Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, it’s been a most unusual week on my planet. On Tuesday, I went to my doctor about some recurring chest pain I’d been having. He gave me an EKG and a complete physical. He told me that there had been some changes since my last EKG (in 1985), and then asked me something I greatly hope that not one of you ever gets asked. He asked me, who was my favorite cardiologist?
I allowed as how I didn’t know one cardiologist, and I’d never given the question a moment’s thought.
So I said that my father-in-law, who is 85, had a cardiologist I’d never met. I’d take his. My doc said go. That was Tuesday
Early Wednesday morning, I found myself in the cardiologist’s office. He turned out to be like my doctor, warm and informative. His assistant hooked me up to another more complex EKG machine. Then they gave me an “echocardiogram”, that was fascinating. I could see my heart beating, and watch the valves open and close … astounding.
However, when the cardiologist read the EKG and echocardiogram charts, he told me that I’d suffered a heart attack. He said it was an inferior myocardial infarction. Inferior? Really? I have a heart attack, and it’s second-rate?
He made an appointment with the surgeons for the next morning. He said said they would thread a tube through my veins into my heart, release some dye, and take pictures to see exactly what was going on.
But there was more. He said they did the whole thing in one go—after the dye test, if the plumbing was clogged, they’d likely put in a stent.
He also said that if it was really bad, they’d cut me open right there and and do bypass surgery … dangalang, that’s not the kind of thing a man wants to hear, and certainly not before 10 AM. He gave me some nitroglycerine pills to take home with me … that was Wednesday.
Thursday I checked in to the cardio unit at the local hospital, accompanied as usual by my gorgeous ex-fiancee, who is a Family Nurse Practitioner and my main medical squeeze. First thing, they shucked me out of my clothes and had me put on one of those hospital gowns, the kind I call “fundamentally drafty” because the draft is on … anyhow, the nurse was asking me all these questions and came to “Are you taking any medications on a regular basis?” I said no … she said “Really? We hardly ever see anyone in here who isn’t taking some regular medication”.
“Not me,” sez I, “not even aspirin.”
She looked at me with a wry smile and said matter-of-factly “Well … that’s over.”
Dang.
The surgeon came in, again a warm and encouraging man. He said if they could put the catheter in through my arm and I had to get a stent, I could go home that day. But if they went in through the groin, I’d have to stay overnight.
“OK,” I said, I was only a pawn in the game at that point.
So they took me away to the Operating Room, and I woke up with a stent in my heart. They put it in through the arm, so that same day I came home. That was Thursday.
The whole crazy sequence of events has been relatively painless, except for my arm where they put in the catheter. That still aches, but that’s minor. And I’m enjoined from pounding nails or lifing anything heavy or doing anything strenuous for a week.
So no condolences or the like are necessary. I count myself among the most fortunate of men. Heck, since I can’t work at house building, I’m free to do more research and writing, what’s not to like? …
What do I take from all of this?
Well, it sure was great to wake up after going under. And it is always good to be reminded of my mortality. It let me know that I need to keep the pedal pressed firmly to the floorboard, and that I need to produce during my days, for the night is assuredly headed my way, wherein no man can produce …
Finally, it is very strange to think that I have a piece of metal mesh in my heart … first step to being a cyborg?
I go back to see my new favorite cardiologist on Friday.
My best to everyone,
w.
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Sorry to hear that, Willis.
Hope you recover quick, getting old’s a bitch!
I had a quadruple bypass last March, recovering nicely, and then I got a pain in my hip. Arthritis, says the doc, a total hip replacement needed. You have a loong way to go to qualify as a cyborg.
Best wishes, Willis and prayers of thanks it turned out well.
I had an accident and ended up with a metal rod down one femur and a second rod at an angle into my pelvis plus the bolts and screws to keep them in place. Ten weeks in a wheelchair and about 500 hours in the gym and I could walk again without a limp. Then my 180 lb dog came running, throwing clods of dirt with all four feet, and hit me going about 30 miles an hour. This time I ended up with a metal plate and eleven screws from various angles to pin the lower part of the same leg together. My x-rays look like something out of a sci-fi film. I was in a wheelchair for another 10 weeks and my surgeon just laughed when I asked if I could rehab it back to normal. She said, “Of course not!” I still have the dog and a limp. But, I won’t be getting an MRI.
Take care of yourself, Willis. We need you.
