How To Fail while Still Passing Tests

Not all people suck:

The kindness of strangers as I lay on the seat of that golf cart that day shows that not everyone in the world is callous and unwilling to get involved.

While waiting the 5 - 10 mins for the EMS team to arrive the driver of the cart monitored my vitals and a doctor that was on vacation with his kids stopped and hung out with me. The general consensus was that I was not having a heart attack (always good to have confirmation) and given my strong vitals I was probably just dehydrated (the vacationing doc even gave me a Coke he had as I had finished the water we packed for the hike) or hungry.  I did not believe that explanation, but did not really care either, as I was busy playing "not a heart attack" over and over in my brain.

EMS showed up and they were very polite, thorough, and efficient. They had me wired for sound (12 lead ECG) within minutes. The readings from the ECG were all clean and showed that everything was fine which was nice but frustrating.

Aside: Now I want to take a quick moment here to interject something out of chronological sequence.

As I have been learning about Myocardial bridges I have come to realize just how lucky I have been with mine. Reading on the net, and talking with my doctors, I have learned that many people who become symptomatic with bridges go for a long time, often years, with debilitating attacks like the one I had and no diagnosis of the actual problem. They will have symptoms just like I did (or worse even) but when hooked up to ECGs and given the typical battery of cardiac diagnostic tests they come back as normal (or nearly normal). As a result they are often told things, just like I was told in the beginning, that their issue was dehydration, indigestion, stress, a panic attack, or worst of all "it is all in their head."

In the beginning I knew something was wrong; but, I could not prove something was wrong. So I fell into the trap of thinking it might actually all have been in my head. That maybe the episode was not as severe as I was remembering / thinking it was. At this point I was feeling really relieved, confused, frustrated, scared and pissed off all at once.

This is what, I learned later, is pretty much the universal patient's introduction to Myocardial bridges: "OW OW!…Oh Crap!!…Whew, thank God! … Wait a second …WHAT!?!?"

Passing yet Failing…

Regardless of the clean ECG and the solid vitals the EMS team wanted to take me down the hill to the local ER for a full evaluation and I was not going to argue. Next stop:

In the ER everyone was super nice and very efficient just like the EMS guys. When I mentioned that to the Doctor he told me that cardiac issues were bread and butter to the Sedona emergency community. (Note to self: next time I plan to have a "cardiac event" do so where snowbirds roost). So in the ER (as previously mentioned is normal for bridges) all the blood work, X-rays, ECGs and other tests were clean. They showed nothing amiss. Which was great for calming immediate fears but not so great for not making me feel like some ginormous hypochondriac / fraud. But, hey at least I was not in immediate danger. 

They discharged me but not before one really great nurse there thoroughly impressed upon me that I must follow up with my regular doctor as soon as I got home. This was another big lucky break for me because, honestly, I was sorely tempted at that point to just chalk it up to "eh....maybe I am a big crazy dummy" and do nothing more. (I was definitely rocking an awesome Ostrich vibe)

So we finished a much lower key vacation in Sedona than we expected and headed home. Where immediately upon walking in my front door I scheduled a visit with my regular physician group for the next morning.