tldr: I had a heart attack, then triple bypass surgery and I`m now recovering at home. (*actual photo during surgery*)
You read it right. On Sunday, March 8, I was getting ready for bed and started to feel an immense radiating pain in my left chest area. Initially, I thought it was heartburn, so I drank some Mylanta and went outside into the cool night air to cool off and drink some water. I was overheated and figured the two would help me get over the pain. While outside, the pain got to be excruciating. I went upstairs and grabbed my keys and wallet, then hopped into my 4Runner and hauled butt to the local Emergency Room about 7.5 miles away.
When I arrived at the Emergency, it was busy. However, they listened to my issue and did an EKG within a few minutes. Right after that, they had me back in a room getting prepped for a CT scan. All while this was going, the pain was still hanging in there. They got me into the CT machine and the technician/nurse explained what would happen. A contrast dye would be injected into my veins so the scanner could create detailed images of my heart, showing any blockages. As the dye was pushed through, my pain suddenly stopped. That was the only good news. The CT scan showed that I had blockages in three spots. They put me on a blood thinner through my IV
I was at the first ER for a handful of hours, until a spot opened up for me to move to a bigger hospital one town over. My first ambulance ride brought me there early Monday morning. After I arrived, I was visited by a nurse who performed sonogram scans of my heart. Checking everything and mapping things out. I was told that they were going to try to place some stents to open up the clogged arteries. That procedure was an interesting one, but didn`t work, due to the plaque buildup being too severe/hard and in a branch of two arteries.
The next step was to move me to the main hospital in downtown Boise, where they had a cardiac surgery department and could perform the triple bypass.
*continued in comments*
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