New Year's

Happy New Year's everyone! I for one am just happy to see a new year roll around. It's a time for new resolutions and new starts. I need both so here's what I came up with.

1. I want a happy and HEALTHY year for me and all of my heart buddies. Take care of yourselves!
2. I hope this blog reaches someone that can be helped by it. If just one person is diagnosed early or is able to have questions answered then it's done it's job.
3. This new year is going to mean the end of my cardiac rehab and I'm NOT coming back! I'm going to stick to my diet and rock heart disease from here on out!
4. And last but not least, a silly one. I'm never ever ever dying my hair black again. It looks awful. What was I thinking?!? This is one I'm guaranteed to keep!

So there you go! I wish all of you luck with your resolutions. Lets start this decade out on a good foot! Here's to a happy, healthy, and good hair filled year!

Winter can shove it!

Okay I'm surprised by this one. So many of my heart buddies don't know this! Did you know heart disease flares up in winter? It gets so much worse and chest pain tends to hurt more. Heart patients are more tired, more cranky, and more at risk. Why? Because you're COLD silly! How do we not know this?!? Add in the holiday stresses and it's heart attack central. It's a shame.

Here's what happens... Your heart is warm and snug in your chest, protected by the cage your ribs provide. The problem isn't the trunk, it's the branches. You have arteries that run through your entire body. The really big important ones connect to the heart. There are two big ones in your neck and a good number nestle around your lungs to connect the heart.

If you poke your head outside and take a big breath of frosty air those arteries react like they're designed to... they squeeze to stay warm. This is all well and good but if you have heart disease this instinctive heart spasm can glue shut or narrow an artery critically. A person with angina (chest pain) can have a really painful flare outside.

I've got the angina (ahem) "issue." Because of this I'm being a good heart patient and protecting my neck. Literally. Chest pain freaking hurts. No two ways about it. It hurts bad enough to stop me in my tracks and make me consider what I'm doing wrong. It hurts bad enough to avoid EVER being that stupid again. Yes, it's that bad. Am I hungry? Tired? Upset? Cold? Solve the problem, take nitro, and I'm good as new.

So what to do in winter? Stay warm and dry. Protect your face and neck with a scarf. Wear a jacket. I know it's hard but try not to breathe cold air for very long and stay inside. I'm a champ at this. North Face should send me handwritten Christmas cards. I've got everything from the fuzzy socks to the perfect afghan covered. All it took was one extremely uncomfortable episode for me to get with the program and put on a North Face fleece.

I'm all about living a perfectly normal life with abnormal challenges. If you're able to go outside GO! Just take the steps to be safe. If that means wearing a heart rate monitor or putting on a scarf I'll do it. If I get too cold I go inside and warm back up. It doesn't mean I can't go back out. I think if you give up you're sick. If you keep fighting, no matter how sick, you're strong.

Jeez. Warn a girl!

Well I survived Christmas! My head cold turned into acute bronchitis. Two weeks later the doctors were treating it aggressively and trying to stop it from turning into pneumonia. This, I'm learning, is a common problem. Heart patients just aren't strong enough to fight off infections. They tend to snowball which is why so many of us die of things like pneumonia. Our hearts just can't keep up. A good example of this happened when I was at my sickest. My heart rate and blood pressure were through the roof and I could hardly catch my breath. Everything my heart had was going to fighting the infection in my lungs. There just wasn't anything left. Luckily for me youth wins again. I'm on the mend and about to head back into rehab. I HATED being sidelined! Come on! I'm ready to graduate!

Ready for my oddball thing of the week? Sure took me by surprise! I bought my husband a stack of DVD's for Christmas. The first one in was an alien movie called District 9. I don't have a problem with action, or aliens, of gross stuff but this movie totally flipped me out! No clue why but it did. It boo-ed me. You know when something pops out and scares the bejesus out of you? You got boo-ed. I totally got boo-ed. I even did the little jump and the girlie eep! noise. Embarrassing.

