Hi,

I suffered a mild heart attack 3 months ago.  I am 44 years old and fairly health (so I thought).  No high blood pressure, diabetes.  I worked full time, raise a family, walk, swim, etc though struggled with an extra 75 lbs for many years.  I had my cholesterol etc checked annually since turning 40 and everything was fine.  There is also no heart disease in my family.

What a surprise to find myself experiencing pain in my chest when I would get on the treadmill and over 3 - 4 weeks I started to find I couldn't exercise at all without tightness in my chest.  Even carrying groceries in the house caused the pain.  So I made the Dr. appointment never thinking for a minute it would be heart related.  I was thinking something in my lungs.  I never lasted to the Dr. appointment and ended up in ER after suffering an episode of the pain at rest that did not go away on its own for 2 hours.

ER staff only minimally concerned as they found my BP high and were about to discharge me with a stress test ordered for 3 weeks down the road when the last blood test came back positive and they told me I had suffered a heart attack and would be shipped off to a larger hospital for angiography and to see a cardiologist. I was admitted to CCU but they never did send me to have the angiography.  CCU staff decided I had not had a heart attack, (no risk factors and age) so decided I should go home and wait for the stress test (3 weeks).  I was having none of it and insisted on having the stress test before going home.  I should have insisted on being transfered for the angiogram too.  I wasn't very popular with the hospital staff.

I had the stress test and then they discharged me with lots of medication and agreed to refer me to a cardiologist for angiogram based on the abnormal stress test but I waited over a week for an appointment and then another 2 weeks for the consult and another week for the angiogram.  In the end, I waited 5 weeks from the heart attack for the angiogram.  It sould not have been more than a day given the symptoms and evidence of the elevated Troponin levels I had in the hospital that day.  The angiogram showed a 90% blockage in the LAD and I required emergency angioplasty and a stent.  I am now living with heart disease and determined to recover.  I am just lucky to be alive   Just like I am determined to insist in future that when I say I am sick, the health care system listens and responds.

When it comes to your health, don't settle for what someone else tells you.  Do your research, learn your options, ask for a second opinion, make some noise.  The little noise I made saved me a few weeks in waiting for the stress test but I should have made more.