Never go to Walmart go see if you are having a heart attack!

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Never go to Walmart go see if you are having a heart attack

by

Dorothy Graham Gast

Early morning on April 6 after a delightful evening with friends, I felt activity in my chest. No real pain, but the feeling that a couple of large mice might be fighting under my breastbone. My pulse rang in my ears; not the normal regular 4/4 rhythm, but a wild and crazy erratic beat. I woke my sister and asked her to take my blood pressure. Both her machines were as undependable as the noise in my head. We decided to get dressed and go to Walmart to check the bp on their equipment. I still had no pain.

When we tried the Walmart machine something was wrong with it, too. 256/136; then 85/50. No pulse reading. Ridiculous!!!! I could hear the sound in my head.emergency-room-sign

So after some deliberation we went to DCH Northport ER.

When they heard the word heart, I was rushed into an exam room.

emergency-room

Instant service, BP(not gasolene), IV, EKG,

“Give her a shot in the IV…….Shoot her again……Another one!!!”

Now I was getting nervous. Their faces did not reassure me. No real pain, just the stupid non rhythm roaring in my head.

“OK, that’s better.” Everyone breathed, even me.

When they spoke of electric shock to get the heart back in rhythm I wasn’t happy. They put the shock pads in place in the center of my chest and under my left arm. A mask came down over my face.

Hours later I woke up with a brand new pacemaker. Two days in the ICU and I was released to the care of my sister with instructions for my confinement and restrictions on my behavior. My visitors from Scotland helped enforce the recovery guidelines. A week later I’m home after promising to behave and call someone to drive me if I need to travel.

Praise the LORD for his Goodness and thanks to all of you who prayed for me. I felt the prayers and have had little pain or difficulty. I will be resting and following doctor’s orders. No driving for 2 weeks may be the hardest part.

Now is a good time to get serious about losing weight, walking a mile a day, and slowing down.

I’m lucky! If something is happening in your chest, have a doctor check it out. No pain does not mean no danger.blood pressure machine

Don’t go to Walmart!

 

 

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Dorothy Gast lives in Romulus, Alabama on the Graham family farm. She taught in Tuscaloosa County Schools for nearly 30 years.
She has a ”Mine, yours, and Ours” family. She has volunteered in numerous organizations after her husband’s eight year struggle with Alzheimers’ ended.
She helped organize a volunteer fire department after she was 60 and served as board secretary and nationally certified firefighter after extensive training.
Her attempts to get the community reading failed, but she contributed books to the new Sipsey Valley high school from the library in her home friends helped her establish.

She is known locally by the silhouettes she cuts free hand of children. She began to write nostalgia stories after a grandson asked her to write down the stories often told at family events.