Diagnosis: Heart Attack - Karla Weller

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About 30 % of people have atypical symptoms,[2] with women more likely than men to present atypically.[3] Among those over 75 years old, about 5 % have had an MI with little or no history of symptoms.[4] An MI may cause heart failure, an irregular heartbeat, or cardiac arrest.[5][6]

      In contrast, the definition according to Louise L. Hay’s “little blue book” named YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE, says

      Squeezing all the joy out of the heart in favor of money or position, etc.

      While my brother-in-law waited for news from the doctors, I went down to see the hospital’s administration to register. They asked me countless questions which I was only partly able to answer. Of course, I knew all of Gerd’s personal information, but couldn’t tell his insurance number or all the other details which were obviously desperately needed in case of emergency. The on-duty clerk looked at me uncomprehendingly, when at one point to my own dismay I simply couldn’t stand this endless question and answer game any longer and just blurted out that I didn’t even know if my husband was still alive and that I wasn’t willing to continue this questionnaire any longer.

      Instead of showing some understanding, he ordered me to finish the admission file anyway! Just then, another hospital employee joined us. She sensed the strained situation and my emotional condition instinctively, and called to inquire about my husband.

      Despite several attempts, she wasn’t able to reach anyone. “Look, everyone is obviously working hard in the shock room to keep your husband alive. That’s why no one had time to answer the phone. You will have to remain patient.”

      Definition according to Wikipedia:

      A shock room, also called a reanimation room,[1] is a component of emergency rooms in hospitals in Europe[2]. It serves as primary care unit for trauma patients and patients with polytrauma. Emergency patients with problems pertaining to internal medicine are not usually treated there, which delineates the concept from that of an American emergency room.[2]

      At 11 p.m., Gerd was being moved to the intensive care unit. In all these hours filled with fear and terrifying uncertainty, none of the clinic personnel had given me any information about his serious condition. Through a sliding door just opening at that very moment, I could only catch a glimpse of a gurney with a critical patient being pushed by. And even now, I still wasn’t allowed to stay by his side. His body was connected to tubes and needed artificial respiration.

      Finally, a doctor explained to me that a stent was inserted into his coronal artery, and they would be keeping Gerd in a medically induced coma for the next two or three days, and we would just have to wait and see what happens.

      So without even having seen Gerd, Peter and I were sent back home where my whole family had gathered in the kitchen. Justin had heated up the beef stew Gerd had cooked the evening before. They were supposed to eat something in order to keep their strength up. “Food is also soothing the soul,” we always said.

      Everyone except for me, had seen Gerd before he was taken to the hospital and no one had really expected him to still be alive. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any good news to tell now. After all, I hadn’t even been allowed to be with him!

      To carry Gerd out of the house hours before, a glass door had to be removed in the stairwell. Unfortunately, one of the paramedics had crushed his finger and injured himself during his attempt to help. So this door was leaning against the wall on the second floor now and when cleaning up the rescue area, which was strewn with packaging material from the numerous devices and disposable syringes, the door started to slip, slammed against a corner and burst into a million glass pellets. Those glass pellets sprang from the upper level, through the open staircase straight down to the cellar and hid in every corner and even in every shoe on the shelf on the wall.

      After the initial fright, my sisters were almost glad to have something to clean up again just to break the uncomfortable silence and tension left due to the trembling uncertainty regarding Gerd’s condition.

      The next morning at five, Gerd’s cell phone rang. The phone was placed next to my bed in case the hospital called. However, it was his colleague calling to ask where Gerd was, as they were supposed to drive to Thuringia. I felt like I had just fallen asleep. I was nauseated and hadn’t been able to get any rest due to my fear and worry about my husband, so I tersely told him Gerd was in the hospital after suffering a heart attack.

      There was no reaction on the other end of the line; perhaps he thought it was a bad joke.

      I would have liked to have said more, especially about the argument he had had with Gerd about the detour to Ikea. But what was the point? Could I really blame a colleague for Gerd’s heart attack? Instead, we both hung up.

      When I went to visit Gerd later that morning, he was all stretched out, completely still, on the hospital bed. The machines issued their regular noises, but otherwise, the room was filled with silence. Gerd had been put in a single room at the far end of the hall in the intensive care unit. They wanted to make sure it was quiet around him for the next few days so his body could recover from the trauma.

      When Gerd still hadn’t woken up on the fourth day in a row, I asked the attending physician about this circumstance. He explained to me that a period of two to three days of recovery was simply based on estimation. No one could tell whether or when Gerd would ever wake up. All they knew for sure was he had survived the night although predicted otherwise.

      I was completely unaware his prognosis was so bad, and now those bold words hit me hard! An excruciating pain shot right through my heart as the floor broke away beneath me.

      The next night, something scared me deeply and I awoke with a startle, knowing something bad had happened to Gerd. I listened to hear if the telephone was ringing, but no one had called.

      Early in the morning, I drove to the hospital and hurried to Gerd’s bed. The equipment was still incessantly performing its duties; the numbers on the monitors hadn’t changed. But Gerd was running a fever and his right thigh was swollen like a balloon.

      The operation during which the stent was inserted via the femoral artery near the groin had apparently caused internal bleeding which had gone unnoticed. And if that wasn’t a big enough threat, I also had to worry he might suffer brain damage from the high fever. At a body temperature of 106 degrees, the brain swells and presses against the skull. To prevent this, they would lower his temperature with cold, wet cloths spread out across his bare torso. It made him look eerie and somewhat like a mummy.

      At the same time, the windows in the hospital room stood wide open! When I asked the nurses about it they explained to me that fresh air was very important for the entire ward! And since visiting hours weren’t until the afternoon, I wasn’t even allowed to be here at this early hour!

      Fresh air? Certainly! But foggy, cold, wet air on an late October day while the patient was lying naked and immobile with a fever?

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