Saturday night/Sunday morning around 1:00am I had returned home from a very long work day with an extreme headache and nausea. I was just flat out sore and tired, and I attributed the feelings of dismay to my recent Post Concussion Syndrome diagnosis from right before Thanksgiving. I readily and willingly climbed into bed in hopes to rest off the bad feelings. As the night and hours staggered on, my headache and an approaching fever were now getting the best of me. Tossing and turning, not able to sleep, I finally got out of bed around 4:00am to find some Tylenol and hopefully some cold/flu medicine so I could just whack this in the butt and be healthy by morning. Well as soon as I started to move around, I immediately felt worse. Dizzy, extremely nauseous, pounding headache, and facing the rim of a volcano in terms of my body heat, I had no medicine so I made the choice to go to the local Walmart. Right before I left, I took my temperature...a nice fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, it is high, but still not the end of the world right? Well not really...I run a usual body temp of slightly above 95 degrees. Weird I know, but I have always been that way. Trying to get a temperature in middle school was never fun. No one ever believed I was sick and practically dying with a 99.1 temperature.
Anyways, with a crazy high fever, and only a few degrees away from my brain melting, I called my mother so she could stay on the line while I drove to Walmart to get meds, just in case I passed out from the exertion and high fever. I did make it back home...barely. I immediately took some Tylenol and Nyquil and laid down to sleep. I had woken up around 8:30am on that same Sunday morning, with extreme chest pains. I was rolling around back and forth, in serious pain. I had figured maybe I took too much of the medicine. So I got up and started to walk around to see if the pain would subside. Five minutes later the pain got worse; much, much worse, and to top it all off I was starting to get short of breath. Fearing some serious complications I finally got myself in the car at 8:40am and drove myself to the nearest Urgent Care Center, where they know me pretty well. I walked into the Urgent Care with my hand on my chest. The receptionist nurse recognized me and immediately saw I was not well. I was literally as white as paper, hand clutching my chest, sweating and crying. The only thing I could choke out to say through the pain and tears was "I need help." I was taken back immediately and my hospitalized journey began.
The Urgent Care center called an ambulance to take me to the hospital because every sign pointed to me having a heart attack. The urgent care, EMTs, and the ER staff, that I was taken to, all concurred with the blood work and EKGs, and diagnosed me with a massive heart attack. Troponin, one of the key enzymes of heart muscle function had climbed to a ridiculous high of 28ug. A normal measure of Troponin is around 0.05ug. A usual heart attack is measured at a start of 2ug. Mine went up to 28ug. Not even people with congestive heart failure reach numbers that high on a regular basis. At a healthy status of 25 years old, you can safely say everyone was worried. Worried that I was soon to die. I was immediately taken into the heart catheter lab to open up any blockages my heart was bound to have. As soon as they got inside, they saw that my heart was open and clear. So, why would my heart show numbers well beyond a routine massive heart attack but have no blockages? The doctors were actually stumped. I was facing the pain from a heart attack but not receiving the damage from it.
To make this story end quickly, the doctors diagnosed me with Viral Myocarditis, a virus that causes extreme inflammation of the heart muscle. A condition that is mainly seen in elderly people, not young adults. They are unsure about the exact virus that invaded, but they believe it to be the Influenza Virus. Even though every flu test came back negative, they were certain it was the flu. I spent a week going through several tests, several medications, and a roller coaster ride of fevers. I was there for a week in isolation because they did not know what I was infected with. I had a total of four episodes of the "heart attack-like" pain. One is extremely painful and most do not come back from it. I had four, I am the lucky one.
I will blog more about the antics of the heavy narcotics and delirious fevers resulting in calling one of my doctors Gonzo (the muppet), blaming the nursing staff of stealing my shoes, and several days of show tune singing. They are some seriously funny and embarrassing stories. I have already said too much here, so I will save the rest for later. I will also blog on the whole spirit of the matter. I was visited by a chaplain every day because of what I was facing.
Folks, I almost died a few times, it truly is scary. Never take this life for granted.
I will return shortly...
Fight for a better tomorrow
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