I was sitting in church with Christina when suddenly I felt a sharp, piercing pain in my heart. After the first pain and I began to hold my chest, I experienced three more, but less intense waves of pain. Around the last few waves, I also felt very slight pain in my left arm and also on my right shoulder. I just sat still, breathing carefully until it passed.
I’ve had some similar pain in the lungs from time to time when I try to breathe too fast or get up too quick, but not in my heart, and not like this. I didn’t think I could be having a heart attack since I’m relatively young (24), so I just sat through church and went shopping for groceries with Christina afterward.
After a few hours had passed without incident and we came home and ate a good meal though, I sat down to read up a few things about what had happened. By this time, my heart wasn’t hurting, but I had faint feelings of the muscle being tired or worn, similarly to how an arm or leg muscle feels after having a cramp. My breathing wasn’t terrible, but it was a bit slower than usual.
Now, I’m not normally a WebMD diagnostic freak and definitely don’t enjoy reading about symptoms on the site, somehow trying to match them up with major problems I *know* I don’t have. However, being that I had pain in my heart, I did go to WebMD and learned about what the typical symptoms and causes of heart attacks are.
The things that immediately stood out were the descriptions of the pain and also the pain the pain extending to the left arm. I began to worry seeing as I had an experience that somewhat came close to what was being described on the site, and especially after reading the warning that those symptoms can sometimes be a sign of a heart attack just waiting to happen.
Three years ago, I was diagnosed with a small hole in my heart and was told it wasn’t life-threatening and that I should keep an eye on it. Well…needless to say, I can’t say I have. My diet hasn’t always been the greatest either, and I almost stopped exercising altogether in the past year and gained a good thirty extra pounds. I’ve become very active recently (biking, hiking, climbing, camping, snowboarding, futbol, running, walking) and stopped eating beef and most meat products…so I’m getting better.
Still, I decided to call my grandmother and grandfather in Sylvania, Ohio, to get their opinion. John, my grandfather, has survived multiple heart attacks and has a defibrullator implanted. He’s a strong man and if there was anyone that was going to know about the symptoms and pain, it was him. Even though he said I was probably too young for a heart attack, he basically said the best thing I could do was get to a hospital ASAP and get checked out to diagnose any possible damage.
And I’ll cut the story short here because I’m falling asleep (never write when you were already dozing off after installing 15+ Wordpress plugins)…but we did go to the hospital and after 6 wasted hours of our life that we’ll never get back, I was told my heart was doing good.
They ran an EKG test (6 hours after I had arrived) and everything’s cool. Nevertheless, I am supposed to see my primary care physician and get a referral to a cardiologist. Before that can happen, I also have to get my medical records from the OSU Medical Center, so that should be fun!
All in all, it was an eventful day because although I was OK in the end, there were moments I was very happy to be alive, and really hoping that I would get an opportunity to do all the things I want to accomplish and do in life. I felt myself praying very hard and hoping as much as possible that my time wouldn’t be cut short today, or hopefully not in the near future.
It’s so easy to just brush off pain for me and never think twice…but today was certainly a day that made me strive to pay more attention to my body and my health in general.
Finally…it was a day that truly made me realize again just how lucky I am to be alive, and most of all, how lucky I am to have Christina in my life. She was at my side throughout the whole ordeal, and I am truly blessed to have her love, caring and kindness. I want to make sure to stay healthy and keep my heart strong, and I hope we can grow old and enjoy a lifetime of happiness and joy together.
