Hammerfit
05-10-2014, 05:22 PM
For those of you that have not heard yet I lived thru a massive heart attack while bleeding profusly into my stomach from a ruptured vein in my espoghus. (Can't spell sorry)
I was feeling sick for a few days thinking I had the flu. Monday morning I got up and sat on the porch feeling so bad I wondered how I was going to go to the gym and train my clients. Mondays I have 8 hrs booked solid. I gathered myself and trained my first girl ok. Then after about 30 minutes I told the second girl, If I stay any longer I may puke on you. So I made a dash for the door and drove myself home, all along thinking I had the flu. Later to find out I was sick from so much blood in my stomach.
I kinda rested the rest of the day and slept in our spare bedroom so I wouldn't disturb Lisa from so many visits to the bathroom. I keep feeling like throwing up but nothing would come out. Around 3 AM I sat up on the side of the bed thinking it's got to come out either end I don't care. That's when I passed out hitting my head on the nite stand on the way down to the floor. Thank god I did because the commotion woke Lisa up.
The rest of this story is morbid, if you are skimish stop reading here. This is the only place I'm recording these events. I remember lying on the floor alone thinking I am dying. I was soaked and couldn't breath hardly at all. I started to feel at peace and thinking yes you are going now and it's ok. I've had a wonderful life and it's my time. I remember only seeing a fading grey color and was drifting off when this voice starting screaming in my ear, "wake up, don't you leave me" It was my soul mate, Lisa getting into her nurse mode and keeping me breathing until the ambulance arrived. Once they got me in the ambulance they asked which hospital I wanted to go to and I remember him saying, "you won't make that far." Annoyed, I responded, to the closet hospital then! I am very thankful to those two guys who keep me alive long enough to get to the hospital.
The rest of this is an account from Lisa because I don't remember any of it. As soon as the ambulance arrived and they started wheeling me through the parking lot I finally threw up. According to the doctors it was around 2 pints of blood and clots. Lisa was following in the car so she didn't see this happen. Once they got me into the procedure room I was pretty much dead. Once Lisa walked in they asked her if she wanted to see me but warned her I probaly was already gone and she may not want to see me in my condition. She told him to give her a minute to decide. Then she asked him if there was any chance that I could live. He told her very slim but yes a chance. She said, " then I want to see him."
She said when she got in there all that visible was my face that they had me covered in layers of blankets that was covered in blood as well as my face. This part of this is paraphrased by the surgeon. He said the delima was that I was bleeding so bad from a ruptured vein in my esophgus that they couldnt insert stints into the heart to open up the 100% closed aorta valve. Apparently they normally administer blood thinners to do this so you wont bleed to death but since I was already bleeding to death adding blood thinners would certainly kill me. So what they did was administer the thinners into IV on and off. They would add then for a few seconds will the heart surgeon worked then cut it off while the GI surgeon worked on the bleeding vein. Using this technique was pretty ingenious and you could tell as he was describing it to me was pretty proud of this procedure.
Stayed in ICU for 3 days trying to get my blood count back up without eating any food so not to disturb the newly cotrized vein. Awesome nursing staff at this hospital. Later found out that this particular hospital has the best cardiac unit it town. These nurses did a hella of a job with me, always hovering over me trying to keep me comfortable. Those 3 days I heard, "we don't know if he's going to make to or not" way too many times.
A friend from the gym boldly snuck into the no visitors ICU with this ballon in pic that's says it's a girl! He came up there and made me laugh which gave me some hope.
I came home last night after 2 more days in a regular cardiac room. I am very weak from the loss of blood. My blood count is somewhere in the low 7 range where 12 is normal.
Bottom line as my daughter said it will take more than this to bring my Dad down. I will be back and stronger than ever. I just need to do some research and come up with a plan. I am still facing knee replacement surgery in August then open heart surgery right after that so got to deal with that first.
