2 1/2 Months Later....
In mid-July, I had 7 vessel bypass. My recovery has been excellent and I have had no post-op problems of any sort. I have been jogging and exercising and feeling great. Until last Thursday. At that time, I felt a pain in my chest, near where the ribs end on the left side. I assumed I overdid something and passed it off as a temporary thing. That night, I also felt a bit of pain radiating to my left arm and that, to me, is always a a danger signal. I called the cardiologist on-call and he had me go to emergentcy for safety sake. At emergency, most of the tests for heart muscle damage proved negative but they decided to keep me overnight for observation. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was never greater than a 3 or 4 and they were able to overcome the pain with morphine injections while they continued to work up what the problem might be. Nitro had no effect on the pain, Vicodin immediately relieved it. This certainly pointed to a non-cardiac event. However, my enzymes were raised slightly so they thought that perhaps a very minor cardiac event occurred. I was given a nuclear treadmill test and blood flow to the heart was normal, again indicating no heart muscle damage. The pain was 100% controllable by pain killers not normally related to heart pain. After four days, I was released from the hospital with the following prognosis: Either some minor cardiac event occurred which caused the related surrounding pain or the pain is a result of the actual bypass that occurred 3 months ago. It may be a virus or some other cause but chances were very slim that it was cardiac induced. Today was my first day home. The pain was exactly the same as it was 5 days ago. A vicodin completely relieved the pain. My concern is what could be causing it. The doctors at the hospital did not seem overly concerned about a grafted vessel failure or an old vessel failure. So, what is it?? My question to the group is: Has anyone experienced this type of situation? I feel so very fortunate to have had few things to complain about since the bypass but this one has me both a bit worried and stumped?