A View from the Isle

Before I get into the story, I will start with: I’m okay.  I didn’t have a heart attack, I was thoroughly checked out at the hospital and sent home (at 2:00 AM).

And now the story…

Yesterday was relatively “normal” day for me, email, twitter, RSS, etc.  But towards the end of the day, I had buried the needle in my stress-o-meter in the red zone.  This should have been my first clue.

By evening, thoroughly stressed about life stuff (something I will elaborate on at MapleLeaf 2.0 shortly), I went to visit a friend for a bit.  On the way I started to have chest pains.  Uh oh.

Chest pains, then nausea, then trouble breathing, then my left arm started to feel funny.

Yes, you can see where this is going.

When I got to my friend’s house, intermittently clutching my chest and saying “no I think I’m okay”, I decided that I wasn’t okay and that a trip to the ER was in the offing for me.

I could still drive, but my friend came with me for moral support.

The rest of the evening (this was about 7:30 PM by this point) was as you’d expect.

First ECG (gotta love those sticky tabs), wait for the doctor to read it (I got to wait in the lounge and dressed thankfully), get called into the back (which means the hospital gown fun), hooked up to the heart monitor, IV started, little O2, lots more questions, blood taken, waiting, chest x-ray, waiting, another ECG, more blood taken, more waiting.

Pretty much by 10 PM I was feeling much better.  Chest pains were gone and I was feeling okay.  I was given the clean bill of health at 11:30, but they had to keep me there until 2 AM to do a confirming bit of blood work (turns out elevated heart enzymes often don’t appear for up to 6 hours post event).

I have to say that the nurses, doctors, and staff at Victoria General were awesome.  I was comfortable, kept informed, and treated with good humour and cheer.  It certainly helped me to relax.  Okay my b5 friends will also add that I was in rare comedic form last night, and that continued once the pain stopped.

In the end what was it?  The doctor’s weren’t 100%, but it wasn’t a heart attack or angina.  The likely culprit: stress.

Yep, stress.  So this is something I have to work on.  I have to learn to let go and relax.  Maybe even cut myself some slack and take a decent break occasionally.

So there it is.  My first heart scare.  I have to thank all my friends (I told a couple people at b5 that I was going) for their support.

So if I’m not posting a lot today, I’m giving myself a little break and time to reflect.

Just so you know.