“You are so young!” If I had a dollar for every time I heard that phrase I would be a rich woman, sitting on a beach somewhere.

…”Yes, I have really crappy family genes”, I say with a smile. But the reality is that underneath that smile, is a little tiny stent in my artery, that saved my life….

In 2015, two weeks before my 27th birthday, I started experiencing really bad indigestion every time I climbed the stairs or exerted myself. I would have to sit down and “burp like a man” as my roommate called it. I went through Tums like they were candy. One morning I arrived at work and the pain was unbearable. I spoke to a coworker who used to be a nurse who called her husband who was a retired doctor. He suggested that I go to the ER to get checked out as the burps could be me trying to get air. I jokingly said to my fellow coworkers, I’m going to make sure I am not having a heart attack.

Off to the ER, we went. They told me it was probably GI related, but they called for a cardiologist, because while I didn’t know it at the time, my EKG showed abnormalities and my BP was out of control.  Once we knew that it wasn’t going to be a quick visit, my coworker called our parish priest and my mom..My mom and parish priest arrived within minutes of each other. I knew it was serious when their ‘less than stellar poker faces’ looked at the heart monitor and they both tried to smile, looking at each other with “oh, crap” faces.  The cardiologist explained a few things, had me take some more doses of meds to try to get my BP down and said he wanted to see me in 3 days in the office.

Upon arriving in the office, he repeated the EKG which still showed abnormalities and decided to run a stress test and heart ultrasound in the next week or so. Being me, I laughed off the stress test, thinking it wouldn’t show anything. It was scheduled for a week later on a Tuesday, my day off.

I met Mom at Panera for chicken soup to celebrate my birthday, that Monday before the stress test.. To this day, neither one of us can step foot in Panera. I was sitting there enjoying my soup, and started to experience really bad chest pain. I told her that I thought we needed to go to the ER. We went, they presumed indigestion again, gave me some heavy dose of something to help with indigestion and sent me on my way. I should have known and fought for myself that as I walked down the hallway, I continued to have chest pain…And it wasn’t indigestion. I knew something was wrong.

I arrived back at the cardiologists office the next afternoon, just days after my 27th Birthday for my stress test and heart ultrasound. I had told mom not to come, as I figured it would be no big deal.

In walked another cardiologist who I did not know. I asked him before we started how he knew if it was heart related or being out of shape. He said there were indicators and we started the test. We were casually talking, when I started to experience chest pain, 4 minutes into the test.

At the same that I started to experience chest pain, he noticed an abnormality on my EKG. At 5:01 into the test, and as he looked at the heart monitor, his face quickly shifted and he told me to “get off the treadmill now”. Along with the tech, they diligently tried to quickly get images of my heart, quite quickly, as he kept repeating “Kristin, how are you?”. I didn’t realize it was anything serious until he said, “I am admitting you and we will be doing a Heart Cath, tomorrow”. He explained the procedure and I just nodded. At some point, I got word to mom that I was being kept and she responded “on my way”. To state for the record, that woman is a saint and I have probably given her more grey hairs than she would like to know.

The doctor went into the hallway to call down to the ER to let them know I was coming. After hanging up, I ever so kindly asked, “who does the procedure?” He replied, “me”. So then I asked, and what are your credentials? Where did you go to school? He listed off a few starting with Yale. I told him, “okay, you can do it”. They arrived with a wheelchair to take me down to the ER and he said see you tomorrow. Now, looking back, he was trying to keep me calm, because he knew what he saw, but was waiting on blood work for confirmation.

When he arrived at my bedside about 2 hours later, I knew something was up. Upon arriving to the ER, they had hooked me up to every monitor in the room, took bloodwork and I waited for mom to arrive. Mom was sitting in a chair at the end of my bed, when the cardiologist arrived with some not so great news, “You suffered a heart attack in the last 24 hours”. My mother quipped, “she had a cardiac event?” To which the kind doctor, responded, yes, she had a heart attack. He explained the Cath to my mom and that it would probably take a few hours. My Troponin levels that are supposed to be at zero, were above 3.0 and climbing. They would eventually peak at 6.0+

I was admitted up to the room and continued to be very closely monitored. I was visited by great priests, received the Sacraments of Confession and anointing and was ready to go. Only I didn’t sleep a wink that night, the more I read about the procedure, the less thrilled I was. Tip to family members: take away the patient’s phone once the doctors start naming tests/procedures.  Mom stayed in the room with me and I think we saw every hour on the clock that night.The morning could not come soon enough.

The next morning, I was taken down to the Cath Lab and met by who we had dubbed, “Dr. Yale”, because we couldn’t remember his last name. They gave me medicine to help with pain and put me into moderation sedation. I remember coming in and out of it, but not too much. I only remember him telling me that he had finished and that the nurses would take care of me. Apparently, under the medication, I became quite polite, thanking everyone in the room, repeating, “thank you ladies and gentlemen”, as they prepared to move me back upstairs. After the procedure, I was taken up to the ICU for very close monitoring and had the best nurse ever. That girl will always have a special place in my heart. Nurses truly are the heroes of medicine.

“Dr. Yale” arrived at my bedside about an hour or two later with pictures from my Cath. We learned then that he liked to either show or draw pictures to explain things, which was great because other than knowing your heart is supposed to beat, I didn’t know anything about my arteries at that point. All I knew was that I had a 99% blockage in the LAD, the ‘widow maker’, that he was able to stent.

I saw him a week later in the office, quite upset with him for the bruise the procedure had caused, but other than that was feeling good. All my numbers looked better and all indications were that I was good to go…or so we thought.

Check out about my heart surgery for part II.