- Okay, quick story time.
My life has been a little bit weird as of late.
Some of you may have noticed that I
didn't put out my usual weekly video this week,
and that's because I was hanging out in a hospital,
and right off the bat, I am okay.
I am happy and healthy and I'm back
at home now and good to go.
But I figured I'd just give you a quick update
'cause it's a really interesting point in my life.
So last Friday I wake up, I do a little bit of work.
I have some breakfast, I get my wife up,
and I'm feeling a little bit of pain
in my chest on the left-hand side.
At first, I think nothing of it,
like maybe I just need to crack my chest
or something along those lines
like all these weird little things
that we feel in our bodies everyday.
But it persisted for a little while,
and so eventually I brought it up to my wife, and she said,
"Are you feeling any pain in your left arm as well?"
Once I thought about it, I was feeling a bunch of pain
down the left-hand side or down my left tricep,
I should say.
So immediately we think, "Okay, this could be something.
We don't wanna dismiss this."
So we called the health line here. It's 811.
You can call and ask health questions and that stuff.
And so we go through the rigmarole
of being on hold with them.
We ask them a bunch of questions,
give them the symptoms that I'm feeling.
There was no other discomfort, which I think
is usually associated with what you
would assume chest pain and the arm pain,
thinking about it potentially being a heart attack,
but there was no any other kind of symptoms
that matched up with that.
But regardless, the person on 811 told us
that they take their chest pain and anything
to do with the heart very seriously,
so they said, "You need to get into emergency."
So we went into the hospital.
By the time that I got through the waiting process,
which was, I don't know, an hour and a half
or something like that in the waiting room,
and actually got into a room to see a doctor,
the pain was gone at that point.
But they ran a bunch of tests. They took some blood.
They needed to monitor me over time,
and what happened was they took the first round
of blood tests, and then they needed
to take a second set to see if things changed
because if things changed, that might indicate something.
When they took the second one, they noticed that something
called troponin had risen slightly, and that is an indicator
that something might be going on with the heart.
So they wanted me to stick around
and see if it kept going, getting higher.
And on the third test, it actually went down,
but they were still a little bit unsure,
and they don't wanna send me home
and have something bad happen when I'm not close enough
for them to take care of me.
So I ended up getting admitted into the cardiac unit
so that they could basically monitor me.
So at this point, no pain.
I'm feeling basically 100% back to normal,
and they admitted me into the cardiac unit
just to observe, just to get hooked up to the monitor.
Wow, okay.
Just to be hooked up to the monitors and stuff
so that they could observe what was going on with my heart.
In the end, I was there basically five days
and with, again, no discomfort,
nothing going on in the chest itself.
In the end, they sent me home.
I'm on a couple of medications that are more preventative
or being cautious than anything.
What I've been diagnosed with
is something called myocarditis,
which is an inflammation of parts of the heart,
and I don't claim to know everything about it or anything.
But that's what they think it was.
It's really interesting talking to the doctor
and getting his thoughts on it, and they were super clear,
and everybody at the U of A Hospital
here in Edmonton was fantastic,
just absolute fantastic dealing with me
and being honest with me and being kind to me as well.
Anyway, so the way that they said it is they take a look
at everything that they possibly can,
and they try and take the best guess of what it was.
But if the pain is not currently happening,
if they can't see something currently happening,
there's a chance that they might not know exactly
what it is.
So then they take a look at all the blood work
and all the tests that they do.
I went for a cardiac MRI.
I did, I forget what it's called,
but essentially an ultrasound of my heart.
And they take a look at those things and they're looking
for any possible inflammation that
may have caused this kind of episode,
and they're thinking that the most likely thing
is that it was this myocarditis specifically
that could be from some kind of a virus
or a bacteria that might've been in my stomach
because I had been feeling some kind of
what I thought was probably just indigestion
or I ate something wrong or whatever for a day or two,
about a week before this happened.
So sometimes what can happen is that can travel,
and it can cause some problems in the heart.
So they're thinking that's what it was.
That's how they're treating me right now.
That's my official diagnosis is this myocarditis.
So as of right now, I feel completely normal.
I can't do any strenuous activity
for the next while, for six months, essentially.
And then I have to go in and do a stress test
where they'll basically push me to my limit on a treadmill
and take measurements and see how my heart is holding up.
But other than that, all the tests that they did,
my heart is basically pristine.
All my blood work came back pristine as well.
So it's a weird thing.
I don't know, it's hard to explain.
I feel like I was faced with my mortality
for the first time.
I had a bad one wheel accident a little while ago
that I was going fast enough
that I could've done some serious damage.
I've had like skateboard accidents
where going 60 kilometers an hour on a highway and fallen
and definitely could've done some serious damage.
But I feel like this was the first time
that I really felt like I faced my mortality.
It's this weird thing where my age
and my physical condition, I'm not really at risk
for anything bad to happen,
but there are those weird outliers, and you're just like,
"Okay, anyone could be one
of those weird outliers, including myself."
And then there were some procedures that they had
on the table just in case for more testing
and stuff that possibly have complications,
and I've just never been in the position
where I might have to do something like that,
and it was weird.
There was a point there where I was like,
when you don't know, when you're sitting there for five days
and you're waiting for somebody to tell you
what the heck is wrong with you,
why you might've been feeling this way,
there's no black and white to it.
You're just sitting there in limbo,
waiting for something to happen, and you're just like,
"Is there a possibility that, out of nowhere,
I'm just gonna have a crazy heart attack and be gone?"
And that was weird.
That was a strange feeling
to have a strange thought process to go through,
fully realizing that that's like a small percentage chance.
There's a good chance that this
was like an isolated incident, like I said,
because of a virus or bacteria
or something along those lines.
Super strange, super strange thought processes,
especially, get out of here, especially as somebody
who's been dealing a lot lately specifically
with anxiety and stress.
I've been trying to bring down the (laughs) stress level.
And as much as sitting in a bed
and watching Netflix for a couple of days
was nice not to be working and definitely lowered the stress
on that end of things, obviously,
there are other stressors in there
that are now bopping around in my brain.
It wasn't like, "Oh, here's exactly what happened.
We know exactly what happened."
Basically, it's like, "Here's what we think it
might have been based on the data that we have.
Here's how we're gonna go forward,
but we're hedging our bets with some extra medication just
in case it was some kind of a heart attack."
Living in that unsure place,
that kind of limbo is really strange,
and it really makes you face your mortality.
As far as I'm aware,
it wasn't like a near death experience
or anything like that, it makes you think about that stuff.
Anyway, just thought I'd give you a little update
and just in case any of you are wondering where I've been
on social media and why I didn't post a video this week.
I am unsure whether I'll actually have one ready
for next week because obviously, I've been out
and haven't been able to plan and film and all that stuff,
but we'll see.
And again, I'm okay. I'm doing well,
and if you made it this far, thank you for watching,
and I'll see you in the next video, I guess.
Bye.