Mended Hearts Open Forum

 View Only
  • 1.  The cost of being stupid

    Posted 01-04-2022 06:10
    Wife has been extremely ill and with me having a newer tavr aortic valve i wanted to relax one Saturday. I stopped by the Kratom store and purchased a pack of Delta 8 gummies. I ate two of them around 10:30am. At 12:30 my wife had call an ambulance. Im in constant AFIB but went into tachycardia with a bad rhythm. Was losing track of time, place, cognitive function was declining rapidly. 2 days in the hospital. 

    Moral of the story

    Don't eat Delta 8 gummies

    ------------------------------
    Martin Shannon
    Owner
    MCS LABS
    Summerville SC
    8434195266
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: The cost of being stupid

    Posted 01-05-2022 06:40
    Martin,

    Next time, just pour yourself a dry martini and sit down to a Thin Man movie.  Seriously, though, try meditation.  There are good, free online resources that can assist you including apps like Calm.

    Based on my admittedly cursory review of the limited scholarly THC literature available online, there do appear to be significant cardiovascular risks to THC ingestion, including through edibles like Delta-8 and 9, including arrhythmias, myocardial infarction (heart attack) and interference with the effects if statins, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers and blood thinners.  As a heart attack and quintuple CABG survivor, I would stay away from any form of THC ingestion UNLESS it was ordered by a physician for some other serious medical condition and, even then, only with the involvement and supervision of my cardiologist.  And I say this as a 71 year old former card carrying member of the 1960's counterculture having thoroughly explored marijuana and other hallucinogens back in the day before moving away from them into non-chemical and far more effective meditation practice.

    Good health to you and your wife,

    Ira

    ------------------------------
    Ira Reid
    Hoboken NJ
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: The cost of being stupid

    Posted 01-05-2022 09:10
    Learned my lesson, will not repeat.

    Please understand, my wife spent 4 wks on a ventilator fully sedated and near death for a week. Was transferred to an LTAC hospital to get her off the ventilator.

    Couple of months later with oxygen in tow we went away for a weekend for our 35th wedding anniversary. Arriving on Friday, Saturday morning she was showing a 62 SPO2. I had enough bottled oxygen to last 30 minutes at the level she required to keep her from going brain dead and the hospital was 40 minutes away.

    She spent another 12 days in the ICU, thankfully she wasn't put on a ventilator. 

    In the past 3 yrs she was hospitalized numerous times for asthma, pneumonia, mumps. Had neck surgery, gave her a flu shot which paralyzed her from the waist down. Transverse myelitis is evil. TM effected her aortic arch, she no longer had blood pressure control. She could go from 220/120 to 70/40 in matter of minutes. Hypotension led to a broken nose, shattered ankle, concussion and a lacerated eye brow. Shes had several seizures, stop breathing on several occasions which required mouth to mouth resuscitation along with heart compressions.

    Its been a tad stressful around here at times.





  • 4.  RE: The cost of being stupid

    Posted 01-06-2022 06:25
    I do understand, Martin.  You and your wife have been through the wringer.  I've been fortunate not to have been through the hell you describe, or to have witnessed my wife or daughter go through anything like that, but I was in a ventilator for two weeks immediately following my open heart surgery, in a medically induced coma as a result of ventilator induced pneumonia and then a c diff infection.  I was given a 50% chance of making it out of the hospital.  Although I was totally unaware of this at the time (I was hallucinating that I was in the Bahamas, still recovering from heart surgery but on a series of bizarre but not unpleasant adventures), my wife was having a really rough time, not knowing if I would make it and not hearing anything positive from the hospital, and with an at that time high school age daughter still to raise.  My wife was there for me when I awoke and couldn't even lift a spoon to my mouth let alone stand up or walk.  I had to learn everything again during three weeks in a rehab hospital and then at home.

    Those who must watch their loved ones suffer and experience seeing them at the brink of death often have it as hard or maybe even harder than those who are sick.  Ever since awakening nearly four years ago, I have felt a profound sense of gratitude to my wife and all the people that saved my life.  We all truly are brothers and sisters connected to each other and all living things in this wonderful, immense universe.  I know this now.

    Peace to you and your wife and family.

    Ira


    ------------------------------
    Ira Reid
    Hoboken NJ
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: The cost of being stupid

    Posted 01-06-2022 08:14
    Yes, I sat with my wife while on the vent every day for 4 weeks, then every day in rehab hospital.

    Once they put her speaking valve in and I heard her voice again after 6 weeks I couldn't stop crying.  

    I recently had a new aortic valve TAVR put in, although it was far less painful than my quad by pass, it was emotionally impactful