Tuesday and Wednesday were not good days.
I saw the cardiologist Tuesday morning and actually felt a bit rough whilst I was talking things over with her. I told her and she expressed concern, but as I was not having any chest pains didn’t seem too worried, suggesting I might just have a fever or something.
So I drive back home – via the pharmacy to collect some swapped out medications she had prescribed – and went about the rest of what I figured would be just another normal day.
It ended up far from normal.
In the afternoon my earlier symptoms were suddenly accompanied by chest pain and (what I can only describe as) ‘flutterings’. I called my wife immediately and luckily she was able to walk away from work, so I (somewhat stupidly in retrospect) drove our car into downtown, collected her from her office and she took over the wheel and then drove me straight to ER at St E in Fort Thomas.
They looked after me well, eventually admitting me into their transitional care unit, where later in the day I talked things over with my cardiologist who quickly organised a battery of tests to try and find out what was wrong.
Long story short – but after several armfuls of blood, a ‘nuclear stress test’ (where I was injected with heavy mercury… or something?), various x-rays and scans etc – my heart was given a completely clean bill of health.
The good news is my heart is fine. And I don’t have any hidden blood clots, DVT or embolisms. (Yes, all that was checked too). The only thing that was obviously awry was that my resting heart rate runs a little high, despite the beta blocker I have been taking since last February.
Another possible excuse for my weekend issues might (and I mean a very vague “might”) be something called a haital hernia, a medical problem which is known to ‘mimic’ certain heart attack symptoms such as I was experiencing. I’m planning to get that checked out somewhen soon after I see how I fare on the new meds.
Early indicators of that are, disappointingly, not good. Whilst, by rights, I should have woke up this morning full of vim and vigour after my hospital news, I instead got up feeling awful (again) which only got worse after I took my “a.m.” drugs.
Plans for my morning were written off whilst all the crappy feelings (very) slowly diminished.
The afternoon was a lot more positive. It’s been another (strangely) beautiful day here in the Tri-State. Very uncommon weather for February. I decided to go out for a short walk and make the most of it.
Well, my short walk turned into half of a half-marathon! I found a certain spring in my step after a couple of miles and decided – on a whim – to face ‘adversity’ head on and really push myself to do a ‘distance’. My heart felt fine, my breathing nowhere near as laboured as it was doing the treadmill part of the stress test yesterday.
7.55 miles via both sides of the river and including the International Freedom Park, always a favourite route.
I was my way of saying “screw you health issues” and I felt huge accomplishment when I eventually got back home for a very welcomed hot shower and a late lunch.
2012 Distance:- 30.21 + 1.56 + 7.55 = 39.32 miles
I did improve my output on the weights circuit a little though. I did 30 reps per machine on 8 pieces of the equipment, but on two others I very much upped the ante.
On the Leg Press I pushed out 80 reps, whilst on the Ab Crunch I popped out 100!