Unexpected visit to Bronglais Hospital
I had the unexpected pleasure of spending a couple of days in the Cardiac Monitoring Unit at Bronglais Hospital last week.
I had some pains in my chest on Wednesday which got worse overnight and didn’t improve on Thursday. Normally I’d put such things down to a pulled muscle or some other injury sustained whilst, surfing, windsurfing, mountain-biking, gardening or some other of my activities, but the fact that I (unusually) hadn’t done anything like this for a few days had the alarm bells ringing.
Eventually, after some gentle persuasion, I went to casualty and the next thing I know, I’m wired up to various monitors and I’m having needles stuck in me, canula’s inserted and I’m admitted overnight as an inpatient. A first for me as I’ve never been in hospital before.
There was obviously something not quite right as my heart rate was only 43 bpm despite the circumstances. I know I’m relatively fit but I would have expected it to be up around 70-80 bpm under those conditions. It is usually around 54 whilst sat on the sofa doing nothing so 43 was quite a bit lower than expected.
Once up on the ward I was virtually jumped on by a slightly over-zealous nurse who slapped the oxygen mask on me and was straight on the phone trying to organise some painkillers and other medication for me! The pain wasn’t that bad. I had to stay on the monitors for 24 hours so couldn’t even get out of bed to go to the toilet.
Anna brought me in some clothes and magazines so I had something to read and despite not getting any sleep at all that night it wasn’t quite as boring as I’d expected. I guess I had quite a few things on my mind and when I did get bored I could try seeing how low I could get my heart rate (36 bpm was the best I could manage!) and see what happened if I held my breath.. That set off various alarms on the monitor!
In the end, the most likely diagnosis was pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane surounding my heart. It can be caused by all manner of things but the most likely cuase is a viral or bacterial infection.
After having an echo-cardiogram to make sure there was nothing else going on I was finally ‘released’ late on Friday afternoon and have been taking it easy since.
It still hurts a little bit and I haven’t done anything strenuous yet, but I’m back at work and hopefully will be back to full strength soon.
So, thanks to everyone who looked after me and expressed their concern. I’m on the road to recovery and hopefully it was nothing too sinister. I didn’t expect to find myself on a cardiac unit for a few years yet though and once I’m back to normal I guess I shall have to try even harder to enjoy everyday as you never know what might happen.
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Hi alan,
Just wondering around your lovely site and stumbled upton this. while it sounds a little worrying I’m guessing that you are ok again now as you still seem to be adding stuff to your site.
I like the idea of trying to slow down your heartbeat while being monitored – althugh not necessarily the best way to convince them you are ok and can go home.
Life in Aberdeen is good for us at the moment – we just got a dog over Easter weekend and called him Bo – then heard the news on sunday morning that the Obama’s have named their bo and realised that Barack and I are equal and opposite….
Him – tall, intelligent, black, powerful.
Me … none of the above.
I’ll keep loking around if that’s ok – i assume it is otherwise this lot wouldn;t be here eh?