According to the doctors, who look at the EKG results, I have had some kind of “ischemic event,” meaning that the blood flow to part of my heart was constricted or restricted somehow. Not a heart attack, they don’t think, but some kind of event that stopped enough blood from reaching my heart for a small period of time. It’s possible this could be a rare reaction to the blood pressure medication, but they’re not sure. They need to keep me overnight, monitor me to make sure it’s not really a heart attack, and then have me evaluated by a cardiologist, who will do an echocardiogram and some other tests to see what’s going on with my veins.
I’m moved from the ER to a room in the cardiac part of the hospital, where I’ll stay overnight, and as I’m being hooked up to another EKG and examined by doctors, having my blood drawn and other tests performed, my phone starts blowing up. It’s Emi: Her conversation with her dad hasn’t gone well, and she needs to talk to me about it. She has sent dozens of texts and attempted at least five FaceTime calls. My phone is dying, nearly out of battery; and I also don’t know what to tell her. I don’t want her to worry. But my not responding is as worrisome to her as any response might be.
Finally, I text her. “Sorry,” I say, “I can’t talk right this second. Can you give me a few minutes?” But she can’t wait, she’s upset, she’s crying, she’s scared, she says, she needs to talk to me right now. So I tell her I really want to talk to her, but I can’t right at this moment, and she demands to know why. Finally, I say: “The first thing you need to know is that I’m fine, I’m going to be fine. But I had a reaction to the blood pressure medicine I was taking, and I have to stay in the hospital overnight.” I don’t tell her I’m being evaluated for a heart attack, that right this very minute I’m covered with little stickers attached to electrodes, but it’s still too much for her to take, and she calls me, crying. I talk to her for a few minutes, trying to calm her down, telling her I’ll be able to listen to her tell me what happened in a little bit, when the doctors are done checking me out. Gil texts me, “How could you tell her you’re in the hospital?! She’s so upset right now!” And the doctors ask me, “So, have you been under any stress lately?”
I’m woken up throughout the night to have my vitals checked, and each time my blood pressure is very low—90 over 50, 100 over 60. In the morning I’m released from the hospital and sent to be evaluated by a cardiologist in the next building. He listens to my story, examines me, looks at my test results from yesterday and overnight. I tell him about my experience with spinal CSF leak, and where I am in my recovery process, and the cardiac nurse perks up: She has had a CSF leak herself, not once, but two times, both due to a faulty epidural during childbirth. Hers resolved fairly easily, though she did have to have a few blood patches with the second one. We’re both excited to talk about our shared experience with leaking, but the cardiologist isn’t sure my CSF leak has anything to do with what’s happened with my heart. My echocardiogram is normal, my stress test is normal, my stress-echo (where they perform a stress test and then do an immediate echocardiogram right as you hit your peak exertion point) was normal. “Everything looks great,” the cardiologist says, pointing out my strong arteries, my non-obstructed veins. It doesn’t make sense to him that this could all be due to a reaction to medication, but he tells me not to take the medicine anymore just in case, and in fact cautions me to not take anything at all besides aspirin. This could be pericarditis, he says, an inflammation of the sac around the heart. “What is it with me and sacs of things in my body not working right,” I attempt to joke; but again, he doesn’t think what’s going on has any relation to my leak. And then I’m free to go. I should take aspirin for three months and follow up with him sometime after that.
