By: Jean Johnson for Heart1“There were a couple times I had them in the car and had to stop,” Olive Blackwell of Portland said, tucking a polite silver blonde curl into place behind her ear. “It would hurt so bad I had to pull over and cling to the steering wheel.”
When those particular mystery pains Blackwell refers to struck, she was alone in her car. But that’s unusual for her, since Blackwell’s life has always been about family. Indeed, although she’s had her share of vacations and rounds on the golf course, only recently has the car seat in which one of her great granddaughters has traveled for years, been stored in the garage now that seven year old Justice is big enough to ride in the regular seat.
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Be Prepared in Case of Heart Attack
If you suspect a heart attack call an ambulance. Crews are prepared to help in the event of a crisis.
Know that the symptoms females exhibit are often significantly different than the classic symptoms of heart attack that males have.
Signs of a heart attack can include: Chest discomfort, discomfort in other areas of the upper body, shortness of breath, breaking into a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
Keep a copy of your health history including medications you are currently taking and past illnesses and operations somewhere convenient. (copies can even be given to loved ones) It will be important to share this information with your healthcare provider.
After being examined, if you are still unsure, don’t hesitate to get a second opinion. The old wives idea of two heads being better than one has more than passing wisdom. Also, good physicians that have their patients’ best interests in mind will not be offended. |
Indeed, any discussion of Olive Blackwell’s life needs to start with family; the early death of her dear husband. Her two darling daughters – both married – Jan in Portland, Tammy in Hawaii. Her grandchildren and her great grandchildren, in whose lives Blackwell has played an active role – even a daily role keeping them after school, chauffeuring them around to all manner of lessons and games and performances, helping them with their letters and numbers. Blackwell’s fingernails are manicured and polished, although the arthritis in her fingers has gotten to the point that over the last couple years that she has to leave her wedding ring in the safety deposit box. The image of her wrapping her fingers around her steering wheel in pain is disquieting. Especially since, minor annoyances of aging aside, this eighty-four-year old soccer mom – OK, great grandmom – hardly had time in her life for heart surgery.
Young Justice has been her latest charge, and a summer of swimming, reading, and general bonding was in the offing. “Since my surgery, she’s had to stay at her school until her mother gets off work,” Blackwell said. “That’s long day for her. She gets tired and I miss her.”
Fate, however, demanded that Blackwell take another path through her 84th summer. It all started one night when she and a friend went to see the mystery thriller Caché. Little did they know, then, that the suspense of the movie would be nothing compared to what Blackwell would be going through the next month while her doctors tried to figure out what the mysterious pains she was having were.
“I think I had some minor things in the afternoon or in the days before, but that night at Caché when the ending left us up in the air. During the show I was just fine, but it was when we got into the car. I could feel it. Like the one I had earlier, but I thought, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to go away.’”
Still, Blackwell didn’t think the pain as serious enough to go to the hospital and just had her friend drive her home. “We talked about it – about whether it might be a heart attack or was acid reflux. I guess I thought I’d be OK,” Blackwell said. “After she left I tried lying down to see if it went away, but it didn’t seem to help, so I called my neighbor and said ‘I think I’m having a heart attack.’ It was after 10, but they took me to the hospital.’”
Indeed, by the time Blackwell’s movie pal caught up with her later that evening to see how she was doing, she had been admitted for overnight observation and had gone through the usual battery of tests emergency rooms have to diagnose heart problems. “They gave me great service,” Blackwell remembers. “The place was busy, but when they wheeled me in I got taken care of right now.
“It was just for the night, and my daughter and her husband came over. But the doctors sent me home the next morning. While I was there, though, they gave me a stress test – not the physical kind, but one where they injected something into my bloodstream. I could feel my body would kind of heat up,” Blackwell said, “and my muscles would tense when the stress test was going through my body. But I passed with flying colors so it’s one reason they didn’t think it was my heart. But it wasn’t the physical kind of stress test.”
Blackwell also recalls that her EKG was fine, as was the ultrasound they had her take two days later to see if her problems were related to acid reflux (gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD).
“Everything was fine there too. The scan didn’t show anything, even though I guess to be on the safe side my doctor gave me pills for acid reflux anyway. I’m still taking them I suppose because my tummy gets upset. But I never associated the pain with any kind of heartburn.
“Also, I think my stomach problems now are due to all the pills I’ve had to take since the surgery. For a while I was taking 11 pills, although now I’m down to seven. Quite a switch from just my vitamins and an aspirin a day – that was all I ever took before this happened.”
As it turned out, Blackwell’s physician was leaving on vacation for two weeks. “Since the test came out negative, and the pain was still only every once in a while I’d have one just now and then, and sometimes a whole day would go without any. So she wasn’t worried and said whatever it was, it wasn’t life-threatening.”
The physician told the youthful Blackwell who is 5’5”, weighs 125 pounds, and looks a decade younger than she is, ‘Olive you’re fine. You’re healthier than I am! Go play a round of golf.’ Blackwell added, “What my doctor said was that sometimes people have pain that doctors can’t explain. So she didn’t want me to get myself upset over something that might not be anything.”
And it’s true, the golf idea was only part in jest since last summer Blackwell was out on the courses around Oregon a half dozen times, including one on the coast where the family has had a beach house forever. This year, however, it was not to be. Instead Blackwell stuck close to her condo where she could keep a log of when the pains came and what she had been doing prior so that when her physician returned she’d have a record that might help the physician make sense of the mystery pains.
But there never was a correlation that Blackwell could see between her activities and the onset of the horrible squeezing pains in her chest. “I could have them in the middle of the night or when I first woke up in the morning. It wasn’t when I was doing something active that I remember. It didn’t seem to make any difference, and usually was when I wasn’t doing anything at all.”
As far as the chest pains themselves, Blackwell describes them as “real sharp, sharp pains that kind of started in my upper jaw and would go down through my neck and down into my chest. It got so that I really wanted to just squeeze my breasts together because it hurt so bad. That first night after Caché was a bad one, but not like others later on. I had a couple that were terrible. They only lasted about five minutes but it seemed like it was longer,” she said. “And then would come a couple days with nothing. It was stupid.”
The symptoms might have been stupid, but Blackwell wasn’t. “I thought that since my mouth was involved maybe it was my teeth. So I called my dentist and he made room for me right away and checked all my teeth to see in any were infected.”
Blackwell shrugs her petite shoulders. “Once again, there was nothing. But believe me, I tried;” she said. “I left no stone unturned.”
When the family doctor returned from two weeks away and found her soccer grandmom patient still in distress, however, the larger medical community joined Blackwell in turning some stones over. First stop was the cardiologist where things unraveled in short order – the events of which are covered in Part Two of this series.
