I’m sat here, looking at my bruised wrists, and wondering how I’m even going to start processing the past five days. 

The week started off all so normally, with Monday bringing all of the usual activities that the small human undertakes, and the arguments over the speed at which breakfast is eaten. And then my absolute frustration at of the slowness of her putting her socks on. 

Tuesday at 2am, I woke up and vomited. I was slightly confused, but took some anti sickness meds and tried (and failed) to go back to sleep. The whole day I was struck by an awful pain in-between my shoulder blades. I felt generally pretty shit. I wasn’t bouncing around like I usually do. Just existing was a chore. Curry for dinner. Had to force myself to eat some of it. 

I remember having the arse with the child over her fannying around with a hot water bottle. I couldn’t process her chatter about it – I just had this overwhelming feeling of doom, I vomited and then it felt like someone had tightened a belt around my chest while releasing a flapping bird into my heart. My husband put her to bed and while he was doing that I texted one of my best friends – “Can you meet me at the hospital? I think I’m having a heart attack.”

I told him the text message I sent, the child was quickly woken and I was driven to the hospital. The next couple of hours are a blur of doctors and nurses and tests and drugs and panic. Dr P informed me I needed to have an emergency angiogram. A foreign word. Carted off to the Cath lab – I got covered in blue disinfectant. Then I was told that they couldn’t sedate me because if they did they wouldn’t be able to perform emergency heart surgery. 

I lay there as I had IV lines put in, and needles were stuck into my arms for local anaesthetic. Everyone kept telling me to be calm. My brain felt like a Hadron Collider. There was nothing calm about my presence in that room. Eventually they had inserted the catheter into my wrist, and then through my arteries and into my heart. Dr P pulsed dye through the line and I could see the arteries flashing on the live x-ray monitor. Transfixing. They then had to remove the catheter which was one of the most painful experiences of my life – my arteries went into spasm and gripped the catheter. I was given something to relax me slightly and my arteries released everything enough for it to be removed. I was taken to the ICU and told I hadn’t had a heart attack. I didn’t sleep.

The next day there were more tests. More scans. Then I was told that I would need a cardiac MRI. I’m claustrophobic – kindly I was knocked out. It was a day of waiting and ambulances to a different hospital campus and worrying. Dr S gave me a dose of Xanax the size of Jupiter and sleep finally claimed me.

The next morning involved more tests. More doctors. A CT scan. More doctors. And then the news that they thought I was stable enough to go home. My husband and my gal collected me. We got takeout for dinner. Cuddling during her bedtime story. Watched shit TV. Went to bed. It was all so normal, but now I don’t feel normal. 

I got diagnosed with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. I’m going to be absolutely fine. My heart just needs to heal which means I’ll have to rest and slow down for a while.

My dad died at 37 from a different form of cardiomyopathy – it’s still a word which carries a tremendous weight. So it’s left me afraid. When I shut my eyes and I can see the ceiling of the Cath lab when I was having the angiogram. 

There were nine metal bars embedded in the ceiling for supporting various aspects of the machine.