New to the club here.

Three months ago, was not feeling the greatest at work. On drive home, some body aches kicked in (pain in back, kidney pains I'd been dealing with for a while were ramping up to the worst they'd been in months). Thought I was coming down with something.

Got home, old lady says "you don't look too good, your color is off". I said "yeah, I think I'm coming down with something".

Prior to this, only symptoms I'd felt was the pain between the shoulder blades, and tightness across the chest. Both would get worse over the years due to job stress. I (and the doc) wrote it off to that. Even made a trip to the ER via urgent care a couple times. EKG clear, and was told to lay off the coffee, alcohol, and walked out with a script for xanax.

In the months (actually years) prior to this, I would feel a "burn" in my chest when working out doing P90X. I wrote it off to lung burn. Many years as a smoker, and in and out of shape too many times.

My old man passed mid-60's from CHF. His father fell over from massive heart attack at 52. So I knew there was a family history of it.

Here I am at 52, and all the above concerned me enough to read up on it a bit more and identify symptoms and warning signs. And started taking a daily baby aspirin a couple months prior.

At any rate, that night, I had changed into workout clothes despite not feeling well, and was waiting on the wife to get out of the spare room from her workout so I could start mine. Standing there in front of the TV watching the news, and suddenly got slightly dizzy and broke out into a profuse sweat.

Oh chit.

Went and took my temp. Normal. Took my bp. 195 / 105, pulse 45.

Changed clothes, and when the old lady came out after finishing her workout, told her I thought I should go get checked out.

A half dozen EKG's (all normal except for the one during stress test), blood tests, xrays, ultrasound, and resting nuclear imaging all good.

Then I got on the treadmill. The "burning" in the chest returned in short order. By the time they got me off the treadmill, I knew I was in trouble. Turning to see a half dozen new people in the room confirmed it.

A too long story shorter....doc says "your EKG is abnormal, I know what this is. Your left descending artery is blocked. We need to take you in now for an angioplasty to confirm, then stent, and if that doesn't work, bypass surgery".

I'm sitting on the edge of the table in shock (both over how I was feeling and then fully realizing what it probably was, and what he was saying), wife crying, and I was like "whoa....wait a minute. Let's not do anything drastic. What are the risks? What are the benefits?"

He essentially said there was no discussion. "You do not understand. We are leaving this room, now, and I am taking you into the lab and putting you on the table". It had to happen then and there. The risk was a 1-3% chance of stroke or heart attack. That being the case, I could not be in a better place for that to happen. The real risk was if I didn't do it, I could drop dead at any moment from a "widowmaker" heart attack.

So, in we went. A couple hours later I was back in my room with a new stent put in place to open up the 80% blocked left descending artery, and a forearm that feel like it got run over by a truck. Other than a pretty damn sore arm, some bruising, and an entry point that looked like a damn mosquito bite, all was good. Amazing what they can do now (when they actually find the problem).

Few things saved my life, or at least some serious and irreversible heart damage. Being aware of the signs. Then acting on them and not writing them off. Finally, taking that baby aspirin. One doc said I probably wouldn't realize it for a while, but those were the best two decisions of my life.

Escaped with a stent, and no heart damage. Ejection fraction 55-65% (completely normal).

Within a week, I was back on the treadmill walking. Doc nixed the p90x workouts for a while. Within 2 weeks I was jogging a mile and walking another mile (not limited physically, but rather mentally and because the doc wanted me to work up to it). Now I'm back up 4x a week to a couple miles running, and maintaining that 85% max heart rate of 140 for 20 minutes at a time. In the hospital they pulled me off at 140bpm after a minute, in a lot of pain. I've not felt a bit of discomfort in the chest while exercising since I got out.

Other than having to take the year off from deer and elk hunting, feel damn fortunate. Will do some fly fishing this year instead. No way I want to risk a fall and hit to the head, a slip of a knife or a chainsaw out in the boonies alone until I'm off the plavix next year. Geez, I about bleed like a stuck pig from a damn nick on a finger from a kitchen knife right now...

I had not thought previously the burning in the chest was anything other than my lungs. And do not ever recall seeing "burning" as a symptom. But paying at least paying attention to the symptoms I was aware of may of very well saved my life, and certainly saved me from a greatly diminished quality of life from a damaged heart by way of heart attack.

Pay attention, and don't "write off" anything that doesn't feel right.

Guns are responsible for killing as much as Rosie O'Donnel's fork is responsible for her being FAT.