5th September
After my Angiogram, I was then transferred onto a Acute Coronary Care ward within Bournemouth Hospital, it was literally a stones through from the Angiogram theatres. It was a 4 man room, and there was plenty of room. It seemed to be quite a nice ward, well laid out, but the view was not like Poole Hospital. My window looked out onto a couple of trees and then another building, but at least I could see a bit of nature. I think I was on the 2nd floor, although you get so disorientated when you enter into a hospital you have never been before and you have other things on your mind as you can guess, not to worry about what the view is going to be like!
Breakfast was nice, cornflakes for me, I do like my cornflakes and a bit of toast. Unusual for me because I tend not to have breakfast at home. Nice little treat under the circumstances. So the nursing staff were nice, good humoured and professional as always.
So I didnt sleep much at all, but when the lights came on and nursing staff started to move around with medications etc, I managed to chat to one of the senior staff. I was asking about the bypass and just needed someone to reassure me more than anything. It transpired that I had a Critically narrowed artery! For me, this sounds exactly as it is...... a very narrow gap for blood to pass. Surely that's not a good thing? The answer to this came about an hour later when I walked to the toilet and when I got back to my bed, I started to have a little bit of a sweat. Similar to when I had a heart attack. Luckily the nurse came over not long after I got back onto my bed and asked if there was anything I needed. I told her that I had walked to the toilet and now felt sweaty. I said, put the back of your hand on my brow to test. So she recognised that all was not right. She told me to stay there and she would be back. She came back with an aspirin, which I took, and then a blood test a little while later.
The blood test was purely to see if the heart had produced any enzymes to indicate damage to the heart. A while later a doctor or consultant appeared along with the sister of the ward. To put it simply, I was told my levels were now 400 whereas in Poole Hospital my levels were 100. So a dramatic increase. Not sure if i had another heart attack or not, I just got a bit sweaty as far as I am concerned, but from this point onwards I was confined to bed. If i wanted to go to the toilet, they would take me on a wheelchair all of 10 yards if that. You can't argue with that. If walking a short distance was going to end my life, then I shall stay on my bed for sure! Now that;s a bit of a scary thought. Just how narrow was my artery that walking a short distance would potentially cause more damage to my heart. What if I didnt go to hospital on the morning that I had my heart attack? The ambulance crew did give me a choice. What if I had said no, I just want to go back to bed and sleep. To be honest, I am fairly certain I wouldn't have lasted the day if I had done that. I would have had another heart attack and that could have been fatal. Wow. How close was that? How defining was the choice me and my partner had made at 2am in the morning to go to the hospital? I try not to dwell on it but I think it proves to me and anyone else reading this that if you have discomfort in your chest or neck or both and its unusual for you to have a feeling like this, consider the fact that you may be having a heart attack and please...... ACT upon it. Listen to your body, its trying to tell you something really important !!
heart attack, discomfort, enzymes, critically narrowed artery, neck pain