Greetings From Room 1139

Hello everyone. I’m reaching out from my lovely room at Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Why am I in a hospital room in the cardio unit of a major hospital you ask? Well, simply put last Friday I was in the throes of heart failure. Turns out that after three months of slowly filling with fluid, starting with my feet and legs and then working up to my abdomen I was at the point where walking any distance gave me shortness of breath. What I thought was hyper ventilating from anxiety and panic attacks was actually my body telling me my heart couldn’t keep up with pumping fluids and blood and all those things that it’s supposed to do.

How does that happen? How does your heart just decide three months ago to stop pumping correctly? Well, first and foremost the fact that I was not keeping up with regular check-ups or even having a primary care physician in my life is the MAJOR NUMBER ONE PROBLEM. My doc retired years ago and I never replaced him. Felt as long as I was active, exercising, ate okay, and didn’t over due with the pints then I’d be good. I was hardly ever sick and never had any sorts of symptoms and lethargy, chest pains, yadda yadda, etc… I took the caveman route when it came to self care…if it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixed.

If any of you reading this are similar, then you better pull your head right out of yer ass. If you’re 40 or older, you need to see a doc yearly. Because if I had been I would have known my blood pressure was spouting like a steam engine, and had been for some time. So much so that my body acclimated to these high BPs and in turn I had no symptoms. I say December when this started because that’s when all the work chaos began and I got extremely stressed out. That also began when I started feeling bad, which I copped to work.

For the last three months my health and quality of life began to slip. I found every other excuse on earth to explain it except for the main one, my heart. The BP was so high that my heart couldn’t keep up, which allowed my body to fill with fluid like a human water balloon. Last Friday was the day I thought, “This is enough. I can’t do this anymore.” I couldn’t exercise because I’d walk 20 feet and be winded. It would hit like hyper ventilating. I was scared to walk out the house. All I wanted to do was sit and watch TV. I didn’t even want to go downstairs to do the laundry because I’d get winded.

My wife knew as well. She’d noticed these changes in me. Hell, everyone had noticed I wasn’t myself anymore. So she got me in the car and we went to the ER. The first shocker was the fact that I’d gained 25 lbs in fluid weight in like a couple weeks. Even then I was thinking “Hey, this might be my thyroid” as we have thyroid issues in the family. But that wasn’t the case. After some initial tests, ultrasounds, x-rays, the ER doc came in and said that the problem was my heart. I was in heart failure. That was NOT what I was expecting, but looking at myself in the mirror Friday morning with a gut that looked like I was a decades-long alcoholic in nothing more than a couple days, I should have known. Thinking about it now I’m still in complete shock.

So I was in the ER until about 1am, which is when the ambulance arrived to take me to the heart center in Fort Wayne. My wife and I arrived around 2am. Saturday was rounds of Lasix, BP meds, blood thinners, and potassium. I got a liver ultrasound as well as an echocardiogram. It was scary as hell but a scare I needed.

They woke me up early Sunday morning to weigh me. When they weighed me Friday afternoon I was 272 lbs. Early Sunday morning I was down to 249 lbs. 20+ lbs in less than 48 hours. I was holding that much excess fluid in my body. I guess I can understand why walking was such a chore, especially since the fluid was pushing against my lungs. The cardiologist came in Sunday morning to explain the echocardiogram results. They believe the main culprit was my BP, which was overworking my heart for a period of time. That caused some damage which was making my heart pump about 20% less blood out of it than it should have been. At this point it seems no surgery will be needed. There were no heart enzymes so that means I never had a heart attack, and the walls of my heart are still good. Just the pumping needs some help. They have pills for that and I’ll be taking them. Lots of pills. Heart-helping pills, that is.

It’s now Monday afternoon and I can tell you I feel so much better. By the end of this I bet they’ll pull 35-40 lbs of excess fluid off of me. When I hit the ER Friday my BP was 220/180. Those are dead man numbers, folks. My last BP was 140/99. The meds are working. The docs and nurses are amazing. More lasix to come. Not sure when I’m leaving, but I’m happy to stay as long as I need to. I feel comfortable here. I feel safe, and I feel that I’m where I need to be. I’ve heard the term new lease on life, but I never truly understood it till this past weekend. I feel awful for putting my family and friends through this. It was totally on me for being bull-headed and ignorant to what was going on inside me, and for that I’ll never forgive myself. But the fact I’m still here and getting the help I need I will from this point on be an advocate for my body and health. Lots of doctor visits in my future, and I’m so okay with that.

To my fellow fellas reading here, if you don’t “believe” in going to the doctor I implore you to think twice. If not for yourself, then think of your loved ones. Think of your spouses, children, parents, siblings, friends, and anyone else whose life you touch in some way. Take care of yourself for them if you don’t give a crap about yourself. Don’t be like this Midwestern yahoo. You are worth caring for and taking care of. I’ve got a hell of a lot more life and adventure I want to experience. I want to get to retirement so I can finally truly enjoy what the world has to offer. How sad to think of petering out before enjoying those golden years.

Okay, I’m going to get back to healing. Plus I need to order my lunch. Food isn’t too bad. To my fellow writing buddy Deke, I’m in the heart club now.