In October of 1970, I was mad at my boyfriend and swore to marry the next man I met. That night my car was stolen. I met the car thief the next day and we were married November 16, 1970. We're heading towards 28 years and they said it wouldn't last! We also have 4 grandchildren: Aaron, age 6; Casin, age 3; Joey, age 2; and Caitlyn, age 6 months. We have a 4 year old wolf-hybrid named Loki, one of her offspring named Smokie, a red-nosed pit named Chile Bean, and our newest addition is a tiny little ball of black fluff with no name. We have 2 cats: Tessie who's 12 and Bitsy who's 2. We also have a fish pond with all kinds of fish (koi, goldfish, carp, bass, catfish) and Mr. Turtle.
During the first 10 years of our marriage, I stayed home, having babies. My husband is a construction worker and living in Ohio, where there is no work in the winter, and it was hard. I don't know how we would have gotten by if it wasn't for my mom. Three days after my last baby was born, I started college full time plus. Three years later and nearly as many nights of falling asleep in a chair with my lap full of books, crying, I graduated with a 3.86 GPA and a Bachelor's Degree in Medical Technology. I immediately went to work for Roche Biomedical Laboratory, the company that invented Valium. We always thought some Valium should have been part of the benefits package.
I continued my studies while working and in 1990, we moved to Florida and I went to work as a microbiologist. I found 2 really great jobs and couldn't decide which to take, so I took both. I worked full time for National Health Laboratory and part time for Corning Clinical Lab for 5 years, then I switched and went full-time at the part-time and part-time at the full-time. Confused? <lol> Me too. After another couple of years, I got tired of meeting myself coming and going so I quit the part-time job and stayed with Corning. Bad choice.
The breast implant lawsuits were in full swing and Corning was cutting back and closed my lab. My last day of work was February 6, 1998. I thought I'd just take a month or so off, and rest and enjoy Florida while I had my severance package. On March 30, 1998, I had a heart attack and died.
In October of 1996, I was put on Prednisone for an allergic reaction to latex gloves. I immediately noticed that I was extremely hyper and wasn't sleeping. On the 16th day with no sleep at all, I broke out in a sweat and had chest pains radiating down my left arm. A trip to the ER and they said I was having indigestion so go home and take Tagamet. Two more trips to the ER, one in an ambulance, and they told me the same thing each time. They said I was suffering from steroid-induced psychosis and that there was nothing wrong with my heart. I asked them to at least do cardiac enzymes and if they were normal, I'd go home and shut up. They didn't do them but I did go home and shut up. I just suffered through the chest pains until I could get off the Prednisone (I was on 200 mg a day and couldn't just stop taking them) and the episodes of pain gradually went away, or at least, I convinced myself they had.
On March 30, 1998, I woke up at 3:00 AM with the same symptoms of "indigestion" so I got up and took some Tagamet and it seemed to help so I went back to sleep. When my husband got up for work, he said I didn't look right so he went to work but came right back home. I spent the day taking one Tagamet after another until I was just drenched in sweat and the pains were pretty bad but I didn't want to give in and go back to the ER, just to be told I'm crazy. At 3PM, my husband said "enough" and took me to the ER anyway. I walked in the door and about 5 minutes later, I coded. They said they had to shock me 6 times to get me running again.
I spent 2 weeks in ICU and then they shipped me out to a cardiac hospital where I got to enjoy various and sundry probings. From there, I was sent home with less than 25% of my heart left. They said there's not enough left to do a bypass on and that if I'm careful, I have 2-3 years left. On TV, when somebody has a heart attack, they grab their chest and fall down. Let me tell you, it was nothing like that. The closest I can come to describing it is if you had a ball of burning barbed wire spinning around inside your chest, it would feel sort of like that. I remember hearing someone screaming and they later said it was me. The really odd thing was that it all stopped so suddenly. I told the ER staff that the pains had all stopped. They told me later that I said that and then coded.
I've been on Coreg from the beginning but I started out at 3.25mg and am now up to 50 mg a day. I'm also in the progress of increasing Capotin to 50mg a day. I was taking 10 - 12 Nitrostat a day until I went to a new cardiologist and he put me on 40mg Isordil, now 4 times a day, so now I only need the Nitro 3-4 times a day. That stuff made a big difference. I also take an aspirin and a Prempro daily and Ultram (I noticed Jon also takes Ultram) times a day for injuries from an auto accident in which I broke every major bone in my body except my left shoulder. I later managed to trip over a refrigerator cord and break the left shoulder too. <lol> I guess it felt left out.
Have you ever filled out one of those Internet forms and where it asks for occupation, you put in what you used to do, instead of what you do now, which is basically nothing? That's kind of how I feel about my hobbies, like I'm telling a little white lie because I really don't do any of them anymore.
I stumbled in here a couple weeks ago and I have learned so much! I'd never even heard of an EF and now I know mine is 20%. I've met the most wonderful people who've encouraged me so much. Thanks to their advice, I'm going to a new cardiologist and I have hope for the first time in months. After reading Jon's Disability section, I got all my medical records and am sending them to Social Security, and I also got a statement from the cardiologist that I can't work anymore. I was advised to apply for Disability back in April but I just couldn't bring myself to do it until I ran flat out of money. I kept thinking I would get better and go back to work. Being broke helps convince you when nothing else does. I applied August 4 and haven't heard anything yet but after following some of Jon's advice, I am more hopeful. My whole attitude is more hopeful now. Thanks Jon, and everyone else here, from the top of my heart (not from the bottom because that's the dead part <g>)
Ruthie Stamper -- September 30, 1998
All information on this site is opinion only. All concepts, explanations, trials, and studies have been re-written in plain English and may contain errors. No one here is a doctor. No information on this page should be used by any person to affect their medical, legal, educational, social, or psychological treatment in any way. This web site and all its pages copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Jon C.