In the mean time I will walk and walk and walk.168418The pic is me leaving the hospital without a wheelchair hitting my bicep pose without a pump (haha)
I will be back.
I was feeling sick for a few days thinking I had the flu. Monday morning I got up and sat on the porch feeling so bad I wondered how I was going to go to the gym and train my clients. Mondays I have 8 hrs booked solid. I gathered myself and trained my first girl ok. Then after about 30 minutes I told the second girl, If I stay any longer I may puke on you. So I made a dash for the door and drove myself home, all along thinking I had the flu. Later to find out I was sick from so much blood in my stomach.
I kinda rested the rest of the day and slept in our spare bedroom so I wouldn't disturb Lisa from so many visits to the bathroom. I keep feeling like throwing up but nothing would come out. Around 3 AM I sat up on the side of the bed thinking it's got to come out either end I don't care. That's when I passed out hitting my head on the nite stand on the way down to the floor. Thank god I did because the commotion woke Lisa up.
The rest of this story is morbid, if you are skimish stop reading here. This is the only place I'm recording these events. I remember lying on the floor alone thinking I am dying. I was soaked and couldn't breath hardly at all. I started to feel at peace and thinking yes you are going now and it's ok. I've had a wonderful life and it's my time. I remember only seeing a fading grey color and was drifting off when this voice starting screaming in my ear, "wake up, don't you leave me" It was my soul mate, Lisa getting into her nurse mode and keeping me breathing until the ambulance arrived. Once they got me in the ambulance they asked which hospital I wanted to go to and I remember him saying, "you won't make that far." Annoyed, I responded, to the closet hospital then! I am very thankful to those two guys who keep me alive long enough to get to the hospital.
The rest of this is an account from Lisa because I don't remember any of it. As soon as the ambulance arrived and they started wheeling me through the parking lot I finally threw up. According to the doctors it was around 2 pints of blood and clots. Lisa was following in the car so she didn't see this happen. Once they got me into the procedure room I was pretty much dead. Once Lisa walked in they asked her if she wanted to see me but warned her I probaly was already gone and she may not want to see me in my condition. She told him to give her a minute to decide. Then she asked him if there was any chance that I could live. He told her very slim but yes a chance. She said, " then I want to see him."
She said when she got in there all that visible was my face that they had me covered in layers of blankets that was covered in blood as well as my face. This part of this is paraphrased by the surgeon. He said the delima was that I was bleeding so bad from a ruptured vein in my esophgus that they couldnt insert stints into the heart to open up the 100% closed aorta valve. Apparently they normally administer blood thinners to do this so you wont bleed to death but since I was already bleeding to death adding blood thinners would certainly kill me. So what they did was administer the thinners into IV on and off. They would add then for a few seconds will the heart surgeon worked then cut it off while the GI surgeon worked on the bleeding vein. Using this technique was pretty ingenious and you could tell as he was describing it to me was pretty proud of this procedure.
Stayed in ICU for 3 days trying to get my blood count back up without eating any food so not to disturb the newly cotrized vein. Awesome nursing staff at this hospital. Later found out that this particular hospital has the best cardiac unit it town. These nurses did a hella of a job with me, always hovering over me trying to keep me comfortable. Those 3 days I heard, "we don't know if he's going to make to or not" way too many times.
A friend from the gym boldly snuck into the no visitors ICU with this ballon in pic that's says it's a girl! He came up there and made me laugh which gave me some hope.
I came home last night after 2 more days in a regular cardiac room. I am very weak from the loss of blood. My blood count is somewhere in the low 7 range where 12 is normal.
Bottom line as my daughter said it will take more than this to bring my Dad down. I will be back and stronger than ever. I just need to do some research and come up with a plan. I am still facing knee replacement surgery in August then open heart surgery right after that so got to deal with that first.
In the mean time I will walk and walk and walk.168418The pic is me leaving the hospital without a wheelchair hitting my bicep pose without a pump (haha)
I will be back.