Home looked good, albeit pretty much the way I had left it on Saturday. The only good thing about the heart attack was that it happened with the children in Muncie so we didn't have to worry about who was going to take care of them in my absence. Obviously, we are going to have to come up with a Plan B for the future...

Old age carries with it so many little aches and pains that I largely ignore. Saturday AM, the back of my neck ached a little, like I had messed it up by propping my head up on my arm while watching TV in my room, as I often do. Then my right arm got tingly, as it often does when I am on the computer with my arm outstretched at the mouse. I took an aspirin, telling Meg I'd start on housework when the neck felt a little better. The arm got a little worse...then the other arm started. Both felt tingly, numb, achy, and heavy...especially to the elbows...like nothing I had ever experienced before. I could hardly lift them. Then...and only then...did I become aware that I had a dull ache in the chest right between the breasts. I felt a tiny bit of nausea. By this time, Meg was in the shower. I paced a bit, wondering what was going on, feeling more and more anxious. When she got out, I said, "I don't want to alarm you, but something is going on with me." She quickly dressed, then we started a Keystone Kops effort to figure out what to do. We got in her van. Do we call an ambulance? Drive to the hospital? Which hospital??? As we headed for the Hendricks County Hospital, we drove right by the fire department and decided to stop there.

When we pulled around the back of the FD, some of the firemen/paramedics, who were at a lunch break at a picnic table, were just being called on a run. (Not all left, of course.) I rolled down the window and said, "Where do you go if you think you're having a heart attack?" "We'll take care of you right here." And they did. They got another ambulance, put me in it, and said Clarion West (Hospital) would be closest. Meg was to follow us there. They didn't run lights and siren because I was doing okay.

The paramedic was running an ECG as we traveled. I began to complain that my heart was "palpitating"--you know...that feeling that it is skipping a beat, then pounding. (Everyone gets those. This was just lasting awhile and making me feel bad and ill-at-ease.) Adam (the paramedic) could see it on the ECG. He was saying things like, "You're feeling it now, aren't you?" Then, "Better now?" Then, "You're feeling bad again." Yup! Really no pain...just irregular stuff. Adam told the driver that we should run "1A" or something like that, then said to me, "I just don't like to be stuck in traffic". Lights and siren went on and we peeled out. I could see Meg perfectly well behind us, although she couldn't see me. I said, "You just gave my daughter a heart attack!" (Meg has her own story about that. When she heard the sirens, she looked back thinking an ambulance was coming from behind...then realizing that it was MY ambulance. That was one moment of panic. Another moment came when she realized she didn't know where Clarion West was...and we were leaving her in the dust! Needless to say, she found it. We were almost there anyway...)

At the hospital ER, they ran tests, etc. I was told that I "mostly likely" had a heart attack...that I would need an angiogram (heart catheterization), but that they didn't have a crew on hand over the weekend there, so they were sending me to Methodist Hospital in Indy. By this time, I was feeling okay. (They had given me stuff for pain, I guess...although pain wasn't my complaint.) ANYWAY, I got yet another ambulance ride to Methodist where I was put in Critical Care and not allowed to eat because of an impending angiogram...that didn't happen. I was stable. No need to call in people over the weekend. (Meg was able to get me some food around 10:30 PM. I was hungry!!) Next day (Sunday), same drill. No food most of the day until they decided (again) that there was no hurry for the angiogram. I could have stayed at Clarion West! Monday, again no food after midnight. They finally took me for the heart cath just after noon, I think. Artery stented. Back to the room.

I was finally told, along about Sunday, that I had, indeed, had a heart attack. The heart throws off enzymes (Troponin I) when it is damaged. A reading of .2 is considered abnormal. Mine peaked out at 24 (indicating "moderate damage") but had dropped to 2 by the time I was discharged. I had to make some of my own assumptions because I don't think I saw the cardiologist more than 4 minutes the entire time I was in there!

There has been some depression with this. It isn't so much that I was in danger of dying...although I guess I could have been...but rather the darned inconvenience of it all. I had things to do! I got very impatient with the delays and the hurry-up-and-wait mentality at the hospital. I guess people who have heart attacks are supposed to feel bad and need the rest. I didn't. And rest? HA! I can't sleep in hospital beds, all connected up to things. When I had the ruptured aneurysm two years ago, I felt so awful and was in such a brain-fog that I didn't much care what they did to me. Brain catheterization? No biggie. Brain surgery? Oh, well...whatever. This time, I didn't feel bad. I knew I was in trouble and wanted to get it over with...but I really REALLY didn't want open-heart surgery. I dreaded the whole thing. Then, too, there were the needles. I had several needle sticks to get in TWO lines to put stuff in and draw blood out. For the last 24 hours, neither one of the two that were in were connected to anything...and they were beginning to hurt. The one that they had been using to draw blood clogged up when they stopped the Heparin drip, so that added to the new sticks. I counted nine in four days...all bruised.) Just trying to reach for things, go to the bathroom, get comfortable, etc., were a pain in the posterior. It was beginning to bug me, big time. I felt that the doctors (not so much the nurses) were talking down to me...ignorant old lady...doesn't know how to take care of herself...probably won't take her medicines, etc. Okay...so that's over. Why am I still bugged?

The result of all of this is that I will now be strapped to medications, doctor follow-ups, heart rehab, lifestyle changes, diet changes, and worry. I can't live worrying about every little ache or pain, or wondering if today will be the last, etc. I resent the intrusions into my life. I know I should be grateful for the life-saving care that I got, and that the future is probably a little brighter because I will now be monitored. And I am grateful...really! But I am also angry. I can't explain it. Am still trying to sort my feelings out for myself before I can even make sense of it to anyone else.

I do feel better today insofar as I am up and taking care of business. School starts for the children on Monday, and I DON'T HAVE TO GO. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!