One pain go another pain come.

April 2003, a couple of months after the last time I saw my Consultant and waiting for an appointment to see a cardiologist. My cousin had asked me to build him a "built in wardrobe" in his bedroom. I had cut and made ready all the wood and got the doors also all ready in my garage. My son and I filled the car and made our way to my cousins, about three in the afternoon we had just about another hours work and we would have been finished and could sit down and have something to eat. I just had to finish off the "skirting" at the top of the wardrobe and picked up the 10 feet long 4"x2" to place on the angles irons and secure it with a few wood screws. Instead of picking up the long piece in the middle to make it easy for myself I picked it up from one end and struggled to put it in it's place. This foolish way of lifting of course exerted me quite a bit but hey, there's nothing wrong with my heart and I'm as health and fit as a 21 year old so who cares. Yeah right!

ANGIOGRAPHY



I had had some "heart burn" one or twice before but it was ONLY a "heart burn", nothing serious. Hmmmm!

All of a sudden an elephant was sitting on my chest crushing it so much that I could hardly breathe. I started sweating but it was a nice day so that was the reason. Then I realised that I had a pain in the back, then a funny feeling in my left jaw. Heart attack? But I had read somewhere before that when one has a heart attack it is always accompanied by pain in the left arm and I had no pin in either of my arms so I'm not having a heart attack. Must be something I ate or my osteoarthritis in the spine was playing up. I went downstairs and laid on the couch to have a rest so that I can carry on again. A few minutes later I was running in the back garden panicking because the pain was getting worse, a lot worse. I was sweating more and my breathing also got worse. I also got a "lump" in my throat as if there was some food stuck in it but I hadn't eaten anything. What was happening to me?
I'll never forget my cousins face, I panicked but he nearly had a heart attack. I started laughing at him and he joined in laughing as well.

After about ten minutes or so the pain was gone, what a relief. Not listening to my cousin's protest I went back upstairs again to finish the job. Don't you hate not finishing a job that you started? I picked up the 4x2, this time in the middle, to put it where it belongs and bang, the pain came back with a vengeance.

Ouch, there's something wrong here but what?

My cousin grabbed me by the hand and forcefully dragged me to his car telling me that he is going to drive me to the hospital. "Why" I asked him, still believing that there is nothing wrong with me. In the end I agreed but relentlessly. On the way to the hospital the pain kept going and coming back. When he parked the car and I got out I was pain free. We then walked though the entrance and bang, back again but worse, the nurse took one look at me and literally dragged me in to A&E and called the Doctor immediately.

The Doc said,

"you are having a heart attack"

It would have been much better if he had hit me with a sledge hammer.

There were Doctors and nurses all around me. One asking questions, another sticking a needle in my hand, another connecting wires all over my body. Hey, I like this, never had so many people make such a fuss over me before, I might as well lie back and enjoy it. The Doc was wrong anyway. He WAS wrong, I wasn't having a heart attack....I was having an ANGINA ATTACK.

WOOOOOT?

An ANGINA ATTACK?

But there is nothing wrong with my heart, how could this be?

"Open your mouth please"

said one nurse and sprayed some minty stuff under my tongue.

"yarghhh...I don't like mint."

"It's GTN"

she said

"it'll help ease the pain"..

"GTN? what's that?"

"Glyceryl Trinitrate, it dilates the arteries and lets the blood reach your heart"

. (or words to that effect but more professionally of course)

"Oh ok,"

10-15 minutes later the pain had disappeared and for the first time I started thinking that there just might be something wrong with my heart after all.

Damn!

I was put in to a ward and given a bed and told that I would have to stay in the hospital for at least three days. The youngest "inmates" of that ward must have been around 80 years old and the whole ward stunk of urine that hit you like a sledge hammer as soon as you walked in.

"Last stop before hell"

I thought to myself, didn't sleep a wink that night. The stunk and crying of the guy in pain next to me and noone coming to see him was more than enough to keep anyone awake least of all scared little me.

Next day more test were done and I was officially told it was an angina attack and not a heart attack. Phew, what a relief that was....but was it really?

Later a nurse came to see me and told me that I could go home the next day but only if I don't have another attack. To me it sounded like "You can only go home if you are a good boy". LOL. She also said that I would be given some aspirin and a bottle of GTN to take with me and I should see my GP as soon as possible. Next day I was given my discharge papers and a small paper bag with some aspirins in it.

"Where's the GTN"

I asked the nurse.

