Having A Heart Attack During COVID-19

For days, I’ve been living with an on-again, off-again pain between my shoulder blades. Finally, it gets so bad I ask my son, whom I live with, to drive me to the urgent care center. 

Steve calls ahead to say we are coming, but as we wait in the parking lot, we have second thoughts. COVID-19 is at its peak, I’m 78, and the pain is subsiding somewhat. 

Is going inside to get the on-again, off-again pain I’ve been experiencing for days checked out worth, potentially, my life? 

For a moment, I waver, thinking maybe I’ve made much ado about nothing. Then I listen to my body.

“Steve,” I finally say. “I know my body, and something just isn’t right. I need to be checked out.”   

Is going inside to get the on-again, off-again pain I’ve been experiencing for days checked out worth, potentially, my life? 

Inside, the young doctor reads me the results of the EKG they’ve taken of my heart. 

I was right. Something is wrong.

I’m having a heart attack.

I am stunned into silence. I don’t know what I expected. Indigestion, perhaps, but never a heart attack. 

I wait for him to tell me where we go from here. When no explanation is forthcoming from the doctor, I say: “Well . . . what do I do now?”

He wipes a hand across his forehead as though he’s at a loss for words. 

His answer stuns me. “I don’t know,” he says.

“You don’t know? You’re the doctor,” I say, my voice rising. “Tell me what to do.”

The doctor looks at me as if a million miles away. Finally, he says, as if talking abstractly: 

“If I were you I would call an ambulance and get to an ER. Now.” 

“If I were you I would call an ambulance and get to an ER. Now.” 

With that, he turns and strides off down the hall. Later, I decide that overwork during the pandemic must have driven him past the point of exhaustion, and perhaps into the realm of PTSD.

Instead of calling an ambulance, however, my son drives me to the hospital ER. It is dark when we get there. Steve tells me to wait inside the car while he finds out what we do. 

From the car, I watch him pace around the ER entrance, reading notices. The darkness lends an eeriness to everything, reminding me, somehow, of the climax of Close Encounters of a Third Kind.

At last, Steve rings a bell at the entrance. Someone comes. I watch him wave his arms about as he explains our problem. This goes on for some time. 

I start worrying. Are they going to let me in? What if, as a consequence of the pandemic they are not admitting people with non-Covid-19-related health needs? 

Soon, however, Steve motions for me to come out. 

Predictably, Steve isn’t allowed in, but this doesn’t cause me great angst. Now that I’m about to receive care, I feel…well… safe. 

They run another EKG. The results are the same as at urgent care. I am having a myocardial infarction. I’m given nitroglycerin pills, my temperature and blood pressure are taken, and a nurse sitting at a computer asks questions about my medical history while others take blood specimens and hook me up to IVs. 

Eventually, I’m admitted and sent to the coronary-care unit. Steve is designated my go-to person. He will be called with updates on my condition once a day. He can then relay it to my other three sons living in other states.

The hospital is taking no chances. I’m met at the door by a doctor dressed in full hazmat gear.

The following day I have a cardiac catheterization. (This involves threading a flexible tube into my heart from a blood vessel in my wrist to open a blocked artery and then inserting stents to prop up the artery.) After a night in the hospital, I’m discharged.

I am now a person with a heart condition. At home, this echoes in my mind at odd times. Every little twinge or prickling or tingling near my heart sparks concern. A pronounced shortness of breath especially causes alarm. So does a burning under my left breast. The burning may be a lingering soreness from the catheterization, or it may be something more serious. 

I call my cardiologist’s office. A nurse returns my call the following day. She says the shortness of breath is likely caused by the blood thinner I’ve been prescribed. She advises having the soreness around my breast checked out.  

So I make a second trip to the hospital ER.

Even though I tell them the shortness of breath is because of my blood thinner, the hospital is taking no chances. I’m met at the door by a doctor dressed in full hazmat gear. He orders all the usual tests, asks the usual questions.

When he returns at the end of the day, he is obviously relieved. He is also minus protective gear. They have tested me for Covid-19 and the results are negative. The problem with the burning is solved with a cocktail of antacids.   

If you listen to it, your body always knows what you should do.   

My son and his wife, as do my other family members, have busy lives, so, at home, I learn to manage my own care. I keep track of appointments and medications and familiarize myself with the new ways of communication during the pandemic—telehealth, telemedicine, etc.

My decision to listen to what my body was telling me that night and not let the fear of COVID-19 keep me from receiving medical care, was a wise one. I would advise others to do the same; when it comes to a health issue, especially one you believe to be serious, always follow your gut instinct. 

If you listen to it, your body always knows what you should do.