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I want to thank all of you for the wonderful thoughts and prayers you sent in my direction. Forum angels are powerful assets.
A short history....nearly 8 years ago I had a quad by-pass. Four arteries down (one with two blockages). When they were replaced, one artery was replaced with the mammary artery, the other three were replaced with large vein sections from my left leg.
Artery by-passes have a normal 'shelf-life' of ten to fifteen years before they have to be replaced again...and even then if you live clean and healthy, that may never have to happen again. Veins have a lower window of opportunity...generally between seven and ten years, so they usually start watching those types of by-passes more closely. I was stretching the window already.
Last April I had a 'routine' catherization and it was discovered that two of the three veins were completely collapsed with no telling when that may have occurred. It could have been the day after my by-pass surgery. However, those two evidently weren't life threatening (makes you wonder why they replaced them then, doesn't it?). The artery and one vein left were in real good shape with no balloon or stints being needed.
Somewhere along the line on Monday night I started throwing blood clots for no apparent reason. I woke up around 1AM with the same symptoms I had with my first heart attack (the one three months before the big one that resulted in the by-pass). Pressure in my ears, down the sides of my neck, and at the throat base and cold sweats. I called the ex-husband (he was sleeping at his girlfriend's house LOL) and he came and got me to the hospital. From there, the local yocals determined that I was having a heart attack, gave me a new med called TNK that is supposed to be the new TPA clot buster, and shipped me off out of state to a decent hospital.
The clot buster med didn't work, and by 9AM I was in surgery getting angioplasty...sucked out a bunch of clots, and put in two stints for two weak areas of the vein that was in trouble. Didn't know it at the time, but the artery immediately next to the vein where they made the incision got knicked and I was bleeding out quickly.
They got that under control while another team worked on the stints, and put me in the cardiac unit with a blood transfusion among other goodies being pumped in. Unfortunately, I couldn't sit up after that for longer than three or four minutes without going out like a light and drenching myself and the bed in pools of sweat. My blood pressure wouldn't stabilize, so Thursday an ultrasound was ordered for my heart to make sure both the left and right sides at the bottom of the heart were working and pumping away since my symptoms indicated severe damage to the right side. Bells and clapping all around when the ultrasound came through with flying colors. So then it was determined that the pressure couldn't come up because the volume wasn't there....I lost more blood during the artery knick than they thought I had. So another pint of blood and two hours later and they were signing my release papers. LOL
They kept me around for another day and a half before shoving me out the door, but it was sure good to get back on my feet. I was in the same position in that bed for nearly four days and was a little crabby by that time (at least when I was coherent enough to be crabby...morphine can be a good thing for the rest of the world sometimes...too bad it can't be dispensed via the forums at times LOL).
Wanted to touch base with everybody, thank my sister for letting you guys know what was going on with me, thank you all for the kindnesses you bestowed upon her via the forum and emails you sent to her, thank Bignose (this is really Ray Harinec and a great friend of mine for a number of years, even if he tends to nag regarding my health) for keeping you all updated, and thank all the forum angels who hovered long enough to get me back here where I belong. I release them now to get to more important assignments.
Love to you all.......and don't take TNK or TMK if you need it....insist on the real thing called TPA.
TONI

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