"Oh, the Doctor said you don't need it"

s

he replied and just walked away leaving me standing there with any further explanation. I walked out of that hospital in total disgust, thank God it's not my local hospital where I have been taken care of ever since. Well, most of the time anyway but that's another story.

PS: Never got to finish the wardobe myself, my cousin finished it and painted it. I didn't get to see the finished product untill about 4-5 weeks later.

It started with a stomach pain.

In 1999 I started getting very bad stomach pains and as sods law goes my wife had gone to visit her parents in Germany and I was alone. The pain hit me very suddenly one night about an hour after supper, it was a pain I had never known or suffered before. It was truly a crippling pain that had me wriggling on the floor like a worm unable to sleep all night. I didn't know what hit me. Eventually, about 6am, the pain had subsided enough for me to be able to go to sleep.When I woke up a couple of hours later, it had gone completely, even after eating breakfast the pain did not return. I thought that was that and thanked my lucky stars. Maybe I had eaten something that didn't agree with me or the food was "bad". Little did I know at the time that I would go on suffering with this pain for another 4 years.

After lunch that day I had some pain again, not as painful as the night before but the pain would not go away no matter what I did. It got worse after supper and I was again wriggling on the floor all night long. Maybe a stomach bug, I thought, it'll go away eventually.

After suffering with daily pains for about a week, it was time to pay my GP a visit. He gave me some medication but had to go back after a few days because it didn't help to ease the pain at all. He gave me some other meds and sent me for an stomach x-ray, it showed nothing, the meds didn't help either. On my next visit a few days later he referred me to a consultant at the local hospital. Got new meds to try, didn't help at all except to make me "high". A battery of tests followed, more x-rays, blood tests and more blood tests for various things that could cause the pain. The consultant then ordered an Endoscopy.

After some wait I finally got a date for the Endoscopy. All I remember about the test is getting changed, going in to the room, the Doc telling me about what he is going to do, being given a sedative, waking up and the Doc to telling me:

"You gave us a fright in there, a bit of an emergency".

All I could say was: "HUH?"

"You stopped breathing during the test, your lips had turned blue so we had to stop and get you breathing again".

I was shocked and still under the influence of the sedative only could just about mumble "Ohh, so what now?"

"It's for your consultant to decide" he said and walked away.

I got dressed and the wife drove me home. The next day I was still feeling confused and upset that nothing was found that could be fixed but at the same time glad that they didn't find anything that could not be fixed.

The consultant did the second Endoscopy himself but decided to investigate further and also did a Colonoscopy to rule out any colon disease which could also be the cause of the stomach pains. These tests didn't show nothing either, not even an inflammation. After seeing the consultant for about 4 years I got fed up of going to the hospital every 3 months and nothing was found that would help ease my pain. I'm sure the consultant thought I was lying to him, I could see it in his "changed" attitude towards me everytime I visited him (or so I thought anyway).

At the next visit the consultant told me that he was going to refer me to a cardiologist

"because"

he said

"sometimes heart problems could be mistaken for stomach pains".

I walked out of the room fuming and totally disgusted with him, I was sure he was just trying to get rid of me by "dumping" me on to someone else.

"That idiot, he doesn't know anything." I said to myself.

"There's nothing wrong with my heart. What has heart problems got to do with stomach pains. I am going to put in a strong complaint about him. etc...etc...etc".

I'm sure most of us thought/think like this when we KNOW that the Doctors are WRONG!

After all, I was getting stomach pains after meals not after exertion, so he was WRONG.....DEAD £$&*^% WRONG!

WRONG he was NOT.

oooops, sorry Doc.

About me.

Well, here we go...my first ever blog.

Although I have been around computers since the early 80's I never felt the need for a blog but I suppose we all have to keep up with the times. I'd better introduce myself first though.

Hi, my name is Eric, I am 56, have angina and was recently diagnosed as diabetic. My diabetes is caused by a pancreatic stone located 1/3 from the tail end and has reduced the insulin production (plus some other things that the pancreas produces). I am waiting for an operation sometime in May 2009, I won't scare you with the details of this op though. Well, actually, it's not you, it's me I don't want to scare.

Why do I have the feeling after such a long time to write a blog? Well, I am hoping that I find people who are in the same situation as myself to chat and maybe help each other come to grips, accept and control this dreaded disease without having to completely give up eating all the things that we have enjoyed eating since birth. It's hard enough that we can't eat chocolates, cakes and all other things that contain sugar but I really do not want to stop eating food like potatos, rice, noodles/makaroni and bread and hopefully I will never have to.

Anyway, this is a start and I will update once I've got used to this "blogging" thingy.