Wee Man T is 2 years, 3 months and 16 days old.“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked Wee Man T on Monday morning.
"You can have Shreddies, Rice Crispies or Weetabix”. A choice of Crispies was made by a hug of the box.
“Now sit down and eat these up” I added.
“Mummy thinks she is having a heart attack so we are waiting for an ambulance. And we still have your nappy to change before Granny comes.”And so my Monday morning began…
About the middle of last week onwards, I had got a tightening of the chest and I could feel my heart race and race louder. It only happened once each night and passed quickly. However I felt it almost all Sunday despite doing nothing other than the usual loads of laundry, dishes, toy tidy and playing with the wee man (more mess). As I finally got to bed on Sunday night, my left shoulder and collar bone area was sore.
“Just in case I don’t wake up”, I told my OH
“I love you but I love the wee man even more.”So on Monday morning at 6am, I was for once delighted to be woken by the alarm and went for my shower. However the left shoulder/neck pain was still there, I felt sick and despite taking 2 paracetamol the pain seemed to get worse and travelled down my left arm – the whole arm felt heavy and numb although I could move it.
I phoned the wee man’s Granny and asked her to get here a bit earlier. I couldn’t get through to the NHS helpline and it was too early for the doctors so with a deep breath I phoned 999, then fed and changed Wee Man T and got myself dressed.
To cut a long story short, I was duly taken to hospital in the ambulance – waved off at the window by Wee Man T and his Granny. The former all excited about an ambulance being so close
Once there, bloods were taken, vitals were monitored, lungs were x-rayed and I was hooked up to an ECG.
All came back okay – no sign of a heart attack or indeed anything else to explain the chest pains, although the arm/shoulder pain was quickly put down to lifting a 2 year old. A virus was suggested but I certainly hadn’t felt any more under the weather than I normally do.
So 6 hours after phoning 999, I left the hospital advised to take a few days off to rest, and feeling both relieved at the news but miffed that I was now obviously of an age that when getting an x-ray, no one asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant
On the Tuesday, I had a dental appointment. I had made it the week before when I had toothache (and the initial chest pains) but it seemed to have cleared up. I considered cancelling but figured I should just get it checked seeing I was off anyway.
“No sign of anything” said the dentist,
“but we will take an x-ray just to check”. He and his assistant left the room as the x-ray was taken – again never considering asking the pregnancy question. I’m obviously considered well past it at the age of 50!
But again all was thankfully clear. He wondered if it had been sinuses or neuralgia as the pain had been in my cheek bone, or perhaps some other virus.
“Funny”, I replied,
“it was suggested yesterday that I had had a virus”, and told him the story.
So dear diary, some lessons have been learnt. Between doing nearly everything for Wee Man T, looking after the house and a full time job something had to slip – and that has obviously been my health. My diet is rubbish, I can’t eat my dinner in peace never mind getting time off to exercise and in the last 15 months I have had 22 distinct colds. No wonder I never noticed if I was ill. I need to start looking after myself and getting fit again. I lost 5 stone to start IVF, 2 stone went back on with 8 cycles of drugs and over 1 stone of pregnancy/stress eating at work weight is still there, so I am taking this as a warning sign.
So Happy New Year dear diary! I haven’t had a heart attack, I don’t need a filling or root canal treatment and my
has been truly kicked.
