About that thing in London…
The scene had such a dreamlike quality that I should’ve known something was amiss.
Ten of us were trying to catch a train out of London. We were running upstairs to locked gates. We were streaming through wide and extensive corridors only to find empty platforms. Finally, we reached the main part of the station and sprinted to the train. I felt this intense pain in my chest, as if something enormous was sitting on it. I doubled over, trying to catch my breath, and I saw everyone running ahead to get the train. I wondered, “Is this what having a heart attack feels like?”
What did I do when experiencing classic symptoms of heart failure? I ran to catch up with the others.
We missed that train, but it gave me a chance to catch my breath. The pain subsided and I lived. We found another train, and a few days later we got on a plane. Back in Suffield, I stepped on the scale and discovered an extra ten pounds of motivation to resume an exercise regimen. In the middle of a mild warmup, the chest-crushing episode returned.
What did I do when visited with abnormal chest pain? I rested and resumed the warmup. This scenario repeated multiple times, every day for about two weeks. After experiencing chest pain from walking the dogs, I decided to mention this unusual pain to my wife, who promptly told me to go to the emergency room. No, I’m fine. At least, she said, talk to your brother, a cardiologist. I did, and he told me to go to the emergency room.
What did I do with the professional advice I was given. I went to work.
I exercise daily, don’t smoke, live a pretty healthy lifestyle and ten extra holiday pounds notwithstanding, am not overweight. Whatever I was experiencing, I thought, was probably related to some respiratory virus.
At least, my brother said, make an appointment with a cardiologist, which I did — on my day off. Even after spiking an abnormal EKG (electrocardiogram), failing the stress test walking to the stress test, being rushed to the emergency room and having an emergency angiogram, I still believed things were way overblown.
I was wrong. I had a “99 percent blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery,” aka “the widowmaker.” Shortly after finding the blockage, they put in a stent, handed me a handful of medications and a heart-friendly diet, and sent me home.
That whole scene in London? That WAS a heart attack. The only reason it wasn’t one of those chest-clutching, knock-you-out-cold heart attacks was due, according to my cardiologist, to corollary arteries branching out from that main artery from obsessively working out every day for twenty years. She said the average person suffering that kind of blockage dies on that train platform.
So, what did we learn from this episode, boys and girls?
Yes, when you experience chest pain, you should go to the emergency room. Yes, don’t assume after a chest-crushing episode that if you feel better that you actually are better. And, yes, you should listen to your wife.
Mostly, though, don’t believe just because you project a positive scenario that you’re going to get one. Sometimes, we have it all wrong.