A Bad Week

I awoke at 1 am on Monday morning with my a pain in my chest like very bad muscle strain. I had to go to the loo and when I got back to bed I was not felling very good but thought that all I had done was strained something the day before with all the work we had done. But then I started to feel something like very energetic muscle twitches in my chest.

It is hard to explain what it felt like, I don’t know if you have felt those small movements that coincide with your heart beat, as if you can feel the blood pulsing through your veins (some times in your ear or on your leg). well this was like that but magnified 1000 times. Also it was not regular, there would be one beat and then a gap of a second or so and another two and then another gap. I just rolled over on to my front and tried to go back to sleep but the beats were so energetic that I felt as if I was being bounced out of bed each time.

I think I did sleep for a bit but after half an hour I had to get up and go to the loo again, and my chest still hurt… Finally I woke Theresa up, she just mumbled that I should go back to sleep, until I got her to listen to my heart and then she was up and awake and helping me up and to the local emergency centre about 20 km away.

We arrived an the staff got me in on the bed and took my blood pressure, it was something like 220/180 which is very bad after a few pills the pain in my chest started to dissolve.

About an hour later, an ecg and more pills, they said I could go home. The doctor did not think there was any problem with my heart but that I should go to my Doctor in the morning. So we went home.

Next morning we went to the Doctors my blood pressure was up again so I ended up with some pills and told to take it easy and go back on Thursday.

Well Thursday came around and our friend Sheila came over to accompany me to the doctors, I was feeling ok, and had been taking it easy. But when the nurse took my pressure she was not happy, so she tried the other arm. and then asked the doctor to take the pressure, it was back up it the very high level again something like 240/160. so it was more pills and then I was told to go straight to the hospital, we arrived at A&E about 1pm.

I think it was the shortest wait in A&E I have ever had, about 1 minute. I was taken in and plugged into a ECG and after off to a cubical where I was attached to several monitors, oxygen supply and a very large syringe of stuff… And there I staid for around 7 hours.

I think Theresa and Sheila expected them to keep me in over night but I was let out and told to get some meds from the pharmacy in Los Sauces in the morning.

Here is a chart of my blood pressure The last but one was after I had been in hospital for several hours

Well its Friday evening and things seem to be going ok, though the meds they gave me were not on the usual prescription so we had to pay full whack for them, around 50€ for a months supply I just hope that the Doc will put the next lot on a cheaper prescription!!!