Hereditary
So as I write this blog, it is the day before I go to the cardiovascular surgeon for a consultation. There is a lot to talk about so please forgive me for this long blog. First off, how important is your heart? Extremely important. You can say the brain is more important but that doesn’t matter, you can’t survive without both. The heart pumps blood throughout your body. Carrying oxygen and nutrients. Of course all important for us to live. The heart is an involuntary muscle, meaning it’s a muscle that pumps by itself. It’s not a muscle that you can flex when you want to like a bicep.
So, early March, my wife and I saw this house in a nice town and fell in love with it. Our house, at the time meant a lot to me. As an immigrant buying a house in America is part of my American dream. I did it by myself and it was it a good town. Had some great neighbors too. But this new house crossed off a lot on my wife and I’s check list. Anyway we were in rush to sell our house now and buy the new house. Long story short, it took 3 months for things to happen and during those 3 months, absolute stress. Side note, make sure when you do this, in a rush or not. Talk to each other, make sure your spouse is in the loop and make sure you both understand everything. So fast forward to June 13th, we sold the house old house and closed on the new house. But something wasn’t right.
It really started after we sold the old house but I started to get chest discomfort on my left side but chest pain on my right. First started with workouts, nothing crazy, light cardio then would happen when I did more intense workouts of course. But what got me really worried, it would happen when I wasn’t working out. I thought maybe it was anxiety. I mean after all the stress I was under for 3 months it was finally catching up to me. At the end of June we were going to Jamaica for vacation, my wife and mom forced me to go to the Emergency Room to get checked out the Monday before we left. Checked out just fine. Went on vacation, the chest discomfort didn’t really happen much that I can remember so I thought all I needed was Rest and Relaxation. But when I came back to reality, so did the symptoms.
I held out for a bit longer and tried to maybe do breathing exercises here and there because I’m thinking it’s anxiety and not my heart at all. My blood pressure has always been on the higher side but nothing really crazy, crazy. When I went to the ER the doctor said stop checking it, constant checking could elevate it. Anyway at the end of august I tried just googling a cardiologist near me. And made an appointment.
Dr Joseph Shaktzes, was the doctor I was given. Side note, he knew some of my clients and the medical assistant knew my wife. It’s a small world. Be nice to people, you never know who they may know. Anyway great experience with both of them. He put me on a stress test. I was running just fine but at a certain point my chest got tight. I told him and I kept going. After we were down he expressed concerns that I need to go for further testing. An echocardiogram and CT scan of my heart. So I did what he asked. After the appointment though I contacted my family on my dad and moms side on WhatsApp to see if we have any heart problems. My moms side said no besides diabetes and high blood pressure. BUT my dad side, two died from heart attacks, someone had a stent put in and another had a triple bypass. That was my fault for sure, being 36 years old and not knowing all this. Few weeks later, I went to go see the doctor with the findings.
I haven’t heard anything after each test so no news is good news, right? I went in somewhat positive to the follow up appointment. I was in the waiting room and it was taking longer than usual. Eventually I went in and my blood pressure was taken by the medical assistant, 140/90. Yes that is high. But what do you expect I’m starting to get nervous. So he came in and explained to me he was in his office trying to decide how to explain everything to me. I’m young and active, what could be wrong. Good news first, the echocardiogram showed my heart is working fantastic. The CT scan showed that even though my blood pressure runs little high at times no damage at all, no thickening of the arterial walls. But he told me I have blockage.
He explained to me this is hereditary and there’s pretty much nothing I could have done to prevent it. He also explained that if you did happen to have a heart attack in the area of the blockage it wouldn’t kill me but it would of course hurt a lot. It isn’t like Bob Harper, a personal trainer himself, who had a heart attack but the area where he had it is called the “Widow Maker.” The lowest survival rate to have a heart attack. Strangely even, I wasn’t upset or anything. He went on talking but I just wanted to know how do we fix things. I have a family to consider and I want to be there for my little man aka my little gremlin. On a lighter note, he said he’s going to present my case to a conference, so I’ll be kind of famous, no big deal. This is a unique case.
So besides some medications I need to take, he recommended doing an angiogram and possibly getting stents. The angiogram is just to make sure double check the amount of blockage, according to the CT scan, one is 30%, another 70% and the last 90%.
To be honest, I am feeling positive about all this. It could be worse, a lot worse. There are a lot of cases of young people even younger than me dying. Plus early detection, makes a big difference. So moral of this story, listen to your body and talk to your physician. You only have one body and one life to live. Enjoy it and take care of it.
