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Dis-Ease of the Heart
I thought I was in great shape until I flunked my stress test last week. Catheterization this week and who knows, stents? By-pass surgery? Yikes.
My return to being in a life-threatening medical mess, after six years out from stage IV cancer, began last March with a little blind spot in my right eye. My doctor wife said, “Cancel your day, I will set up an MRI and an appointment with a neuro-ophthalmologist." He studied my eye for a long time. Excitedly, he called his students over to peer at his finding, one after another. Finally he told me what he was seeing. “A tiny piece of plaque in your retinal artery, unfortunately, a small embolism. We’re going to have to get you over to the emergency room.
Off to the emergency room, where they did a contrast dye exam of my arteries.
It’s very unnerving to see worried doctors looking at you, but clearly they were very concerned once they saw the test results. “We’ll make arrangements for surgery first thing in the morning.”
Turns out my right carotid artery, one of the main sources of blood leading to the brain, was almost completely blocked. It was packed with plaque that could break off at any moment. I was on the brink of a major stroke. No wonder the docs were scared. Now I was too. It’s very frightening to hear the ticking of a time bomb.
The surgery was a complete success. I was incredibly lucky. Turns out that the little spot of blindness was truly the canary in the mine shaft. It may have saved my life. The cardiologist, however, was concerned about more extensive heart disease, so I was told to take a full aspirin, the maximum dose of Lipitor, lose ten pounds, change drastically my rather poor dietary habits, and get into good shape.
And I did.
Before my stress test, I had been doing some form of solid exercise for 75 straight days. I was in fabulous shape and had learned to eat much more carefully and wisely. Nobody was worried about my stress test, given the very high level aerobic exercise I was doing on a daily basis.
Well, you’ve heard of the guy in great shape who drops dead on the tennis court. Turns out that’s me. I performed superbly on the treadmill, but...
So now it’s on to the cathertization, where they thread a fiberoptic through your groin and up to your heart to look around: It’s a lot like The Fantastic Voyage, the movie where they miniaturize some people and put them in a sub and inject them into a desperately ill person. I don’t much care for my role in this modern version of the film, but I am glad there won’t be a team of tiny doctors in me. I think.
Then who knows. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll say my heart disease can continue to be treated as is, but more likely I will get some stents put in to keep some major arteries safely open, or maybe, I will have to have major by-pass surgery.
How am I doing? I am scared out of my mind. It’s not a good sign when they order you to immediately stop all aerobic exercise.
And I am incredibly grateful for discovering the seriousness of my heart disease before a major or even lethal heart attack. Once again, we’re paying attention to the canary in the mind shaft, and headed for daylight as fast as we can.
Sometimes we all think that if we are doing everything right we won’t get sick. Sometimes we think we own our lives. But we’re all living on borrowed time.
I will keep you posted.
