For those of you wondering what happended to me at DemoCamp, well, Tuesday was supposed to be DemoCamp6 but it turned out to be BarCampER for me. I had a heart attack just before DemoCamp on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. This was completely unexpected! And scary! I’m only 32, I don’t use cocaine, I don’t have a strong family history of heart disease, I don’t smoke, I don’t use intravenous drugs, I eat pretty well, and I try to exercise.
I’m doing okay, they let me out of the Cardiac ICU on Friday June 2, 2006. I’ve been home under bed rest and recovery since Friday. Kristin has been juggling seeing patients and taking care of my sorry butt for the past week. Between running back and forth to the hospital, to having my mother and sister stay with her at the condo.
Here’s a quick timeline of what happened:
- 5:30pm – Arrived at MaRS to set up for DemoCamp6
- ~5:45pm – Headache, excessive sweating and discomfort start
- 6:00pm – Chest tightness and swollen jaw
- 6:15pm – Discussion with Jay, Joey, Sutha, Leila and Greg about how bad I felt and looked
- 6:20pm – Sutha walks me through the underground corridors at MaRS over to the Emergency Room at Toronto General Hospital
- 6:30pm – I see the triage nurse at TGH with a heart rate of 94bpm and blood pressure of 190/120 which is not good.
- 7:30pm – The pain subsides for a while
- 10:30pm – Chest pain starts again but it much less painful (on a scale of 1-10 this time the chest pain is only a 2.5 maybe a 3)
- 12:30am – blood work comes back from the lab, it shows troponin levels increasing to 14.80
- There was a lot of flurry of activity, that culminated with my going up to the Cath Lab for an angiogram and angioplasty at around 4:30am
- 4:30am – Cath showed culprit lesion in the OM1 of the circumflex coronary artery with a 95% occulsion. This was stented with a non-drug eluting stent.
- 6:45am – Arrival in the Coronary ICU on the second floor of Toronto General Hospital
I’ve been home since Friday and I’m doing okay. I get tired easily. I’m on a lot of meds including:
- Acetaminophen aka Tylenol for pain
- Atorvastatin aka Lipitor to lower my cholestoral
- Aspirin as a blood thinner
- Lopressor is a beta blocker to lower my blood pressure
- Plavix to prevent cloating around the stent
- Ramipril aka altace which is
a beta blockeran ace inhibitor to lower my heart rate
I’m good. I’m around. Call me if you’d like to stop by. I have about 8 weeks of recovery infront of me.
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