Remembrance of Christmases past: 2/2
I had a heart attack
Now, I didn’t know I was having a heart attack. As usual, Christmas Eve was a flurry of last-minute-gift-buying and other preparations. I was about to go out again to perform an essential duty: to collect a couple of big, hypercholesterol gateau and trifle thingies ordered from a local Italian bakery and which were to be dessert for the family Christmas dinner the next day. Out of nowhere I felt this discomfort in my chest — it would be overstating it to call it pain — that made me stop what I was doing and sit down. You’ve all heard about people thinking they have indigestion, when they ought to be on their way to the intensive care unit — well, it can happen. I had no other symptoms; no dizziness, no nausea, no radiation of pain down the left arm or through to my back. And I’d consumed enough rich food the night before to make me think that, combined with the rushing around on Christmas Eve, my system might just be paying me back for abuse. A standard warning given by the medical profession is that if you have chest pain for more than about twenty minutes, you should call a doctor. This discomfort I was experiencing actually passed off after about twenty minutes, and manfully I went to the bakery and picked up the puddings.
Over the next couple of days I didn’t feel at my most brilliant, and I noticed on Boxing Day that the slightest exertion made me quite breathless. (I didn’t notice earlier because, well, who does anything strenuous on Christmas Day?). So I visited the doctor when the surgery re-opened the following morning. I hadn’t noticed that my resting heart rate was up at about 120, but she did. I didn’t know that my lungs were full of fluid, but she detected it — and sent me straight to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. One ECG later, and after some muttering with colleagues in which I overheard “anterior myocardial infarction”, the cardiologist told me, “Well, Mr. Bell, it looks like you’ve had a heart attack. Not within the last few hours, but some time in the past — and given your story about Christmas Eve, well…”
Now there’s an interesting thing I learned. If you suffer a heart attack more than a few hours before an electrocardiogram test, the medics can only tell from the abnormal trace that you’ve had an attack — but not when. Might have been last week, might have been last year. Given the recent events and the fact that my lungs were still full of fluid, though, it was pretty obvious. So they gave me betablockers and shot a potent diuretic into my arm, and for the rest of the afternoon I peed out every ounce of excess fluid in my body. Actually, by the evening I was feeling much better, now that my lungs were drained and I was breathing freely again. I hadn’t noticed how heavy my chest had felt and how strained my breathing had been until it was back to normal.
Scans and tests in the following days indicated that it had been only a mild attack (I guess I figured that out from the fact that I almost didn’t notice it), that the damaged area of heart muscle was quite small, and there didn’t appear to be any constriction of arteries or blood vessels around the heart. I was released from hospital after only four days imprisonment.
Some weeks later, and after following all the medical directions and running the gauntlet of tests, I was formally discharged from the Cardiac Clinic. The event was looked on by the Consultant as “a warning”, which wasn’t of tremendous practical help to me as
- I didn’t really have a bad diet beforehand
- my cholesterol was at a broadly acceptable level
- I had never smoked a single cigarette in my entire life
- even before my liver went wonky, my intake of alcohol had been only moderate
- I didn’t feel as if I suffered unduly from stress.
I accept that my general fitness level could have been better, though, and frankly that’s still the case. Genetics might have played a bigger part than environment, because it’s hard to ignore that
- my father died from his third heart attack (though he didn’t have his first until he was 55)
- his mother had a heart condition
- my mother’s mother had three heart attacks during her life, though ultimately she died from other causes.
Anyway, I seemed to make a good recovery and was left without any permanent nasty problems. A couple of months into 1995, however, and I started to go through periods of feeling generally crap. In fact, I spent more time feeling crap than feeling good. The symptoms were vague; extreme lethargy, just “not feeling good”, rather like a hangover. Some days I just couldn’t do anything but lie motionless for hours. And sometimes I had stabbing pains in my chest, which was a little worrying…
I went to my doctor as soon as these episodes began, and quickly checked that they didn’t seem to have anything to do with my heart. The doc said that I seemed to be feeling “liverish” and put it down to my liver acting up. Quick tests showed that my liver function wasn’t any better, but neither was it any worse. There didn’t seem to be any treatment.
For about the next eighteen months I endured this. Typically I would have two, three or more days of feeling like death, followed by a day or two of feeling really absolutely fine — as if someone somewhere were throwing a switch. I was a digital being; a bistable flip-flop: I was always in one of two steady conditions. I remained on an alcohol ban throughout this period, and had regular checks at the Liver Clinic.
Another curious thing happened during this time. My heart developed an ectopic beat. That means that sometimes it would skip a beat, then compensate with a BIG beat. This feels a little funny, but you get used to it. Apparently lots of people who have no heart problems have an ectopic rhythm, and it does them no harm. This went on for many months, then as suddenly as it began, it stopped again. Is my physiology just weird, or what?
This tale of woe has a happy ending, in that eventually, my spells of feeling “liverish” diminished then stopped altogether, and these days I feel great. My liver function levelled out; the infamous gamma-GT is still higher than normal, but is better than it was and remains pretty constant. I still get it checked every so often. And I was allowed to drink again, though only in moderation (as if I would do anything else…)
I tell you this not to moan; quite the opposite — it amuses me to reflect on it now that (hopefully!) it’s all over. I’m very grateful for the fact that throughout my life, I’ve enjoyed robust good health. Apart from typical childhood diseases and appendicitis when I was thirteen, the most serious illness I had was the occasional head cold, until the mononucleosis hit me. From the age of thirteen to thirty-seven, I think I could count on one hand the number of times I saw a doctor… let me see…
- to get a polio booster before going somewhere where there had been a recent outbreak
- to get a medical before starting a new job
- to sort out some back trouble (which I never really see as illness)
All in all, when I look at the health troubles some people have to cope with, I know I’ve been dealt a pretty good hand.
I’m pleased to say that recent Christmases have brought no more unwelcome gifts. As I write this, I have nothing more than a slightly blocked-up nose. {Sniff.} And my friends no longer wonder if they should just send my Christmas cards direct to the Royal Infirmary!
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