The First Five Heart Attacks Don't Count - Part I

Your first heart attack might be a simple episode of uncomforting feelings. Or it might get your attention with extreme pain. Sometimes it is masked by other activity and at times it is ignored as impossible to be happening to me or it's just indigestion.

It took about six heart attacks to experience everything I just described in a four day time period.

I felt slight dizziness and then broke out in a cold sweat and felt very faint at the end of my second one. I thought I needed food - I had skipped breakfast.

I wondered at the time if I was having a heart attack but I blew it off. I was 48 but overweight having dropped to 240 pounds from 290. I felt better those days than I had in years.

Thirty minutes earlier I had been at the hospital for physical therapy. I tore my rotator cuff at work and was undergoing therapy hoping to prevent surgery.

The PT rooms were in the bowels of the hospital and at the farthest point from the parking garage. Two or three floors deep underground and several long empty hallways leading to what I thought of as hell. I hated it.

I could have parked closer but I always parked far away from my destination and walked trying to give my heart all the advantages I could. Probably should have gave up red meat and cigarettes and forgot the walking.

Physical therapy - I'll never forget what the company's insurance person told me - no pain, no gain. Same person told me to file my claim under my insurance and not worker's comp. Each time I went I wanted to show her the pain and let her explain the gain. But I digress.

The therapist had me on my back with my bad wing extended off the table. It was the first time he had done this particular move and it felt funny and uncomfortable before he even started. He had me try to touch the floor then the ceiling then I almost screamed.

It felt like he put his knee in my muscles right at the intersection of my back and arm then lifted his leg while at the same time pressing my shoulder down with one hand and moving my shoulder in a circular pattern.

Much like a pitcher or athlete swings his arm in a circle to loosen up his shoulder.

It felt like someone had a sharp hot knife cutting my shoulder off. The pain was so intense I wanted to scream. I broke out in a sweat, was having trouble breathing and asked him to stop. He did but after a few moments he wanted to try it again, it should get better.

I let him try again with the same results except I could not breath at all. I have asthma and although it was not exactly like an asthma attack it was similar. My inhalers were in my vehicle. Been here, done this many times. I was not worried.

When he let me up and told me to put my shirt on he asked if I was OK. I was not sure - many months later I would see his notes on my chart - patient had palpitations, heavy sweating and complaints of extreme pain and seemed disoriented.

He asked two or three times but I said I would be OK. I had never suffered such extreme pain and am sure I was not thinking properly.

In case you were wondering I never went back to physical therapy, I am not stupid - well most of the time.

I made it out of the hospital and drove to the local big box lumber store. Several times I knew I was not quite right but it was cold with the ground covered in snow. Rolling down the window with its blast of cool air rejuvenated me.

I parked in the first spot in the first row nearest the street and started the hike to the store. I made it about four rows and got back in my vehicle and parked in a spot nearest the front door.

I could barely breath. It felt like the end of summer when they harvested the soy beans - I live inside behind several air filters during that time.

I made it about halfway to my destination inside the store when I went down on one knee. The pain was worse then PT.

I rested and went back to my vehicle, sucked a couple of puffs from my inhalers and lit my cigarette before starting my drive 30-minute 18-mile trip home.

I called my girlfriend and she could tell I was not right. I explained about the intense pain during the newest PT move and told her I would be fine.

I drove the rest of the way home and had just sat down at my computer desk when the girlfriend called asking if I felt good enough to pick up her daughter from high school - she was not felling well.

I drove the thirty mile round trip with no complaints except I was abnormally tired. On the way back the daughter kept looking at me sideways and even asked how I felt.

We even smoked a cigarette together - it was our secret and I knew better but any chink in her armor was fair game.

She and I were enemies and just tolerated each other. We found it best not to talk to each other. She was very disrespectful of her mother and just about anyone else that did not agree with her.

When she played her music or TV too loud and refused her mother's request to lower the volume, I hit the circuit breaker. She thought she was smart and would sneak to turn it back on and use headphones.

I installed a key operated switch right outside her room and solved that. Even her mother could figure it out.

For her to 'ask' how I felt almost gave me a heart attack, pun intended.

We got home and she was very quiet and even offered to fix lunch. I figured out later that she had come home as a favor to her mother to keep an eye on me.

I made her job easy and laid down for a nap. I had slept over three hours when she woke me saying she could not reach her Mother - probably on her way home.

She wondered if I thought it was OK for her to make a trip to the mall - she didn't expect to be gone more then a couple of hours. I asked that she call home in an hour to speak with her mother - she agreed.

Her mother woke me three hours later to make sure I was OK and wondering where her daughter was.

Said daughter never called. I was upset she had used me but remained outwardly calm. Her mother agreed that her daughter could never again ask me permission to do anything and a call to her father was not a substitute.

About five hours into her daughter's disappearance I was walking to the front window to check outside - my girlfriend called it pacing - drove her crazy. I felt weird then a slight pain hit my chest - different from asthma but similar because I could not breath.

I went to my knees in front of the couch and laid my chest on the couch - my normal position when suffering an asthma attack. But this time I felt no relief. Everything stayed the same but finally I could breath.

Her daughter walked in as I was returning to my feet. To make sure she understood how badly she had screwed any relationship she ever had with me; I raised my voice and then yelled asking her where the f she had been.

I scared her to death - she had never seen this side of me - had never seen me extremely angry. Her mother did not say a word - she knew we had just got her daughter's attention.

I went back to the couch and my girlfriend told me I was having a heart attack. She was a CNA and had seen them before. I blew her off attributing it to her daughter's lack of respect and my anger.

She insisted I go to the hospital but I refused. Instead I went to bed - it was a couple of hours past my bedtime and I just wanted to sleep.

To be continued.....