My Heart Problem?

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve experienced some pains in the left side of my chest. Nothing extreme just a dull ache from time to time, but seeing as my heart is in the left side of my chest I thought I better see a GP and get it checked out.

I made an appointment for my usual doctor for 6pm yesterday. I certainly wasn’t too concerned, I did 17km of hill repeats in the morning and spent my day off at my daughters swimming carnival and then the second half of the day walking around the shops looking for Christmas presents for my family. I went to the doctor and described  what was going on, he asked me some questions about the pain, my family medical history and my lifestyle.

After which he suggested that he do a ECG and get a tracing of my heart. I lied on the bed and he shaved a good portion of my chest so the electrodes make solid contact. After the ECG the doctor said to me “There is something that concerns me here and I think you should go straight to hospital, I will ring you an ambulance.” With the hospital less than three minutes drive away I declined the ambulance and told him I would drive, he didn’t seem happy about this. At this point I still wasn’t too worried that anything was wrong with me.

I drove to the hospital and went into the emergency department with a referral letter the GP had given me. I was very surprised that despite a full waiting room, I was taken straight through to see a doctor. Immediately I was hooked up to another ECG machine with more monitors than the first, a needle was put in my arm for blood to be taken and I was booked for a chest x-ray. I was now starting to get a little worried.

The doctor came back not long after and told me that she agreed that something wasn’t right with the ECG she had done, It was explained to me that there could be numerous reasons and the blood tests they were doing should show something up. No need to worry. I was soon taken for a chest x-ray which didn’t take long and then taken to wait for blood test results.

During the wait of about 90 minutes, I text my partner and some family to let them know what was happening and kept up to date with the 3rd Ashes cricket test between Australia and England. I was in a hospital bed watching on my phone the day Steve Smith got his first test hundred in Australia.

Not long after the cricket ended for the day the doctor came back with my results. All the tests they had done have comeback fine. The doctor couldn’t find any reason for the irregularity on two ECG’s. I was now free to go home. They did a test called a tripone(not sure the spelling) test which tests for a chemical that is released in the body by the heart before or after someone has a heart attack. This was negative. They also did a number of other tests of my blood which revealed no problems.

Soon after I went home to my beautiful partner and told her what had happened. It was now 10pm, we had a chat about what had happened and I suggested I might need some ice cream. Not before she took some photos of me with the ECG electrode points on me and then saw a grown man scream as she helped get them off my skin. I had some ice cream and went to bed.

Even though it appears I am fine, I’ve decided to have a week off running, which may drive me crazy as a precaution and also to recharge before the new year. I’ve got some big goals for my running in 2014 so I hope the heart is going to be fine.