very worried about this, I mentioned this at the time. They injected me anyway. My heart went up over 150. I was breathing really hard and not sure I could keep going. The lady stabbed me hard and fast and got her pictures done. It was over fast, but not fast enough for my taste.
They injected me with a different drug, this one to bring me back down. I lay there for five or so minutes, letting the new drug do it's job, which it did just fine. When I did stand, I was very light headed. One of the drugs they used gave me the shakes, putting my shirt back on was a bit of a challenge. The doctor told me nothing glaring stood out, but I would get my results from my doctor later.
We grabbed lunch and headed home. By this time, our realtor was inspecting our house. We're considering moving, but that's a post all by itself. We had enough time to talk to him, then head back to Seattle for my results.
My doctor said everything came back normal. I'm pretty fit for a fat guy. They don't know what caused my episode, but I need to keep wearing the monitor to try to catch it. She told me I really need to take the weight off. I really need to go to the gym. I should get back on the hormone I was previously prescribed and I should stay on the aspirin regimen I had been given in the ER. She wants to see me again in two weeks, she wants to do a full physical and she wants to check my dieting progress.
In all, I knew some of this was coming. Between my weight and my family history, I am bound to have heart issues. My weight is back up to 472.5, nearly the 475 I had two years ago. With my weight, the stress at work over the last year and other stresses like our possible move, something had to break. Before I left my last job, I was getting very bad headaches. I got a new job with less stress and the headaches went away. Apparently, when under a lot of stress, my body manifests physical problems. I'd trade the heart palpatations for the headaches, but of course I thought I might have had a tumor at the time.
Either way, I need to force myself to stay on the diet, get my ass to the gym and maybe it is finally time to look for a different job. I'm not happy about any of that, but the alternative isn't much better.
posted by Jericho Brown at 9/22/2006 02:11:00 PM
10 Comments:
You complete fucking asshole!!!!!! I am about ready to drive up there and kick your ass. The next time your heart starts doing backflips, get your ass to the emergency room. A $100 copay is a hell of a lot cheaper than a funeral. I'm not done with you yet, so start taking care of yourself or it will be me that kills you.
I second that! I'll kill you a second time, if I have to!
I know you don't like the idea, but maybe a gastric bypass isn't such a bad idea. You will have to change your life one way or the other. It will be much easier to do it with the surgery. More "instant gradification" with the weight loss.
I'll miss your soft, hugable tummy, but if it's that or missing you all-together... I'd rather miss the tummy.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, Jer. We love you and we want you to be healthy and live a LONG life. Remember how you said you'd try weed after you retire? Well... you better make it to that retirement! You promised!
While gastric surgery is great for instant gratification, it's not great if you don't deal with the mental addiction to food. I can't say that I wouldn't do the surgery if insurance covered it. But, we've known a few people who have had the surgery and gained back a bunch of weight because they didn't eat corectly. I know it sounds strange...but dealing with the mental addiction and changing your life with diet and exercise, I would think would be easier than getting cut open, dropping a ton of weight...and then gaining it back because you still haven't dealt with your addiction.
Weight lose surgery does nothing for your cardiovascular health. It would make exercise easier, but that's about it.
By the way, in case you didn't read the last few paragraphs - I'm Fine. So far I'm healthy as a horse. Eventually, I'm betting, the doc is going to tell me to lower my stress.
BTW, excercize lowers stress. Need to go to the gym.
Yeah, you are fine. But you sure as fuck didn't know that the night your heart was freaking out. My cousin was our age when his heart decided to give out and shuffle him loose this mortal coil and he was not quite as big as you. I can' help wondering if that Friday night he was thinking about maybe seeing the doc on Monday about his heart freaking out. No one should ever take a cardiac issue lightly, especially not people as fat and out of shape as you and me.
I'm glad you are okay I hope you hit the gym, start eating better and start your own business so you don't have to deal with anyone else's bullshit. But regardless, if your heart freaks out again and you do not head straight to the ER, I will murder you.
In hindsight, I wish I had gone to the ER. We could have caught the episode while it was happening or even right after. If you don't think I'm taking this seriously, you obviously were not in the room when I had that stress test. That was insane and I don't plan on doing that ever again if I can prevent it.
However, there it is. Will I be able to prevent it? The answer is "no." Can I make it less likely? Maybe, I'm certainly going to try. But with my family history, even without the weight, even if I was a total athelete - you can't escape genetics. Eventually, my heart is going to give out. Probably at a young age. Hopefully, we'll catch it and I'll get a transplant or something. But, eventually, the thing most likely to fail on my body is my heart.
Trust me, if anything happens to my heart from now on, I'll be in the ER.
Being in shape will help put off heart issues. My Dad had a heart defect from birth, but it didn't really bug him until he hit his 40's and started putting on weight. He ended up needing to get surgery to correct it.
Take care of yourself, kettle.
Me, I am going to go beat on some Taiko drums today to see if that might be the sort of exercise that can keep me interested.
I've often thought about drumming-as-cardio. I just don't have the space to do it. I'm sure my neigbors would lose their minds if I started drumming in my basement. Then there's my wife ...
The Taiko was cool. My arms are stiff, but it was a blast.
You could try these or a real drumset and these.
Sorry I'm so late with this but I haven't had two hands free to type. First, poor baby. That had to be quite a fright. I'm glad you're taking it seriously and motivating yourself towards better health. It sounds like you have a great wife to help and encourage you and the support of friends who value you. Congrats and good luck.
Second, do you think as long as you keep that meter nearby that your heart will ever do anything unusual again? I think they could have healed you simply through the whole watched pot never boils rule.
And last, my sympathy to your left nipple. It's just not right to take something that was made sensitive for fun and blatantly abuse it like that. (Feel my pain, ah ha ha ha).
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