10% EF, cardiomyopathy, inappropriate sinus tachycardia, a dilated IVC, and global hypokinesis. Age 31, female, two weeks into treatment.
So, I had a severe cardiac episode that was never determined or named anything specifically. My blood pressure was 255/177 and heart rate was 197. I was just washing dishes, prepping dinner and remember bits and pieces of knocking on a bedroom door while on the floor and then waking up in the living room on a couch I never lay on to paramedics saying “she’s conscious. It was probably just a panic attack” and asking me if I wanted to go to the (terrible) local ER, which I declined. Upon meeting my first cardiologist the week after, he did an echo immediately and found my dilated IVC with poor collapse, global hypokinesis and EF at 40-45%. This was April of 2025. Flash forward a little over a year later, going to a routine cardiology appointment with my new cardiologist, and I’m very swollen on this day but it’s been hot out and I actually didn’t feel bad at all. Just puffy. This was on June 23rd. She looks at my swelling, runs an EKG and squeezes me in for an emergency Echo that same day which she apparently never does. I laid on my left side for a few minutes and the tech rolled me over to my right side and I could see the screen. Of course they can’t answer my questions, but I asked anyway. “It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” And she responded with a vague, reflective answer in the calmest voice possible but I could tell from her eyes and her not blinking it was worse than I thought. She sent a message to another tech in the building (and this was well after they were closed for the day) so the woman steps in, stares, also without blinking and turns and says “I’m going to call Dr. S’s cell phone.” The tech doing my scan quickly wraps up, and I wasn’t even done getting the gel off my chest or dressed when she steps in with a wheelchair to wheel me out to my fiancé and daughter and gave direct instructions to go straight to an ER to be admitted. I was shocked by how concerned they were and my doctor obviously. That evening I had a friend take me to a more reputable hospital in the city where I was shown this “enlarged cardiac silhouette” x ray image, told my BNP was 5,242 and my Troponin was 30. I had lost 35% EF in a YEAR. How? Either way, I’m now on a slew of blood pressure medications, and two water pills and today I saw improvement finally. It’s been two weeks. I was in the hospital for one while they tested various medications on me but struggled to lower my pressure, heart rate, and manage water retention without causing my oxygen to drop every time I stood up. I’ve now been on Entresto, Ivabridine, Spironolactone, Bumex, Metoprolol, and Jardiance for a week and my ankles are completely back to normal, my oxygen is stable between 95-99 unless I’m up moving around excessively (which I try not to but I have a 4 year old, very active little girl), andI feel rejuvenated already. They told me if I had waited two or three more days, I was at a high risk for sudden cardiac death because my BNP was critically high to the point my heart was regurgitating blood backwards. I’m grateful to still be alive, even if I have to take it easier than ever and wear the LifeVest. But hopefully when I turn this one in in three months, I won’t have to receive another. Even if I do, I’m happy knowing I have the security of it. I’ll take some slight discomfort over death for as long as it takes.