In hospital w possible heart attack - what do I tell my children

[Ethina]

I’m in the a&e for chest pain and difficulty breathing, and they just did an ecg which I was able to upload to chat gpt while waiting. I fully expected this to be nothing so I was totally shocked when chat gpt said the ecg ‘strongly suggests a heart attack is happening now’. While I obviously hope chat gpt is completely wrong I’m now thinking way ahead, wondering how to tell my 12yo plus two teens about this if it turns out it’s actually serious.

This feels unreal and like I said I hope chat gpt is wrong - but if it is serious, what’s the best way to handle this in my family? I don’t want to frighten or stress my children. I would have been so worried if this had happened to my mother at that age. If anyone has been in a similar situation and has any tips to share that’d be so helpful

At the end of the day even you don’t know what’s going to happen yet. But what I would say is tell your children the truth.

Heart valve surgery is common, but it’s also common to live with a heart condition. They won’t operate unless the benefit outweighs the risk so to speak I lived with a damaged mitral valve for three years before surgical intervention was considered. But my DC knew the score.

And it also depends on whether the damaged valve is in isolation or is part of a bigger picture, so I would wait for answers first.

In my case the damage was caused by the flu having attacked my heart, however I was also diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which had increased the risk of the flu causing the damage.

I had a heart transplant earlier this year, and I was honest with my DC from the start, from the condition to the valve surgery to then being told that the future would be a transplant but that we didn’t know when.

But equally I know people who have had mere valve replacements and then just carried on with their lives. Also there were people in hospital with me who were there for months and had small children who just had to know, but in an age appropriate way.

Be truthful as heart issues run in families, so it’s something they will have to work on so they aren’t in the same boat.

Wow @AnyoneWhoHasAHeart you’ve been through a lot. Wishing you all the best for your continued and complete recovery.

I think I was feeling a bit shocked following this morning’s phone call from the gp. I’ve been referred to the cardiologist and it just occurred to me that they may give me a different answer so I will try to not think too much about this for now.

Thanks 🩵