The “Heart” in Sweetheart Baby

Monday, October 29, 2012 was the day Hurricane Sandy was due to arrive and I had one bill to get paid before the storm came in and the utility office I owed my check to closed its doors. I really didn’t want a late fee and the city building is only a two minute drive from my house. While most people were already huddled in their homes, I hopped in the car before the winds really kicked up. When I got back home, I thought maybe I should go to the doctor, like my nurse friend Stephanie and her cardiologist father had advised me to do the day before. I once again began running the excuses through my mind of why I wouldn’t go: “I can’t just pop in to see my doctor without an appointment”, “there’s probably nothing wrong anyway”. Still, I decided to call my doctor’s office anyway.  After hearing my symptoms, “You should really get to an emergency room,” was the nurse’s immediate response at the other end of the line.

After not one, not two, but three separate advisories to get myself checked out, I was finally convinced I should go, “just in case”. I quickly hopped in the car before the roads were to be closed, because again, Sandy was on her way and I was invincible, right? Instead of our area’s main hospital ER, I decided to go to the “sister” urgent care facility; I didn’t think I had a major issue and did not want to take myself to a full-fledge hospital for some generic chest pains. After arriving at urgent care, I checked in, explained my symptoms yet again and was called after only waiting for about two minutes! I was prepared to wait nearly an hour and had even brought a PB&J sandwich with me. Little did I know I was called back immediately not because there was a lack of patients but because on paper my symptoms were the most urgent out of anyone there.

A nurse came in to check my vitals and I was asked to explain my symptoms and their circumstances in detail. I told her that late Saturday night while laying in bed I had experienced chest pains in the form of heavy pressure, and that the pain had radiated out into both of my arms, more severely in my right arm and most unusual to me, the strange pain also affected the left side of my jaw. It was an odd pain I had never felt before, it almost felt like the blood had rushed out of my arms and they were falling asleep coupled with an uncomfortable tightness. I had tried to massage the pain away in my arms, and ultimately sat on my bathroom floor feeling nauseous. After about an hour I forced myself to go to sleep, and the next day (Sunday), I helped my husband do some landscaping in the yard. That work brought the pain back in my right arm and mildly in my jaw. She listened to my story while simultaneously placing stickers on my chest and hooking me up to a machine that would perform an EKG (electrocardiogram), and determine if there was any problem with the electrical activity in my heart. I sat and waited, listening to the incessant beeping pattern that was my heartbeat. Finally the doctor came in whom I repeated my story to and he said “Well, by the sounds of it I would think you had a heart attack! But surely you didn’t.” Even with my EKG looking completely normal, he ordered a blood test. Six vials of blood later, I was waiting alone again, with the belief that I would soon walk out feeling like a dope for going to the doctor for no good reason at the start of a hurricane. Twenty minutes later, the once upbeat doctor was back and looked as if he was about to be sick. I had never seen a doctor with such a look of dread on his face and I immediately knew something was very wrong. He said my blood test had come back positive, and after a million racing thoughts I was finally able to push out the question, “positive for what?” “Positive for elevated troponin levels, there has been damage done to your heart,” and after a long pause he finally said it, “you had a heart attack, we need to get you an ambulance.” I tried to keep a smile in his presence, but a few tears fell. And finally, when I was left completely alone again, I cried. I had no idea what to think, I just knew I had to get my husband there. My husband is in the Navy, he works on a submarine which means getting a hold of him is not as simple as calling his cell phone. I called the only person I knew could help, the wife of the captain of our submarine. She calmed me down, said she would take care of everything and in ten minutes flat, just as the hurricane winds really started kicking up, she was right by my side. I called my mom who lives clear across the country; she cried, being just as confused as I was. My husband finally arrived with tears in his eyes, in eight years it was only the second time I had seen him cry.

Completely strapped onto a stretcher, I was wheeled out to an ambulance. The exit doors blew open; Hurricane Sandy had arrived. I had never been in an ambulance before and happily occupied myself with examining all of the buttons, machines and do-dads around me. My time in the hospital was generally filled with smiles and lots of sleep. My husband and I told jokes to keep our spirits up, and  I only cried once when a phlebotomist had a particularly difficult time taking blood from my already bruised arm. During my four day stay I received blood tests every six hours, an MRI, CT scan, cardiac catheterization, EKG, and “bubble study”. Every time a doctor came in they exclaimed, “You’re the girl everyone is talking about!”. Yes, I am the twenty-four year old, healthy, normal BMI, athletic, drug-free, female heart attack survivor.

After all of the tests it was determined that I have a Patent Foramen Ovale or PFO, which 1 in 4 people actually have, the thing is there are typically no complications with it. From the Cleveland Clinic:  “The foramen ovale is a small hole located in the atrial septum that is used during fetal circulation to speed up the travel of blood through the heart…Normally the foramen ovale closes at birth when increased blood pressure on the left side of the heart forces the opening to close. If the atrial septum does not close properly, it is called a patent foramen ovale.” If pressure builds in the chest of a person with PFO such as during a cough or sneeze, blood may travel from the right atrium to the left atrium, and if there happens to be a clot in that blood, it may travel from the left atrium and into the brain (causing a stroke) or into an artery (heart attack). There was a small clot in a branch of my artery, but doctors were unable to find any larger clots affecting me. We had just flown from California back home to Connecticut the day I suffered the heart attack and doctors theorize that a small clot formed during that flight, which is apparently very normal. Without a clotting disorder and considering the odds of a complication happening with a PFO in the first place, doctors say the chances of a heart attack in a person of my health and age was less than 1%. Couldn’t I have just won the lottery?

I was released from the hospital on November 1, 2012 with a strict pill regimen of Plavix, Lopressor, Pepcid, and Aspirin. On November 2nd an outpatient procedure was performed on me called a TEE (transesophagealechocardiogram) to take a closer look at the opening in my heart. After discussing the options with my cardiologist, my husband and I made the decision to close the opening in my heart.

For about three and a half months I awaited my surgery date.  At twenty-four years old being told to abstain from simple things I took for granted such as the ability to exercise, be pregnant, or simply help my husband with yard work, was really challenging. Mentally I felt completely able, so growing tired from previously simple tasks forced me to face the reality that not only shouldn’t I do these things but I physically could not. And that was hard to take for a girl who rarely asks for help.

I am so thankful to say in February 2013, I had a device implanted to close up the hole in my heart and soon after that, received clearance from my doctors to go back to my normal lifestyle! With the exception of sky diving and scuba diving which has been banned until one year after my surgery, I can do pretty much whatever I feel up for. Soon after my doctors go-ahead; on April 20th, 2013,  Michael and I found out we were expecting our first baby.  My cardiologist was ecstatic when I told him the news and our baby and her heart is developing beautifully “normal” so far.