Today Was NOT a Good Day

ToolMan woke me up at 5:30 a.m. saying he had severe chest pains, running up his neck, and down his left arm. I called 911, who sent both TVF&R and MetroWest Ambulance, lights going and sirens blaring. They confirmed he was having a heart attack, started giving potassium, nitroglycerin, and aspirin and continued it all the way to St. Vincent's Hospital. By the time we arrived, at 6:15 a.m., his cardiologists were there to meet us. They ran blood tests, X-rays, MRIs, EKGs, and did an angiogram, where they found a single artery with blockage - 98% closed. They've done an angioplasty and put in a stint. The blood enzyme tests show that he has very minimal damage; the cardiologist thinks we caught it within an hour of onset.

Thanks to the quick acting guys/gals at TVF&R and MetroWest for starting medication so quickly that he avoided not only lots of heart damage, but a possible stroke as well. With that amount of blockage, had we waited, or the emergency crew not been on top of things, we would have had a very different outcome.

When I last saw him a little after 5 p.m., he was loopy on morphine and complaining because he was hungry (he hasn't eaten since dinner last night), asking the nurses to bring him a hamburger and milkshake (which didn't win any points with the cardiologist). The Docs think he'll probably be ready for discharge tomorrow afternoon, although because of the heat (and we don't have AC), I may ask them to keep him another day. Either way, I'll keep everybody posted.

PS - Thanks to everybody who posted comments for my Dad! He'll see them before he leaves for the tournament on Wednesday.