heart health

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To start off I am a 37 year old woman and last Thursday (May 10th) I had a heart attack. I wanted to start this discussion because there are many people out there that ignore signs and symptoms for one reason or another. I was no exception! I was working with a metal bar Thursday at around 5:00 pm, it was fairly heavy because it had to be long for the job it needed to do. I was at work, working road construction I was putting in 15+ hour days, I had just gotten this bar while I was stopped to have a tire changed and I decided to try the bar out to see how well it worked (I was a little bored. LOL) Anyway, after using this bar for a minute or two and my tire was changed I hoped back into my tractor and headed out again. Not 2 minutes later I had my heart attack. I got a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest and it ran across my left shoulder and down my arm to my elbow. Now being the person I am I ignored it figuring it was a pulled muscle from the bar. I should also mention that I was having a very hard time keeping my eyes open that day and the day before but again brushed it off as the fact that I was not used to putting in the long hours. We had just started back to work after having the winter off. Anyway, I ignored the pain until supper time at 6:00pm when I was so nauseated that I could no lnoger ignore it. I then asked the foreman if I could go back to my room and not complete the evenings work. I guess I was so pale that he graciously drove me back to the room where I was staying. From there I decided to relax for a bit but the pain was not subsiding so I chose to have a warm bath hoping that would help my "pulled muscle" It didn't! I then threw up, which would have normally helped my stomache however it didn't this time. So I again relaxed more on the bed and was talking to a friend on the net and she suggested I go to the hospital if I could find someone to bring me, I was in another town and didn't even know where the hospital was! Anyway, the person who managed the place I was staying at was an aquaintance of mine and so I thought I would see if she was around. Luckily she was and I guess she thought I looked like death and "flew" me to the hospital. I went in for my arm and started to tell them that my chest was also sore so when they looked at my arm and saw it wasn't swollen or anything, which I thought it was, they decided to hook me up to a heart monitor. It wasn't long before my room was full of people running back and forth taking blood and doing ekg's etc...and I never left. The first thing the doctor said was "I don't want to scare you but..." Well I don't know about you but when he said that I got scared! He said that he was faxing the tests to a specialist to confirm the diagnosis (heart attack) Of course the specialist said YUP definitely heart attack. I stayed in the hospital there with them taking vitals every 15 minutes for a few hours then gratually went to every 4 hours. I didn't get much sleep that night. Although the nurses said I was the happiest patient they have ever had. I didn't have the heart to tell them I get "giddy" when I am tired. Monday I went to see the specialist and he did another test on me and shipped me to another hospital (closer to home) I stayed there for a couple days and now I am back home. With a whole lot of warnings, I never knew that you can give yourself a heart attack just by having a bowel movement but now I can. As well as other trivial things that most people take for granted. I am brused from head to toe, literally, from all the bloodwork they did on me. I can barely walk up and down my stairs in the house now amoung other things that get me winded now which is all signs that I am overexerting my heart. I don't know if I will get back to work this year or not and if I do how much I will be able to do. It is scary! The fact that I am so young for these issues is even worse. This can happen to anybody which is why I started this discussion so that those of you out there that ignore the aches and pains in your chest, putting it off as something trivial you are better off getting it checked to be sure! Mine could have been worse but it may have been a whole lot better if I had of NOT ignored the signs. I hope somebody benefits from this. Remember as well that not all symptoms are the same for each person and woman have more vague pain than men, apparently. Have a great day!