Cath as cath can

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Over a decade ago, I had a 'grabber'. A heart attack, or MI. It was small, fortunately, and didn't knock off much heart muscle at all. I had angioplasty and two stents placed, kept my blood pressure under control, improved my blood sugar control tremendously, and lowered my cholesterol, including my LDL, to unheard-of low numbers. I exercised regularly.

And this resulted in nice, normal annual stress tests.

Until the day before Christmas 2007.

On that day, I failed my stress test. Oh, I felt fine, but this time, at maximum exercise and heart rate, there were subtle changes, that weren't present the year before.

So yesterday I went off to the cath lab. Whee.

Summary: the old stents were in place, and those areas were wide open. As was most of my coronary anatomy. But I had 3 new lesions, ranging from 90-95% blocked, in 3 widely varied spots. All were easily opened with a balloon, and stents were placed. All while I watched on the monitor.

My cardiologist (the same one who took care of me over a decade ago) says just keep doing the same thing, and hopefully these new ones will last as long as the old ones have.

I'm actually pretty relieved. I feared I'd have diffuse disease that would not be amenable to either angioplasty or bypassing.

And I managed to get this all done over the holidays! Only missing one day of work! Boy, am I dumb with my scheduling, or what?

But I'm glad it is done, and it took only 29 hours in the hospital to fix what used to be a very complicated problem and repair. And most of that time was spent watching the Discovery Channel, or the Futurama marathon on one of the Cartoon channels.

Ain't technology wonderful?

Happy New Year!

[Faruiza]

Glad to hear you're on the mend! Ain't technology wonnerful?
And yeah, you really need to rethink your scheduling accumen.
Happy New Year!

[Mona Lisa Simpson]

Happy Holidays, and congrats on winning "Lifes Second Chance Lottery" a second time!

Also glad you were able to get it done without cracking the chest. You know what it entails... or maybe you dont. I only THOUGHT I did. My dad had a quadruple bypass this summer, and while the sugery went off without a hitch, the stress on the bod and the whole emotional aftermath is still observable six months later. I realized on Christmas day that while Dad is doing very well... he isn't 100% well yet. But on all measurable scales, EKGS, stress tests, B/P, blood lipids, etc he's the picture of health.

Anyway, not to hijack or be a drag. Congrats to you, take care of yourself and here's to a non occluded new year for you!

[GingerOfTheNorth]

I hope your heart feels better now, Doc. Now drop some weight and start exercising.

:D ;)

[3acresandatruck]

Ouch! Five stents now! I'm glad it worked out for you, without having another MI. Did you get plain or medicated stents? You have to admit, the cardiac cath process has come a long way in the last 19 years. They're still no fun, but my first one was almost nightmarish. (Still better than getting opened up for a bypass.)

Meanwhile, like your doctor said, keep eating right and exercising.

[teela brown]

I'm glad it went well, doc. It's comforting to know that if this is in the cards (hah!) for me eventually, the technology is in place to make it a much easier ordeal than it used to be.

Keep getting better. I hope espresso isn't one of the things your cardiologist is steering you away from!

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Also glad you were able to get it done without cracking the chest. You know what it entails... or maybe you dont.
Oh, I do. I was assisting in CABG surgeries back in the early '80s. And since then, I've seen many of my patients and a few of my family members come back from them, usually slowly but surely.

So I expect your dad will get there.

And Ginger, I have been exercising! I used the nordic trak until I got rotator cuff problems in my shoulders, put over 12,000 miles on that stupid air-dyne bike until I got sick of it, then moved on over to my treadmill, which works great! I can even play Paper Mario on the Wii on it!

If I only didn't have this weakness for 7 year old cheddar cheese and jalapeno summersausage sandwiches..................

And these stents were medicated. My earlier ones were put in back before medicated stents (in the US anyway).

[eleanorigby]

They didn't replace the old stents?

Anyhoo, glad to see you're doing fine. Sometimes modern medicine truly can be a miracle. (I thought there would be something "House" -like when I opened this thread!).

[Baker]

Really, really glad to see you came through fine.

You know, it's tales like these that make me glad I live here and now. The "Good Old Days" never were, in my opinion.

Back then, the OP, or my father, might be dead. Back then, children died of all sorts of preventable diseases. My maternal great grandmother bore six children, and only three lived to adulthood. Not so unusual. In the "Good Old Days" children were much less likely to be believed if they said "Uncle Harry" or "Daddy" were messing around with them. Back then, I might be dead, or dying, because of kidney problems. Now I'm okay.

I like antibiotics, open heart surgery, air conditioning, and women's rights. I'd like to visit the past, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there.

Pant, pant. I'll get off of my soapbox now. And once again, QtM, I'm glad to hear everything went well. When are we going to hear some more amusing workplace stories from you?

[Encinitas]

I prescribe more Marmite in your diet!

[picunurse]

My friend, I'm so glad you caught it early.
Schedules be damned! Sooner is better. You have an obligation to stay healthy, we need you here. :)

[silenus]

If I only didn't have this weakness for 7 year old cheddar cheese and jalapeno summer sausage sandwiches.

But ask yourself, is a life without them really worth living?


Glad you made it through ok. I'd hate to have to find another source for my garlic sausage. :D

[Kerrigan]

Glad to hear it all went well. One of my patients the other night was asking me how they fixed her heart in the cath lab a few days before. After I explained it to her in simple terms, I thought, "That's so cool."

I've been working with heart patients for almost a year, and I'm still not over that. Maybe I won't be.

[Santo Rugger]

Grabber. You docs are too much, with all your medical lingo!

Glad to hear you're doing alright, but you're right, you should have scheduled it so you could have had a few more days off. ;)

[bbs2k]

I knew you were being smart and taking care of yourself, but it's good to hear stories about it too.




But ask yourself, is a life without them really worth living? ::Sells away 5 years of his young life so silenus and Quadgop can keep posting::