And the saga continues.....

Once I was cleared I was like YIPPEE life is back to normal!

 Aaaaannd I got on the treadmill the next day at 3 mph and 2% incline (LETS NOT GO CRAZY RIGHT!).  I did that for 45 minutes.

Aaaaaand I then went and did yard work outside.

 Yea....never said common sense was a strong characteristic of mine.  Come Friday, the next day, the nice folks building my deck (the wife is a nurse Thank God) ended up taking me to the hospital for chest pain.  Yay Me!  Fortunately it wasn't a heart attack, but the ER nurse caring for me, when she heard what all I did the day before, admonished me and said I needed to get back into it gradually!  So over the weekend I went back to being a slug.  Unfortunately what that set in motion were panic attacks.  I think Friday's issues might have started out as over doing it, but ended up in a panic attack.  Monday definitely was.  3 hours this panic attack lasted.  I had a few small panic attacks over the weekend, but didn't recognize them as that.  I thought it was"you overdid it" pains.  It wasn't until the doozy one on Monday that the nice nurse on the other end of the phone assured me I was having a panic attack.  I would be fine.  It isn't cardiac.  My Dr prescribed an anti anxiety pill.  Yay...another pill.

I didn't want another panic attack so I took the pill the next day.  I was told the medicine would take a week or so to get into my system so I needed a way to cope with these attacks until then.  To the internet I went!  I found that walking can help.  So I walked (no incline; 2 mph)on our treadmill to help get thru them. Walking and praying!  It worked! Whenever I felt an attack coming on, I would drop what I was doing and get on the treadmill.  Sometimes I walked 5 minutes, and sometimes it could be 20 minutes.   I could literally feel the attack hit, and fall off.  The best way to describe is a wave hitting me.  All was fine that day.

Then came the nausea.  Next day, nausea like you wouldn't believe, curled up in a fetal position afraid to move, nausea.  The Dr cut my dose by half and that helped, but by the next day, I guess the half dose had accumulated back up to a full dose (you know 2 days x half dose) and the nausea came back.  I talked to my Dr and told her I would rather walk thru the attack and deal with them without meds.  She encouraged me to try.  So I did.  It worked. Since the time I came off the meds,(a week ago yesterday), I've only had one more decent sized attack and that was last Saturday night.

I think another thing that helped alleviate the attacks is the stress test I had this past Monday and, once I got thru that, I felt my confidence returning.  I'm happy to say I passed the stress test and am cleared to start rehab on Monday.  I'm looking forward to rehab.  I've found I'm too nervous to confidently workout on my own right now.  I never thought of myself as a skittish type, but this has proven me otherwise.  I'm anxious to get back to where I was physically, and even better.


Things I learned from this event:

1) HEART DISEASE IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AMONG WOMEN!  Let that sink in.  In fact more women die from heart disease than all other causes of death among women combined.

2)  It doesn't matter how well you take care of yourself.  If you have a family history of heart disease, you are at a higher risk of a heart attack than someone who doesn't.  Now that doesn't mean don't take care of yourself.  Because of the way I was eating, the weight loss, etc, my heart attack was mild.  There were no blockages to remove, no stents to place, no open heart surgery.  My dad's on the other hand, ended up in a quadruple bypass. 

3) The dietary guidelines for cardiac patients is woefully inadequate.  I'll go into that more later.

4)  Even a mild heart attack is a traumatic event as far as my mind is concerned.  I never, ever want to feel that kind of pain again.  And the not knowing why I had a heart attack kinda messed with me.  It's like "But you didn't fix anything....".

5) And finally and not least by any stretch of the imagination; God was there with me through it all.  I never felt him leave my side.  For that reason I thank Him.  Not just for being there, but I thank him for this situation so that I would have the opportunity to feel His presence with me, and to have to lean on Him.  Powerful stuff.