Waiting is part of the public health patient experience. Patience isn’t just a virtue but an inevitability. My parents instilled in me the notion that there will always be someone worse off than you. It bears remembering here. They are welcome to my place in the queue because the truth is, today, I am anxious about the surgery.
Friends have told me that, when they heard I need a quadruple bypass, they did what we do now and Googled the term. I haven’t. I prefer to rely on the bloodless schematic of my heart prepared from the data collected during the angiogram I had a week ago today. The diagram bears as much resemblance to the viscera of my actual heart as the famous London Underground map does to the Victorian twists and turns of the tracks themselves. Looking at my heart map, with its legend of blockages; 80% here, 100% there, 50, 50, 50, 40, 40, it is easy to be as dispassionate about the truth as I would be if I was poring over the electrical wiring diagram of my old Sunbeam motorcycle.
So, you see…I have neatly avoided the videos on YouTube, my theory being that it can only frighten the living bejezuzz out of me. In any case, observing the process will have no lasting benefit to me. It’s not as though I will be called on in the future to assist in an impromptu roadside open-heart surgery ‘because I have experienced it.’ I am counting on being blithely unconscious during the process in any case, so my recollection will be unreliable.
Avoidance is in my nature. I avoided the realization that the pain in my chest would not magically go away. I avoided confronting the truth that taking the blood pressure medicine I had already been prescribed would protect my heart and other organs from damage. Avoidance based on denial was the last thing I needed. The gruesome reality is, had I confronted the issue of my high blood pressure earlier I might not find myself in a hospital bed, being woken at all hours of the night to have blood taken (I have named Lestat the technician who has come several times undercover of dark. He takes great pleasure not only in his work but also announcing, “Ok, Pain coming…now” before sinking his needle into my vein – or somewhere near it.
If you are approaching 40 years of age or have passed that auspicious mark I recommend you visit your doctor to have your heart health checked. It will be a simple procedure. Your blood pressure will be checked. A blood sample will be taken and checked for the state of your cholesterol.
My recommendation is: don’t wait till it is too late.
Impatience might be the virtue you most need now.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
An Off-Beat Idea
A couple of weeks a go I had a heart attack, though I didn't know it at the time. I simply thought it was a more exaggerated version of the chest discomfort I had been experiencing for weeks. When I went to the doctor he diagnosed angina, gave me some medicine and sent me home. That night he called. I was surprised, I thought house calls were a thing of the past past. He was concerned because the results of the blood test he had taken that afternoon had returned and showed I had experienced a heart attack, probably on the weekend - enzymes released into my blood stream told the story (I could imagine one of those CSI animations of the artery wall rupturing and releasing plaque and enzymes into my bloodstream). I should go to the hospital, he said. I felt fine and said I would come see him in the morning. I can't really remember why I chose not to, but lets just say that by Friday that week I had another 'event', this time I didn't take myself to the hospital. I was taken - in the back of an ambulance.
In hospital I waited my turn for an angiogram, a relatively minor procedure involving making a cut in an artery in my wrist, inserting a catheter into into it and feeding the tube up to my chest cavity where a dye is injected that reveals by x-ray where arteries are blocked.
There are usually three outcomes:
1.No heart disease is revealed,
2.Some blocked arteries are shown and can be opened then and there by inserting little balloons with stainless steel mesh 'stents' which expand when the balloon is inflated then stay in place when the tube and balloon are removed, allowing blood to flow through the heart Unrestricted,
3.My case was the final, worst case scenario. Too many serious blockages in all of the wrong places, like intersections. The map they drew me showed blocks of 100% and 80% down to 'minor blockages. of 40%…all of which adds up to a quadruple bypass.
The news shocked me. I am still quite young - mid forties. My reaction was muted, but I couldn't stop a tear rolling from the corner of my eye as I lay there. I worried most of all about frightening my children. My daughter is just nine. My son is 17 and I worried he would be anxious- his mum died of cancer when he was just 4.
The past few days have been quiet and reflective. Waiting in the hospital for news of whether I will be accepted for the quadruple bypass surgery I need (I will find out today - and where I will be placed on the waiting list). My age means I will probably have a lower priority than an older person, but the extent and ongoing pain, even at rest, may indicate a more urgent need. I am philosophical. A part of me is happy to delay - the frightened part, the residual male bullet-proof 'I will be fine' bravado part. Another part of me just wants it over with so I can begin Life 2.0, bypassing the ill effects and getting on with an improved diet and lifestyle. Genetics are a factor too. But there is little I can do about that.
