Heart Surgery

[the_alchemyst]

I'm not sure where this thread should go, exactly, so my apologies if I posted it in the wrong place.

 

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible:

 

For about a year now, I have been going through bundles of health issues--all of which pertain to my heart. I don't know why or how it started exactly, but about a year ago, I started getting fatigued really easily. I then started to run out of breath every now and then, even if all I was doing was just sitting down. Little by little, things evolved into my getting sharp chest pains. I brushed them off for a while, thinking I was just too stressed out, until one day I felt a really sharp pain in my chest and ended up gasping for breath--I don't have asthma.

 

I finally went to the doctor and after many days consiting of many tests and vaccines/shots, they came to the coclusion that my heart is not pumping blood through my body properly, which causes the sporadic lack of oxygen from time to time.

 

To be honest, I still don't understand what in the world they're talking about, and I feel like they don't either. The only thing that they have made clear is that come the end of this month, if the medication does not make it "better," I will probably have to get heart surgery, which they nicely said wasn't all that reliable, anyway. Uh . . . nice.

 

They say it's dangerous because it's a heart surgery, but that if the meds don't work and if the operation doesn't either/isn't performed, I run the risk of my heart just . . . stopping. And to make it worse, they said that these moments when I get no air circulating can lead to minimal/possible brain damage.

 

 

I think I may be sick.

 

Anyway, this had made me terribly sad because I can't believe I'm having heart problems at my age! Unbelievable.

 

Surgery scares me, though. So, I guess:

 

Has anyone here ever had any kind of surgery? Did it work the first time? Do you know of others?

 

I'm trying to stay positive, hoping the meds will kick in, but it just makes me so worried and anxious . . . this really is the biggest problem I'm going through at the moment. Geez. Why me?

[suegail]

I'm so sorry you're having these problems. I hope whatever is going on, that the medication will help you and surgery won't be necessary.

 

One thing - - I would make sure you fully understand what they are telling you. You did say you don't understand, and obviously you need to. You need to know exactly what is going on, exactly what you may be facing....