“After 60, it’s patch, patch, patch!”
Oh boy! Another missive from Willis! Then it wasn’t about the South Pacific or other people, but about a near miss heart attack. On I read, dreading he aftermath, and then the end, and Willis is going to get well with a new stent and a new understanding of his own life. We all feel better for you and hope you can provide us with more of your wit and wisdom for some more years. Best wishes and consider us all your friends, even if you don’t know our names. Best from John.
Willis,
I am glad to read that you took the opportunity to step off of life’s treadmill long enough to get the care you needed and deserved. While contemplating what to do next you mind may be flooded with all sorts of “what ifs” and what do I do next. If you find some sort of resemblance of your present circumstances to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross the five stages of grief. You may wish to chronicle those stages you feel. Two years seems to be the usual time to come out the other side of this story having re-awakened some past bugaboos as well as things you still want to do, your “bucket list.” Of course you will be immersed in your life well before the stages of grief reveal themselves to yourself. It may be subsequently helpful and interesting for you to keep a journal of this “pit stop” if you have not already done so.
I speak from direct experience as well as providing for others whose journey have also been interrupted.
Good luck and God’s speed.
Glad they could take care of you so quickly.
The most memorable cardiologist I met was a guy in business class on a flight from Sidney to LA. The plane sucked up 5 birds into the number 3 engine of the Boeing 747, and we had to spin around Sidney Bay dumping fuel.
Unlike the Australians, who, upon hearing some very odd sounds for an airplane to make coming from the outside of the plane, I was terrified. These Australians heard there was a problem, looked up, and went back to reading their papers. The Americans were all looking around, wondering “What the he** is going on.”
As it turns out, the guy sitting next to me was a Cardiologist. An aged fellow. And not any cardiologist, but the guy who had worked to develop the original procedure for open heart bypass surgery. He wasn’t the primary doctor, but an attending. As the plane circled around Sydney Bay, dumping Kerosene, he calmly explained to me that “After we lost 50 patients in a row, I almost quit.” That wasn’t the extent of it. He told me how they could not use a heart lung machine on infants because there heart is too small, and how they cool the body down. There is one hour of time to perform the surgery, and the lawyers are waiting to see if there is any twitch or tick in the baby afterwards.
He is a smoker (and was irritable, as he could not smoke), and explained to me that he tried to give up smoking one time. While quitting, he was incredibly irrataded, because the he was having a problem with a surgery. For some reason the person he was doing surgery on would not clot, and he was having a terrible time. He explained he was berating the nurses, and one finally asked “What DO you want, Dr.?” At which point he said “I don’t know.” I waited for a moment, and asked him “Did the patient live?” And it was odd to watch him realize he had never considered this, thought for a moment, and replied “I don’t know.”
He expressed his disdain for modern ideas about fat being the problem with Caucasians and heart attacks, saying “The body converts fat to energy, and vice versa. Americans die of heart disease, the Japanese die of stomach cancer.”
My other experience was personally resuscitating a person whose heart had stopped. Really stopped, as in no pulse. The man went blue in the face. I performed CPR, and fortunately, we had a D-Fib kit recently installed. The CPR and the d-Fib kit worked, and the guy lived. But it took putting the guy into a deep chill for a couple of days for his heart to repair, followed by surgery. He says he can’t remember two weeks before the incident. He’s older, and retired.
God bless, Willis. I hope things continue to go well. At age 83, I am well familiar with my cardiologist,,,and the amazing technological advances in recent years. The nurse wheels in a very small unit, hooks me up, runs an electrocardiogram and echo, then leaves. The doctor comes in, works his desktop computer…and voila! reviews all of the data right there in real time. He pats me on the head and says come back in 6 months. Great! A ticket for six more months of being on the right side of the sod.
Regards,
My dad had a similar incident, and I commented to him how he sounded pretty cheerful for a guy who just had a heart attack. He asked me how he was supposed to sound, and said with a smile he could try to sound sad and upset if I thought that was appropriate. I’m 47 years old and still learning from this man.
Be well, Willis. We need more of your posts.
Best wishes for a full recovery and long life, Willis!
If you think that was a wild ride, you should try my epilepsy brain surgery – 9 hours on the table, and my entire right temporal lobe is removed. I got a sexy scar and an attitude. D-Day was Sept 23, 1999…no seizures since then. Modern medicine is amazing.
