Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A wake up call

Yes... it's been a year.

Anonymous commentor of my last post was also a good prompt.

This past weekend I had a scare. On Saturday afternoon, after a vigorous workout with a small chain saw, I had several brief episodes of sharp chest pain (around 4 pm). Not wanting to take any chances, I headed to the emergency room at Emerson Hospital. I had another episode in the car, and later, one in the ER.

In the ER, they hooked me up to EKG, drew blood, inserted an IV, and applied a nitroglycerine patch. And then we waited. And waited. they decided to keep me over night for observations because of a long list of risk factors for heart attack-- type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history, overweight, under exercised.

I had had an echocardiogram the next morning (which was normal), but there were problems scheduling the stress test as on a Sunday, and due to cost cuts, they didn't have a technician. Finally, around 2:30 pm, the cardiologist managed to get a technician. The treadmill stress test took about 30 minutes .The stress test was normal, too.

I was discharged later that afternoon and was told this was not a cardio event. Rather, it was most likely due to the activity with the (dull) chain saw.

I am back at a fitness regimine. I am starting out slow and looking at becoming more healthy rather than lighter. Hopefully the otehr will follow.