Don't Be Afraid to Call the Paramedics For Chest Pain

The other night I had to call the Paramedics. I had thought about it numerous times. What would happen if I had to do that. Mostly I thought about how embarrassing that would be. Well, it finally happened to me. And it wasn't so bad. You shouldn't be afraid to call the paramedics.

It was 11PM and I was just reaching over to turn the light off from my bed. I felt very tired and suddenly felt a jabbing pain through my left shoulder. I was just past 60 years of age but I had never had any heart trouble and I couldn't think of any reason for the pain. I had had twinges in that shoulder occasionally and so thought it would go away. Something about it, though, made me get out of bed.

It was now around 11:30 PM. The pain was steady and sharp. I then began to feel some anxiety as I surmised that this pain was not going away. That frightened me. One thing I do have is borderline high blood pressure and some heart problems were in my family, so I began to feel real concern. I have a blood pressure kit at home and I went quickly to it. I sat down, still feeling the pain and now unable to take a deep breath because when I did, the pain increased. I wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm and tried to relax. The results increased my anxiety--the reading was never anywhere nearly that high--155 over 100. Now real worry began.

The next thing I did was to take an aspirin since I had heard it thins the blood and can prevent a heart attack. I took two. The hardest thing I did that night was what I felt compelled to do next: wake my husband. I strangely felt that this was a turning point as I have never been the one with a health problem. He had had two surgeries and a history of health problems and I was always the strong one. "Robert, I have a sharp pain on the left side of my chest." I heard the words coming out like a dream I had had before and now was actually happening. The pain continued constant. Well as I suspected he looked terribly frightened as he immediately arose.

He asked me questions and then wanted to call the medical clinic emergency nurse. "No," I said, "they will only want me to come in and it is so late. I'm tired." I begged him not to call. So we went back and forth, trying to decide what to do. "Yes, I am going to call," he said. "No, please don't," I said. Finally, my fear overcame my struggle to remain calm since that pain was like a dagger going through my shoulder and coming out the back. And, all the while I couldn't breathe deeply. Finally, I said, "Okay, maybe you should." I felt resigned.

When we got on the phone with the nurse, it was just as I expected, she told me to call 911. I immediately began to resist again. She said, "put your husband on the phone." She repeated the command to him. I realized this was something that was going to happen. Maybe I am too sensitive to what other people think because all I could think of was how embarrassed I would be if an ambulance arrived at my door. I lived in a tight-knit retirement community and people would surely notice. I resisted but finally told my husband to call 9ll when the pain wasn't going away.

He called and within ten minutes 5 large young men were in my home. Expecting their visit, I had hurriedly put on jeans and top and old tennis shoes. Before I knew it one of them had reached under my clothes and put 6 or seven pieces of tape on me to hold the wires that were hooked to a machine. The machine printed out a piece of paper. I kept rolling my eyes and feeling embarrassed. I kept feeling "no big deal" while harboring this intense pain.

The paper they printed out indicated I wasn't having a heart attack but they said I needed to go in to the closest emergency hospital and get it checked out. I was to go with them in their ambulance. I resisted that, too. While they were there, the pain had subsided and I felt I could drive myself. Out I went into the cold night air still not wanting to go anywhere. It was almost 1:00 AM. Amazingly, while they were there, the pain had subsided. However, I knew I couldn't go back to sleep from worrying about the whole incident so I grudgingly agreed to go to the emergency room at a hospital a few miles away.

The nurse there told me I wasn't having a heart attack but I should go through testing to make sure and to find out why I had the pain. They indicated that it was harder to tell with women than men. It was still up to me to make the decision if I wanted to stay for tests. I took awhile to answer. I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to make a decision. I didn't like hospitals and I had never had problems before. However, I knew myself and I would just worry if I didn't. So I put myself in their hands for the next 7 hours--all through the night they did testing until 7 AM and the results were a clean bill of health..

I felt so relieved and so good about it that I was certainly glad I had gone ahead and had the tests. They were very thorough and everything was done to either find out something or to just alleviate my worry. In the end I found out a lot and yes, it relieved my worry. One test showed some possibility of a blood clot so I had my lungs tested. If I had had a clot, it could have killed me. It is a serious matter. Fortunately, there was no clot but this showed me how important it is to have stayed and been tested.

So I suggest that you never be afraid to call 9ll if you have a chest pain because it could save your life. It was wonderful to see how our medical system and these dedicated paramedics work to save a life. They, and all the hospital workers, said they would rather I call and have it checked out than wait and have a problem. It could have been much worse and it wasn't. I finally went home, with my husband steadfast by my side, feeling much better.