We both survived, take advantage of it! I have a hunch we both will.
Best, Charles the DrPH
Willis:
I’ve had two inline skater friends who have had blockages in the last 2 years. Both guys somewhat overweight (40 to 60 lbm, on frames that should be about 160 max).
BUT both guys are LONG TIME ATHLETES, endurance sports. (Cycling, Running, inline skating, hockey and soccer..)
NOW THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART: Neither of them showed “heart muscle damage” in the
Echo-cardiogram. (Colateral supply was that good for both of them.)
ONE, was at an inline skating event, and had skated about 2 hours, and went home “feeling shitty”.
Nurse/Wife made the call for the 911, and he was taken care of in a “few hours”.
Number Two: Felt “not up to parr” for one month, finally went to the friendly local “free clinic” (Although 32 years old, lost 6 years to drug use and is currently finishing his 4 year degree..
He managed a trip to the local county hospital in short order for his “reaming out” too.
What I’m getting at is this – Let’s hear what your post op Echo says. I’m hoping its minimal or NO
damage!
Keep Calculating!
Max
Life is such a twisted path of ups, downs, side roads, cliffs, and sudden turns. So it seems that the best advice I can think of is this:
Ecclesiastes 8:15
Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that shall abide with him in his labor all the days of his life which God hath given him under the sun.
American Standard Version
CRS, DrPH says:
November 10, 2013 at 6:19 pm
OK, of all the great stories here, yours takes the cake, IMO.
Right temporal lobectomy 14 years ago & going strong is hard to beat!
Although Snowsnake’s happy 180# dog attack setback is also in its own way a world-beater. Shades of the movie “Reuben, Reuben”! Truly, you just can’t make this stuff up.
PS: One of my best friends from undergrad years was a doctor in Seattle who got brain cancer, had a big chunk of his brain removed & could no longer practice medicine, but still has managed for the past 20-odd years since the surgery to enjoy his life, family & friends, though at the end of conversations I do have to remind him who I am.
They let you sleep through the procedure? My doctors insisted I stay awake so I could pose for their imaging. They’re great plumbers though. It’s the follow-up chemistry that drives you nuts. Keep on writing.
jws
Well, congratulations Willis on your successful treatment and be well.
See how he didn’t ignore his chest pain guys? Good reminder for all of us.
Had that done through the groin 8 years ago. Its amazing what they can do these days.
The pills are quite cheap now (in DK), but beware the statins as many complain of tiredness, as a side-effect.
Willis,
I thought for many years that I would never experience a heart attack because I began taking a daily aspirin religiously in the late 1970s and was quite active. I overlooked several other important aspects though: 1) I grew up in a house of smoke and had smoked heavily for about 7 years during my 20s; 2) My mother and her only brother both had CAD and experienced heart attacks; and 3) My HDL cholesterol was always borderline low for many years and my total cholesterol and LDL were always modestly elevated. Then in 2006 at the age of 66 and never having had any chest pain, I experienced a sudden heart attack, arrived in the ER at 8:30pm, underwent immediate cardiac catheterization when my EKG & cardiac enzymes confirmed a heart attack, and when there was too much coronary artery disease to attempt any stent placement + I had to be defibrillated, I was taken for emergency CABS and was on the operating table by 2:30am…multiple bypasses plus another defibrillation. Of course I don’t remember anything beyond the ER except I had an out of body experience. Post discharge I entered a cardiac rehab program and was discharged early because I was tearing up the treadmill. So now 12% of my heart muscle is gone, and I take Lipitor, Zetia, high grade fish oil, a beta blocker, and have continued on my daily aspirin. I feel fine other than some Lipitor muscle pains in my legs (I’ve tried other statins…same problem, and CoQ-10 doesn’t help), and I have never had any subsequent episode of chest pain. My cholesterol & LDL are now in great shape, although my HDL still is borderline low.
So if you are a smoker, it’s time to stop, and I suspect that you will have lipid & cholesterol abnormalities as well as they are common in our affluent society. And what is your family history of heart disease? You may have a family history of lipid abnormalities.
Incidentally, that business about Linus Pauling and Vitamin C….I read his first book when it was published in 1970, and at that time I began taking high dose Vitamin C daily, 1000mg+, which I have continued religiously even to this day. Obviously it did not prevent me from developing advanced CAD.
Superior sense of humor, though.
