To Hell & (almost) Back

Sometimes, stories just have to be told, especially if they’re both tragic and hilarious at the same time. I will resume the eternal road trip reporting next time. This is my white knuckle ride.

It was our last morning. I left Tamika at the railway station. She was in tears, I was running on adrenaline. My fight response had become a flight response. I collected the van out of storage, stocked up and got the hell out of Melbourne. I only had a vague idea of where I was going. Somewhere near the border, maybe Echuca. Five days later I reached Rochester, north of Bendigo, and that night all that adrenaline suddenly left me. Sleep became a refuge from hopelessness. Grief and loss penetrated my defenses at will. Emptiness was everywhere. As hard as it was, I had to move on. I got as far as Cohuna and pulled into a free camp opposite the town. This is where the ‘fun’ begins.

After the set-up, I noticed that there was a slight tightness across my chest and I could feel my heart, heavy and racing. I figure it was just emotional stress and lay down for an hour. Mmmmm….still there. The local hospital was only a klm up the road, so I thought I’d stroll up and just get a quick check. Ten minutes after my arrival, I’m wired up to an ECG and they’re pin-cushioning my arms looking for a vein that will give then SOMETHING (apparently, being dehydrated is not helpful). Six hours later, I’m in the back of an ambo heading to Echuca Hospital. Diagnosis? Suspected heart attack. The only smoking gun at this stage was an elevated level of an enzyme called Tronton. More blood tests and more ECG wiring. For some sadistic reason known only to the nursing staff, every time they ripped the electrodes and copious body hair of my raggy body, they had to find somewhere new for the next lot. After 48 hours it was though I had the mange. The staff were otherwise excellent, the Tronton levels were dropping, ECG showed a return to acceptable.

I was handling it pretty well until they woke me 36 hours after admission with a little plastic cup with half a dozen pills and a “this is your life” prognosis. My future was now a mirage. I had gone from Indiana Jones to an Invalid Alone. The ruination of my life was now complete. All that was left was to identify which artery(s) had brought me undone and see what they (and I) could salvage. Another ambo run was arranged back to Bendigo for an angiogram. My soon to be angel, paramedic Ben was riding shotgun in the back with me and he went over all the paperwork along the way. “You know” he said ” it doesn’t look like a heart attack. I think it might be angina.” Well, it was if he had thrown this drowning man a lifeline. I grabbed it as tight as I could for the rest of the ride – hope is everything.

The specialist team was ready and waiting. Something to relax you, inject the dye and let’s see. It was all over in five minutes. I was so relaxed I didn’t even notice what they were doing. The result??? It was neither a heart attack nor angina. The arteries were 100%. It was, (and this is the reason I had to tell this story, because if I didn’t hear it from the specialists mouth, I wouldn’t have believed it), a little known condition known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, otherwise described as Broken Heart Syndrome. Yep, go figure. Under severe emotional stress, the wall of your left ventricle can become “floppy”, for want of a better word. The rest of your heart has to work harder to make up the inefficiency. Elevated heart rate, Tronton gets released. It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, but it’s not a duck. The best part is that it will heal itself in 2-3 months. Just like the Phoenix from the ashes!! Raiders of the Lost Plaque, has just been re-released!! Man, we were high-fiving all the way back to Echuca. My little cup of pills is now only four, just to assist with the recovery and the only legacy will be a tiny dose of aspirin once a day to stop the platelets from getting sticky (apparently de rigeur for anyone over 50).

And of course, rest. So I spent a couple of days doing sweet FA (well for me it was), a bit of photography and set a course for the Flinders Ranges. It warms up quick there, so there is a slight sense of urgency to be in and out by early October and be back somewhere in Victoria to cast my referendum vote.

So there you go, a broken heart can be a real thing after all.