How has your New Year gotten under way? With a fast start? a big bang?
You know that I am training for another triathlon at the end of March. Usually, a 10-15 mile bike ride is scheduled twice a week. It's lots of fun, especially since it is easier to accomplish this time around. "Practice makes perfect!" Don't be too impressed. I still take breaks every few miles for a bit of my power drink - and then off I go again.
Just before yesterday's final segment, I did something a bit different from my usual gradual start: I attempted to go from 0 to 10 (mph) within a few seconds. I know that does not seem like a lot, but as I pedaled hard up the bike path I felt this heavy pressure in my chest and pain in the upper left quadrant. Ooh. The pain spread to my shoulder and down my left arm and up my neck to the jaw. Uh-oh. I have had this before. It is a common occurrence with my condition, cardiac syndrome X (now known as microvascular angina). The thing is that the pain came on so fast and strong this time, and there was all that pressure, that I thought: Could this be it? Is this the BIG ONE? Is this the HEART ATTACK that doctors in the past had warned me about?
What is the right thing to do? From experience, in my case, I knew that if I slowed down and calmed down, stopped and rested, the pain may very well subside within a few minutes. If not, I can try the sublingual nitroglycerine spray that I always carry with me. Luckily, I just needed to stop and relax. Still, a discomfort persisted. Actually two: one is a type of "bruised" feeling in my chest that remains following one of these episodes. The other discomfort still nags at me today: What if? What if it was a heart attack? How may my delay to take proper action have effected my survival? What is the proper action? Maybe I should have flagged someone on the path to let them know I was having a problem. Should I have called my son or friends only a couple of blocks away? I know the advice that I would give someone else: Don't take any chances. Listen to your body. Act on the side of caution!
Foolish pride can put us at great risk to not live to tell the tale.
