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QUESTION:
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Reflections on my heart disease - part 1 | When I look back on the chance events that saved my life, I am amazed and I feel very fortunate.
For instance, a couple of years ago I suddenly realized that I wasn't feeling well, at all. It was a new physical experience and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. So after some thought, I called 911 and explained that I wasn't feeling well but I wasn't sure of the focus of my discomfort.
"Does your chest hurt, your left shoulder, your jaw?" No, I said. "Would you like an ambulance to come to your residence?" How much does that cost? I asked. She laughed, "It doesn't cost you anything!" Well, okay, then I think that would probably be a good idea, I responded. (If you think that my concern about cost was inappropriate, well, for me money - out of necessity - often enters into the equation. The question is always, "Can I afford it?")
So I went outside and sat on the stoop so the ambulance driver could spot me more easily. When they arrived, I started to get up to walk to the ambulance but they insisted that I should stay where I was while they brought the gurney to me and had me lie on it.
In the ambulance they listened to my heart, and EKG'd and IV'd me. "You have Atrial fibrillation," the young ambulance technician and paramedic remarked cheerfully. He then want on to explain what atrial-fib was, as the driver turned on the siren and away we went.
from http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4451
"Atrial fibrillation is a disorder found in about 2.2 million Americans. During atrial fibrillation, the heart's two small upper chambers (the atria) quiver instead of beating effectively. Blood isn't pumped completely out of them, so it may pool and clot. If a piece of a blood clot in the atria leaves the heart and becomes lodged in an artery in the brain, a stroke results. About 15 percent of strokes occur in people with atrial fibrillation."
To make a long story shorter, it would be another two years before I would have another episode of Atrial-fib. That ocurred last summer. Now recognizing the symptoms, I drove myself to the Emergency Room at our local hospital. (It seemed to be in the best tradition of what John Wayne would have done.) |  | asked by grandpa24551, 1/13/2007 |
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Categories:
Health and Health Care, Doctors
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