I woke early this morning with a start. I had an idea. For many years I have been, ironically, interested in Men's Health. In 1997 I started an ad agency with a couple of partners and our first major brief was to launch a major cholesterol lowering medicine and to promote a blood pressure tablet for a large multinational drug company. I went on to invent the Family Health Diary advertising programme. So, ignorance is no excuse. I have long known the risk factors for heart disease: 40+…Male…family history. Hitting the jackpot comes as little surprise. A poor diet and not enough activity probably didn't help.
But, back to my idea.
Rather than feeling sorry for myself I'm going to do what I can to help others prevent the need for radical remedies when the alternative is simple and easy to integrate into everyday life.
Pimp My Pump™
My heart will be re-engineered by grafting arteries 'harvested' from my chest wall, arms and legs around my blocked arteries. I had an image in my head of an engine, with tubes and pipes, glistening in the sun. Like the MTV show Pimp My Ride my clapped out heart will have a new lease on life…surgeons are going to Pimp My Pump™
The thing is that radical surgery isn't the only way to achieve a positive result. I want to get the message out to men in their late thirties and forties (and their partners) in a way they can accept and that being aware of heart health and actively taking steps to promote it is far less traumatic than what the next few weeks holds in store for me.
So, stand-by for updates about my plan.
Today I will make some calls to enlist support and help to get the word out. I registered the domain pimpmypump.org this morning - still waiting for the DNS record to populate.
In hospital I waited my turn for an angiogram, a relatively minor procedure involving making a cut in an artery in my wrist, inserting a catheter into into it and feeding the tube up to my chest cavity where a dye is injected that reveals by x-ray where arteries are blocked.
There are usually three outcomes:
1.No heart disease is revealed,
2.Some blocked arteries are shown and can be opened then and there by inserting little balloons with stainless steel mesh 'stents' which expand when the balloon is inflated then stay in place when the tube and balloon are removed, allowing blood to flow through the heart Unrestricted,
3.My case was the final, worst case scenario. Too many serious blockages in all of the wrong places, like intersections. The map they drew me showed blocks of 100% and 80% down to 'minor blockages. of 40%…all of which adds up to a quadruple bypass.
The news shocked me. I am still quite young - mid forties. My reaction was muted, but I couldn't stop a tear rolling from the corner of my eye as I lay there. I worried most of all about frightening my children. My daughter is just nine. My son is 17 and I worried he would be anxious- his mum died of cancer when he was just 4.
The past few days have been quiet and reflective. Waiting in the hospital for news of whether I will be accepted for the quadruple bypass surgery I need (I will find out today - and where I will be placed on the waiting list). My age means I will probably have a lower priority than an older person, but the extent and ongoing pain, even at rest, may indicate a more urgent need. I am philosophical. A part of me is happy to delay - the frightened part, the residual male bullet-proof 'I will be fine' bravado part. Another part of me just wants it over with so I can begin Life 2.0, bypassing the ill effects and getting on with an improved diet and lifestyle. Genetics are a factor too. But there is little I can do about that.
I woke early this morning with a start. I had an idea. For many years I have been, ironically, interested in Men's Health. In 1997 I started an ad agency with a couple of partners and our first major brief was to launch a major cholesterol lowering medicine and to promote a blood pressure tablet for a large multinational drug company. I went on to invent the Family Health Diary advertising programme. So, ignorance is no excuse. I have long known the risk factors for heart disease: 40+…Male…family history. Hitting the jackpot comes as little surprise. A poor diet and not enough activity probably didn't help.
But, back to my idea.
Rather than feeling sorry for myself I'm going to do what I can to help others prevent the need for radical remedies when the alternative is simple and easy to integrate into everyday life.
Pimp My Pump™
My heart will be re-engineered by grafting arteries 'harvested' from my chest wall, arms and legs around my blocked arteries. I had an image in my head of an engine, with tubes and pipes, glistening in the sun. Like the MTV show Pimp My Ride my clapped out heart will have a new lease on life…surgeons are going to Pimp My Pump™
The thing is that radical surgery isn't the only way to achieve a positive result. I want to get the message out to men in their late thirties and forties (and their partners) in a way they can accept and that being aware of heart health and actively taking steps to promote it is far less traumatic than what the next few weeks holds in store for me.
So, stand-by for updates about my plan.
Today I will make some calls to enlist support and help to get the word out. I registered the domain pimpmypump.org this morning - still waiting for the DNS record to populate.
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