How do I go on? September 12,  2016  8:36pm EST

I'm so happy I found this site.  This will allow me to express all the thoughts in my head and hopefully get some much needed answers.  Having a heart attack is life changing to say the least.  I am so blessed to still be here with the people I love.  I hear so many stories of people suffering heart attacks and dying instantly and yet here I am.  There is history on my mother's side.  Almost every member of her family died of heart attacks or heart related issues.  I am 57 years old and suffered a heart attack almost 2 years ago after loosing my mother to a heart attack.  (Sharing my story is extremely painful to me...but I realize I need to do this).  Nothing is nor shall it ever be the same - my mother and I were best friends and that's an understatement.  we were glued to the hip.  My heart attacked started with a burning sensation in between the breast area but for some reason I thought it was indegestion because every time I rubbed it I burped.  My daughter and I thought it was hillarious - but little did I know that was my sign.  That night the pain increased and woke me up in the middle of the night.  I then thought of taking a muscle relaxant (since the heart is a muscle) and I was able to tough it out and go to work the next morning.  I worked all day with the pain increasing, went grocery shopping and then called my daughter to drive me to the ER.  My heart attack lasted 3 days and my right artery collapsed 90%.  The only thing keeping me alive was the fact that the heart was pumping so hard (palpitations) that it was actually lifting the artery and splashes of blood were going through to the other side.  After the stent was placed - nothing felt right.  I was terrified and became very conscious of my breathing and heart beats.  I could not hear my heart any longer and I panic all the time thinking I'm not breathing right.  When does the sadness go away - when will I be normal again?  I feel like this is not me - not the real me.  At times I feel that allowing the doctores to perform the surgery was not the right thing to do - will my heart ever be the same?  It feels emotions in the same way for sure - I am definately sad - I try to be brave and strong for my children but the truth is that this is terrifying to me.  I'm trying really hard to do the right thing and take good care of myself.  But so many different emotions every single day really stress me out.  As we speak my bp is pretty high but I can't understand why.  I am taking meds as indicated and this is the first time since my heart attack that my bp is not under control.  I know its stress.  But what to do?