My entire experience of heart problems is based on films where the heart attack victim clutches their heart on the left side of the body, screams and drops to the floor – dead.
At no point in any film I have seen, does someone clutch the middle of their chest and say in a perplexed manner, ‘ooh I’ve got a squeezing sensation right in the middle of my boobs and I am finding it a little bit difficult to breathe’ – and then continue getting on with stuff – very much NOT dead.
So considering how ignorant I was – and how many times I clutched the middle of my chest in the days before I was admitted to hospital, thinking it was my asthma – it is probably a miracle I made it this far!
I did however, for at least a year, feel that something wasn’t quite right.
January 2019 – I was so permanently exhausted that I saw my GP who carried out some blood tests. They showed I had virtually zero Vitamin D which was very strange as I was working outside at the time and ate a good diet. I was put on supplements – the exhaustion never really went away and the level of Vitamin D barely increased either.
July 2019 – a walking challenge in Spain with friends really had me struggling as we walked over the Pyrenees. I was so breathless, I thought it must be my asthma playing up and me being unfit, even though I had trained for months.
July 2019 – a visit to San Sebastien with friends and this time unusually my ankles swelled up hugely on the flight. They never completely went down again. GP thought it might be my age (what every woman wants to hear!) and the menopause!
July – November 2019 – I put on a lot of weight. So much so that I did 3 pregnancy tests and went to my GP several times to discuss it. Again, it was thought it was possibly
my age and the start of the menopause – good god these Dr’s really dice with death when they mention a woman’s age, weight and menopause all in one sentence!
I also felt really anxious for most of the year but couldn’t pinpoint why.
November 2019 – At the beginning of November, I became very breathless walking up hills with the dog; then I became breathless walking on flat ground; then I started to struggle to walk up the stairs at home. At no point, did I have a pain in my heart.
I was sent to A&E immediately when an ECG carried out by my GP showed a slight irregularity in my heart – but after 9 hours and some tests I was sent back home.
A few days later, I semi-collapsed in a car park and was taken to A&E for a second time where again, although the ECG looked slightly irregular, it wasn’t enough for them to keep me in. They did however, refer me for a cardiologist appointment.
By the time the appointment came in 5 days later, I was having 20-30 near fainting episodes a day, even when I was sitting down. An Ultrasound very quickly showed I had partial heart block and that I would probably need a pacemaker. Cue a lot of tears – which is a recurring theme in this blog. Plus denial – there is a lot of that too.