Just how the hell do you really know?

I found out earlier this week that my mother had a minor heart attack. She’s already had one (a major one), which resulted in a quadruple bypass. Well, they have determined that the quad is now blocked. It only took 7 years. She was lucky this time. They were able to put a stint in when they did the heart cath. The bad part: she’s under 60. The worse part: This shit runs rampant in my family, both fucking sides. Heart disease, carotid artery disease, uterine/ovarian cancer, breast cancer.

I am so screwed.

Anyway, back to my question…How the hell do you really know if you’re having a heart attack? I mean you see on television all the time how people clutch their chest and fall down in an wreathing ball of agony or just fall down and never get back up. But all of the real life people I know who have had one say it’s absolutely nothing like that. They say they thought they had heartburn, or that it was just some discomfort in their chest. WTF? Heartburn? Discomfort? I have this shit all the time. Am I supposed to go running to the ER every time I feel discomfort? Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! I’d be spending thousands of dollars a month if I did this. Like right now. I’ve got discomfort in my upper chest. Rather feels like a light pressure with a couple of twinges thrown in for good measure. Is this a sign of a heart attack? I mean, fuck. I just want some clear cut lines here folks.

A couple of years ago I was admitted into a heart unit, for whatever reason (they still don’t have a clue what happened), and ended up with wires running everywhere and hooked up to annoying little beeping machines for 48 hours and subjected to a chemical stress test. Oh my dear god…that’s something I don’t want to go through again. At that time all was grand. No blockages. *whew* But what about now? Am I freaking out for nothing? I mean this (see the whole discomfort thing up there ^) has been going on for a couple of weeks now. Can you have an attack for that long?

I suppose I will find out in about a week. Lovely, more fucking doctors. My favorite people of all time, second to dentists.