A Heart Attack?

January 27, 2007 by Randomguru

My wife, my oldest son and I went to the train station to pick up my sister-in-law. While we were waiting I started feeling a tightness in my chest and found it a bit hard to breath. The thing is, I always wonder that if I’m going to get a heart attack, how would I feel, and if in fact I might be having one, how do I tell the person with me that I might be having one? Would I just pass out? Would I feel sharp pains?

Anyway, I told my wife that my chest felt really heavy and I was having a bit of difficulty in breathing, and I’d really been feeling this for the past couple of days, and that it seemed to getting worse.

So as soon as my wife’s sister came, my wife drove me to the Urgent Care clinic at our hospital.

And an EKG test was done to check my heart, blood was drawn to be tested, and I had X-rays done on my chest. I spent the next couple of hours going through tests and at the end of it all… good news! I wasn’t having a heart attack!

So, what was I having?

The doctor suggested that I try some antacid because she suspected I’d been having severe heart burn. I believe I had mild heart burn once when I was a meateater and I ate a hot dog at the movie theater. So, getting into middle age, I read that a lot of people get this… heart burn. The doctor also said that if I’d had a real heart attack, it would feel like I had an elephant on my chest, I’d be in a cold sweat, and I might have pain shooting to my left arm.

All I know, is that I was scared, because how am I to know if I’m really getting a heart attack or not? After all, I thought I was having one once before.

At this point in time, I just thank my lucky stars that I’m reasonably healthy, and that I’m back home surfing the web.

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Comments

randomguru

Suki: hey, grrl. i bought some Tums.

Manny: True. Though I spent money on the doctor's visit to Urgent Care, it's always good to err on the cautious side.

so you had acid reflux. i think i might have that too. it's really my first or second time with heartburn, so now i know the symptoms.

Manny

OMG! Thank goodness you're all right. You can never be too cautious regarding such things. Better to be safe than sorry.

I had a scare a few years ago when I felt something strange around my left chest. I wasn't sure what it was, though I did not feel any pain in my left arm. I went to the doctor to check it out, and she said it was acid reflux. I took Pepcid for a few months, and the symptoms disappeared. I also took Tums occasionally.

Hope you don't experience that again.