April 26, 2017
It was one month after having my 3rd child with also a 4 and 8 year old. The only reason my husband was home that morning was our 8 year old daughter had a t & a done the previous day. My two girls wanted to go to the yard sales on the block and I had just fed my son and was really tired.
So my oldest got her sister dressed and when they got downstairs Caitlin my oldest knew something was not right she told her sister to get the baby and she ran upstairs to wake her dad. I played softball tournaments every weekend up to having my child and was in perfect shape. My husband said you are having a heart attack and I said no just a pulled muscle.
He said get dressed and I will take you to the hospital but we just moved to the neighborhood and had to wait for one of our parents to babysit. In the mean time Caitlin was already on the phone with 911. That is what saved my life. When they got to the house they did not want to worry the kids so I walked out to the stretcher myself.
The minute I got to the hospital they asked me what drugs I had taken which really got me mad then I flatlined and they revived me 2 more times on top of that. They had to ship me to a hospital that can do Cathay and when they did it every time the LAD would rip down farther. In the end I had 3 stents put in and for the next 12 days they were not sure I would survive.
Within 6 weeks I was back at the ER and my doctor said it was all in my head now go home. I did and was back two weeks later. They did a catch just to show me it was fine and the stents were 98 percent blocked again. For the next 6 months I had a catch every 8 weeks and they finally had to do bypass at the very bottom of the artery which they say they never do since it does not last for more than 5 years.
I take nitro on a daily basis plus some and after about 13 years they did a stress test and said it is blocked and they can’t do anything else for me. So I flew at to the Mayo Clinic in minn to make sure and finally find out what caused my event and that it will happen again. I do have another blockage but it is in an area they really can’t touch so they said I will need nitro for my chest pain for the rest of my life.
If drs knew more about scad in 2002 like they do now I would not be as bad off as I am. I am lucky to have a husband who has always been there for me and I have gotten to see my kids thru high school and my last one just started high school and I saw my oldest get married last year and it is all thanks to the drs who never gave up on me.