Mended Hearts Open Forum

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  • 1.  Three Month Anniversary...

    Posted 08-22-2020 09:53
    Three months ago at this time, I was having a heart attack.  It had started at around 2:30 in the morning.....and by this time of the day I was still stubbornly refusing to go to the hospital, telling myself it was anything BUT a heart attack.  Denial really ain't just a river in Egypt, lol.  Since it turned out to be the "widow maker", I'm feeling pretty lucky to be here today....

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    Tracy Rhodes
    Charleston SC
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  • 2.  RE: Three Month Anniversary...

    Posted 08-23-2020 00:55
    I'm 2 years post OHS and I find that my anniversary date feels like my 2nd birthday 🤗

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    [Carrie] [Kashani]
    Parapro
    ISD
    [White Bear Lake [MN]
    Carrie
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  • 3.  RE: Three Month Anniversary...

    Posted 08-23-2020 08:46
    dear Tracy : thanks for sharing your experience. Your family and friends are so glad you got the help you needed.
    Women especially go into denial ( I am guilty for sure). As you recover, you can use your experience to help teach others about the signs and symptoms ... perhaps you will save someone’s life by telling your story.

    Marilyn B. Rosenhouse
    Mobile: (214)850-0655




  • 4.  RE: Three Month Anniversary...

    Posted 08-23-2020 12:38
    I know just what you mean, Tracy.  Teo and a half years ago, around midnight on February 12, in honor of Lincoln's Birthday, I started having deep pain in my right shoulder (left was okay), some chest pressure and broke into a cold sweat.  It passed in 15 minutes so I went to sleep instead of to the hospital.  I'm lucky I didn't, as they say, "wake up dead" because when I did awake, at 5 am, the pain, pressure and sweats were back.  I laid in bed, not wanting to wake up my wife, and then I remembered a line from an Anthony Hopkins movie that "most people who are lost and die in the woods die of embarrassment." I woke my wife, called 911 and we were off to the hospital.  

    Six weeks later, after quintuple bypass surgery including my "widow maker," pneumonia complications and a two week medically induced coma (during which I was hallucinating that I was in a hospital in the Bahamas) and inpatient rehab learning to walk again, I came home and kissed my front door.  I would have kissed the ground like a Dostoyevsky character but, you know, I had to observe "sternal precautions."

    Two and a half years later, I still am grateful and feel that way every single day.

    Good life and health to you.

    Ira


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    Ira Reid
    Hoboken NJ
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