It’s my birthday!! I know it’s a little tacky to get so excited about my birthday but I can’t help it! I mean even though it’s a beautiful day – the sun is shining and it’s in the 60’s – that’s not the biggest reason that I’m celebrating today.
It’s my birthday so that means that I’ve made it two more years since the day they told me that I was hours away from a major catastrophic cardiac event. Two years and I’m still hanging in there.
It was two years and two days ago that I found myself in the hospital. It was May 16th and I remember the day vividly. I was supposed to be getting a tooth pulled but when the oral surgeon took my blood pressure, he said something was wrong and I needed to go to the emergency room. He called my doctor who said I should come to urgent care.
From there, they called the ambulance right away. It was my very first ambulance ride ever. I also remember what the EMT said. He said, “Your heart rate is about 180 right now. If it gets to 200, you’re going to start feeling funny and I’m going to give you a shot. If that doesn’t work immediately, then I’m going to shock you. I just want you to be prepared in case that happens.” Thank God it didn’t but what a thing to hear!
My heart rate was still hovering around 180-190 when we got there. The nurses were fabulous and kept me calm. When I watch the video of the heart monitor now, I can’t believe it. Instead of steady heart beats going across the screen, it’s a constant scribble way up and way down and just all over the place. I had no idea.
After a few hours in the emergency room, I was put into a room in the ICU so they could monitor the medication. On the morning of my birthday, I woke up and lost it. It was my birthday, I had made plans to do some fun stuff that day and I was stuck there. Thankfully I had a lot of friends and family visit me and I even got to eat birthday cake. The entire staff at the hospital was wonderful.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!
Congrats on surviving and happy birthday! Do you still have heart issues or did they ever figure out what caused it? I had an endoscopy years ago and afterwards they had me stay therefor a while because my heart rate was too high. Then I had my gallbladder out a few years ago and they made me stay overnight because my heart rate wouldn’t slow down enough (I felt fine and wasn’t nervous or anxious). Really odd but it hasn’t happened since then.
Thanks! It was from my graves disease. They said I was on the verge of a thyroid storm. Well, they said I was having a thyroid storm but the endocrinologist said that I was only on the verge. Either way, it was a close call and it was really scary! Now I’m on 2 heart meds and my antithyroid meds.