Gosh it's been such a long time since I blogged I'm not quite sure where to begin.
Probably best to start at the start really. That would be early afternoon on New Year's day when I sent my hubby off to Tesco (why it is open on that day I'll never know) to pick up some puppy food. Whilst he was there he bumped into someone with his favourite breed of dog, an Alaskan Husky, and ended up being much longer than he would normally take. What he didn't know was that in the meantime I had gone off for a lie down because I didn't really feel right. I had just eaten a bowl of cereal and thought it was that disagreeing with my little pouch tummy. How wrong can you be?
When hubby arrived home he didn't come into the room to see how I was, he presumed I was sleeping. I wish I had been.. No matter what I did this almost crushing sensation just wouldn't move. I got up off the bed and using the wall to hold me up, I thought my legs were going to cave in, I tried to get to the sitting room. A few steps up the hall and I called out to him for help. I said I don't know what is going on but something is really really wrong with me. So he helped me back to bed and phoned the out of hours doctor who, as soon as hubby mentioned chest, told him to phone 999.
By the time ambulance arrived the crushing feeling had passed but they had to take me to hospital anyway. There was a tiny electrical blip on my heart trace and anyway all calls for chest pain have to go to hospital. I joked on Facebook that I was off to hospital with a suspected heart attack. Well how was I to know that was exactly what was wrong.
All the tests in the A and E department showed nothing of note but they said they had to keep me till they got the result of the blood test which had to be taken a set number of hours after the pain subsided. So hubby was sent off home and I was admitted for observation.
Following morning a nurse came to speak to me, hubby was there already. She explained what the blood test was for, what they were looking for and how it all worked. In my head she was saying that what they were looking at wasn't there and I could go home. Instead she said that in my case what they were looking for was there and I couldn't go home. They needed to do more tests. I just sat there looking at her as if she was stupid and saying to her "are you saying I've had a heart attack?" over and over then saying to hubby "she's saying I've had a heart attack isn't she?" I was in a state of shock. As was hubby.
Fast forward 3 days and I've had various tests and am in the cardiac care unit. I'm now to go for an angiogram. Apparently this means opening my femur artery and inserting something which sends dye through my heart whilst they watch it on a screen. I ended up having to be sedated as I got so upset getting it done. Hours later the heart consultant came to see me and informed me that my heart was basically a mess and I needed 4 arteries repaired or bypassed. It was so bad that they would not advise me going home and I had to stay in hospital until a slot was found for me at Liverpool Heart and Chest. I just couldn't get my head round it all and the fact I needed a quadruple bypass was a major shock. I had not previous symptoms, no blood pressure problems, no high cholesterol none of the things associated with this. Absolute bolt from the blue and one that scared the shit out of me.
All in I spent 19 days at Whiston before being transferred over to Liverpool. It felt like an age. Poor hubby trailing in and out to visit me, whilst coping with a young pup at home and trying to get things done that needed doing. Thankfully he managed to get off work at this point. The biggest surprise was a couple of days before I was going to Liverpool my son turned up at the hospital. He had been so concerned that he had been given time off work and flown home from Gran Canaria. Sort of made me realise the seriousness of it all.
Anyway transferred on 19th and surgery on 21st. I don't remember much of the next 48 hours but apparently I was in theatre for longer than anticipated and when hubby got to see me post op he was in pieces as I looked like death. I was very grey and hooked up to all sorts of machinery. I spent the next day flitting in and out of hallucinations and unconsciousness brought on by morphine. I was convinced I was on a set for some documentary and demanded to see where they had my permission to film me. I also tried to climb out of bed at one point but not in the normal manner, I tried to climb up and over the back rest of the bed.
After being moved from ICU over to the cardiac ward it was a flurry of nurses rounds, Physiotherapy, doctors rounds, blood tests, tubes being removed (OMG those drain tubes coming out were awful felt like they were pulling my insides out with them), blood transfusion, vistors and etc. A few days of this and noises were being made about being sent home. In fact my consultant (after telling me I had the worst vessels he's ever seen in a woman my age) said I could go home on the weekend. However that wasn't to be because one of the junior doctors decided on the weekend that because my blood sugars weren't settled then I couldn't go home. This really annoyed me and also really pissed of my consultant when he came in on the Monday and I was still there. There was also confusion about how I was getting home because the person that was to give me a lift had made herself available 3 days in a row and I had to tell her they had changed their mind, 3 days in a row. In the end after me causeing a proper stink the hospital provided me with a taxi to take me to Whiston for the warfarin clinic then another one to take me home from there.
Home at last and recovery well on it's way. I was doing so well in that first week home that by the beginning of the second week I was able to walk the half mile from here to St Helens Hospital. I felt brilliant well maybe not brilliant but was doing well, or so I thought. That was before the deep sutures came out but I think I will stop here and save that for the next part.
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