Chapter 5 The Attack

It came out of nowhere…no warning. This was maybe 7 days after being admitted.

I was sitting in my recliner pouring milk over my Cheerios when all of a sudden, burning chest pain shot up the left side of my chest. I had not had any chest pain ever. I knew this was not good and rang for the doctors right away. Within seconds a well choreographed team of doctors and nurses calmly entered my room and began treating me right away. They began vitals checks, put the 12 lead monitor on me and watched closely as they read the EKG. The pain was intense…maybe a 6 or 7 (yes, 6-7!). They gave me a nitro and then a second one. It’s not pleasant. If you are having a heart attack, nitro helps open up the blood vessels so you have better flow through your heart. It turns out I was not having a heart attack. I was having a myocarditis attack. This was good I guess.

The pain was still bad but starting to recede. They gave me a shot of Dilauded and of course I got a little woozy. The cardiologist told the nurses to get me up from the chair and into the bed. And in a matter of seconds, they had moved me into bed and got me as comfortable as possible. I laid on my side as that was the most comfortable and they put some oxygen on me as well. It took awhile but the pain finally subsided and I was told to just stay in bed and rest.

I’d like to say I was able to do that but many factors got in the way. First of all, the vitals checks were frequent. Cardiologist visits, portable chest x-rays, portable echocardiogram, and my own fears about what happened and would it happen again?

And then there was the gelato party…