I settle back down when out of the blue... chest pain. Great. Sitting, thinking about it, nope not going away. Holy goodness I just got boo-ed by an alien and now I have to take nitroglycerin. The only thing I could think was if I was actually having a heart attack I'd never live it down. This is a whole new level of ridiculous. I'd never survive an alien invasion. I pop a nitro pill under my tongue and settle down to watch the rest of the movie. My husband cuts his eyes over to me and casually checks the time. I know he won't say anything unless I take another one and he knows I won't appreciate a conversation right now. Anybody that knows you that well is worth keeping around. Thanks handsome.

And the fun continues...

If you thought the last blog was gross PLEASE don't read this one. I've warned that the nature of this blog can be sometimes graphic and this is one of those times. Sorry. For all of my heart buddies out there I hope you can learn something from this and it will spare you the drama I just got to go through.

The great nosebleed continues! After all that mess the day before yesterday I had put my nosebleed behind me and settled into being sick. It's miserable but everyone gets the flu. Unfortunately, not everyone is on Plavix and Aspirin. Around 6:30 last night I coughed and the nosebleed started up again. This time was a little different though. It was literally dripping blood! Everywhere! No amount of pressure or Kleenex was stopping it so by 8:00 I was walking into the emergency room.

Have you ever just known something was wrong? After hours of pressure and it's still pouring blood I had a bad feeling that this was one of those times. I quit squeezing the hell out of my nose and just concentrated on keeping it from getting all over me. By 11:00 I was right. An ear nose and throat specialist had to be called in to fix it. Apparently, a vein in the very back of my nose had ruptured. No amount of pressure could reach it and with the Plavix it couldn't clot on it's own. Just great.

By now I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm thirsty, and I was so over this. Somewhere between the blood clots and the lidocane nose packing procedure I totally lost my sense of humor in the situation and just sunk into pitiful.

So what did they do? I had my nose packed with lidocane soaked cotton (OW!) to numb it. This was by far the worst part so that's the good news. After I was all numbed up they pull the packing out and inject another numbing agent in your nose to totally desensitize it. After that the doctor cauterizes the broken vein. Viola! Just like magic, no more bleeding! I was kind of nervous about the whole burning nose thing but it wasn't bad at all! The bleeding had been much worse and after almost 7 hours of it I think I would endured much worse to make it stop.

So there you go. The joys of being a heart patient with the flu. The doctors orders are very low activity and no nose blowing. I just have to ride this out for a few days and I'll be as good as new. Now does anybody know any good jokes? Got any funny nose one liners? I could use a good laugh. :)

O.M.G.

Warning! This post is gross. If I didn't have some heart people as readers I wouldn't post it but I would have reeealy loved a heads up myself so here we go. Don't say I didn't warn you!

I got the flu!!! A month of hand sanitizer has been totally wasted and I got the flu anyway. So far, it's unidentified so I'm not worried about the swine variety yet. Why worry about something I can't change anyway? What I DO have is the fever, chills, runny nose, and generally achy miserable feeling. Medication has been called in and picked up so hopefully I'll feel better soon.

Ready for the gross part? Nosebleeds. Apparently if you take Plavix and you get sick a vein in your nose can bust and leave you with a really bad nosebleed. This would have been really useful information YESTERDAY! I've seen a lot of nosebleeds in my life and all it took was a little sneeze to cause the absolute baddest of the bad. I mean pouring blood. It was all over me and all over my clothes. So gross!!! It gets worse though. Plavix is designed to hinder clotting and prevent any from settling in your heart. Unfortunately, this means that clots that form in your nose don't know where they are and just fall out. Now I'd managed to remain calm until I saw that. Seriously?!? That's like horror movie bad. Alien movie bad. I ended up calling my cardiologist in the middle of the night flipping out with Kleenex everywhere. Not my finest moment.

Okay heart buddies. To spare you the trouble, I'm going to tell you what he said and give you the heads up I would have appreciated. DON'T put anything up your nose. That just makes it worse. Apply direct hard pressure to the bridge of your nose and wait it out. If the bleeding lasts over an hour, head to the nearest ER and have them pack it for you. Apparently this is totally normal and even expected to happen. Don't panic and if you have to go to the doctor bring a list of all your medications. Sounds like good advice to me!