I haven’t written an entry in this blog for a long time. But,as the title I chose says, “Writing isTherapy”. If ever I needed therapy the time is now. September has just started as I write this. I need to go back a year and start at the beginning: I will warn you up front: this is going to be a book!
For at least a year I have been having trouble with Angina; chest pain caused by reduced flow of blood to the heart. I was diagnosed with heart disease many years ago. I have taken blood pressure medicine, chloresterol reducing medicine, and blood thinning medicine for a long time. My family history includes my mother dying of sudden heart attack at age 45; her father dying of sudden heart attack at 60, and others in my mom’s bloodline that had heart troubles.
Thankfully I am not one that can ignore things like Angina. And I didn’t. My cardiologist gave me medicine to combat the angina and for more than a year it was under control. I carried nitro pills in my pocket just in case and I went on with my life. As I have written here before, I have health troubles other than my heart too. I have Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT). The CMT has progressed to where I have used a cane to stay upright on uneven terrain and in close quarters, particularly when I have to stand still for any length of time. And as the CMT progressed my mobility decreased.
About a month ago my angina broke through the meds and became a problem for me. My cardiologist scheduled a CT Angiogram to see what was going on, but with the medical procedure backlog that is so prevalent today it was 3 weeks before they could do the test. For me those were a miserable three weeks because I was walking on egg shells trying not to trigger the angina. It also involved anxiety on my part – something I know I should manage better but it was there nonetheless.
I had the CT Angiogram at 10 on a Monday morning. At 2 my Cardiologist called me. She said I was to go directly to the Emergency Room. I needed a more involved, invasive, angiogram and some intervention to fix my problem. By 5 pm my wife Farima and I were at the ER entering the chaotic triage processing and testing, and then the long wait for a bed in the hospital. I was going to be in the hospital for a couple of days.
The next day I had an Angiogram where they went in around my heart and painted my veins and arteries with dye so see exactly what was in there. I was drugged but conscious when the doctor explained I needed heart surgery. She said a stent or two wouldn’t do the trick. She started counting blockages… 1, 2, 3, 4 … Then she said it: I needed quadruple bypass open heart surgery.
CABBAGE 4
As an aside, I like cabbage. I put red cabbage in with my salads to add color and flavor. I like coleslaw. But I’m here to tell you that when you are in a heart catheterization lab you do not want the doctor to start talking about cabbage. You see that is what they call coronary artery bypass grafting – CABG. The number after CABG is how my bypass arteries you need. So I started hearing Cabbage 4 a lot.
The next day was Wednesday. I spent the entire day trying to surrender to the idea that I was going to have quadruple bypass open heart surgery.I read that on average they actually stop the heart completely for 45 minutes while they work on it. I have friends and family who have been through the process. I learned from them that it is takes an incredible amount of determination and persistence to survive the pain of healing, particularly in the first week after the surgery. Of course, being a worrier that was certainly a concern, but I also knew that the survival rate for the surgery is not 100%.
So I told the doctor I wasn’t sure if I wanted to proceed. She explained to me that I really didn’t have too many good options. She wasn’t about to let me leave the hospital without surgery. And if I left against medical advice she gave me a week, maybe two before I had a serious, perhaps fatal, heart attack. Apparently I had the condition cariologists call a “widow-maker”. There are four major arteries in the heart. When they are all blocked bad things happen to good people. I had to have the surgery.
I will write more in the next post. There is much to write to explain to myself and others what i went through. I am three weeks into my recovery and already there are volumes of throughts and memories from this most unusual journey. Stay tuned….