Willis, be just as skeptical of cardiologists as you are of climate scientist. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or get a second opinion. I met my first cardiologist clinician when I was in intensive care suffering from congestive heart failure as a result of myocarditis and pneumonia caused by whooping cough. I had just spent 2 weeks in Indonesia with these medical problems. This first cardiologist kept telling me that I couldn’t have had myocarditis caused by whooping cough because I would have died. He also didn’t believe I had had pneumonia. Then after a couple of days when the confirming pathology tests came back he didn’t believe them and sent fresh blood samples for further tests. He still didn’t believe the results. As he was a little fat man I then told him to get some exercise! He left the practice after I got out of hospital so I got a new cardiologist who naturally put me on different drugs for the residual atrial fibrillation that I had.
I modified the drug dosage and times prescribed by the second cardiologist because they were making me feel ill. So eventually that cardiologist referred me onto a third cardiologist known as an Interventional Electrophysiologist with a note that I was non-complaisant. After vainly trying for two years to get me to have the operation that he specialised in the third cardiologist finally referred me to another cardiologist who did a different (cryogenic ablation) type of procedure that I believed was right for me. He also stated that I was non-complaisant. The fourth cardiologist did the (successful) operation using both femoral veins but the next day argued with me about the cause of my complaint – presumably because he didn’t believe I could live through what I said had happened to me. I therefore got my hospital records sent to him to put him right. After that he returned me to the third cardiologist who now wants to do another echo-cardiogram as if the 3 hours of echo-cardiogram taken from inside the esophagus during the operation wasn’t enough. I refused to have an appointment to have the new echo-cardiogram and I probably wont return to that practice.
So don’t accept without question what cardiologists tell you any more than you would accept without question what climate scientists tell you without question.
Finally, you were lucky to have the stent inserted through your arm. When they do these type of operations through the groin they shave you first. Just before I went under the anesthetic I chatted up the flirtatious nurse who presumably did this and after the operation when I stood in front of a mirror I discovered she had shaved me in the shape of a heart! Touche!
So Willis’ Eagle has a stint. Well it still has wings and can fly and soar. I have a stint, too, and my life has been better since it occurred, but beware the blood thinners they give you. Plavix has been around a long time and is relatively safe. Another one I took for a couple of months nearly killed me. Doctors now reflexively proscribe pills we may not need. I squabbled for two years with my favorite cardiologist (hope you’re reading this Dr. G) about taking Lipitor. He finally won because he finally convinced me that the (small dose) Lipitor had other benefits then reducing cholesterol, a problem I don’t have.
I don’t pray thinking it craven to pray to a God I don’t believe in, but if I did I’d pray for you Willis.
Max Hugoson,
Dr. Davis from Wheat Belly Diet/Track your Plague noticed something similar to what you wrote about people being in good shape (endurance stuff) and they still got heart disease… it turns out that they tend to have Lp(a).
Dave L, you might want to read Wheat Belly Diet and Track your Plaque by Dr. Mike Davis. It changed everything I learned about heart disease and nutrition. I’m very familiar with Pauling’s work on vitamin C. I’m not convinced anymore. Saturated fat such as coconut milk will push your HDL significantly higher (I’ve heard of crazy numbers esp in triple digits!). You need to pay a close attention to two types of LDL, One is harmless large fluffy type and one is dangerous small dense LDL type. It is driven by how high your blood sugar level is 24/7. If it stays high, mostly small LDL type that is directly responsible for plaque build up in the arteries will be produced. Also Vitamin D3 at the right dosage will keep your HDL level up (plus many more all kinds of health benefits). Low fat, high carbs diet is very dangerous! Calculated cholesterol test is totally useless as it cannot accurately measure two types of LDL. You want a blood test that would measure them precisely. Don’t get too hung up on total cholesterol as it is totally useless. Best to pay attention to each type of cholesterol separately. You’ll learn a lot from Dr. Davis’ books/websites. He’s a cardiologist that mainly focus on nutrition instead of drugs if possible. Lp(a) is another story though.
Look at his Facebook page for before and after pictures after going on Wheat Belly Diet – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wheat-Belly/209766919069873?hc_location=stream
We’re living to greater and greater ages, we have more money, and this is driving technological progress.
Great to hear your okay. Please keep in good health. I expect you have many more wonderful stories to share and I look forward to reading them.