Heart Awareness
February is American Heart Health Awareness month. And if you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I have a particular interest in this awareness. It is ironic how long I have actually been involved with cardiac awareness and advocacy, even back when I was not aware who I might end up doing it for.
The picture in the lower left corner is me, as a high school senior in November of 1982. Our school was holding its annual American Heart Association fundraiser, a jump-rope-athon, which was to comprise of teams to jump rope for a period of three hours to raise money for the AHA. The event was to be held toward the end of the school day, until one parent, that was ONE PARENT complained to the school administration being held during school hours, who then also raised concerns, leading to the cancelling of the event. That is, until I approached the organizer, and told her that I was willing to stay after school hours to complete the event on my own. I had already raised money, and I felt I needed to complete the task. I did not have any team at this point, so when cleared by the nurse, I jumped rope for three hours straight, raising money for the American Heart Association. It was a good thing I had a couple days after to recover because my legs were not happy with me the next day.
Cardiac disease does run in my family. I am at least aware of that. And it hit pretty hard one day, when my father was at work, where he had a very physcial job, and was dealing with a client, who happened to be a paramedic, at the right place, at the right time. My dad was complaining at that moment of really bad indigestion, really bad, painful. The paramedic had my dad sit, and realized he was witnessing a heart attack and immediately took action. That quick response likely saved my father’s life, which responded in a couple of stents being placed in arteries once at the hospital. More importantly, it gave my dad more time, time that he would eventually get to see that momentous time, when I myself would become a dad, twice, with his granddaughters.
I was shocked to hear that his main symptom was “indigestion.” All I had heard previously was the excrutiating pain. It was not a surprise that he could have had a heart attack between his life-long smoking habit, love of fatty and fried foods, and high stress lifestyle. But I would soon learn, there was much to realize when it came to symptoms of a heart attack, a lot of symptoms, and even some different between men and women.
Sure, a common symptom is the chest pain or tightness, a real hard pressure, or perhaps a pain radiating in the left arm. You could have pain elsewhere like in the jaw, neck or abdomen. Nausea and indigestion are also warning experienced by some having a heart attack. Sweating and dizziness can also be symptoms.
Men and women can experience any of the above symptoms of a heart attack. It seems though that there is a difference between how each handles the situation when it happens. Women are more likely to attribute these symptoms to other possible causes such fatigue, arthritis, diabetes, where men are more likely to try to just push through it, much as I did as I discussed in my story “CABG – Not Just A Green Leafy Vegetable”, the link at the top of this page.
Of course my story with heart disease is a bit more complicated and uncommon as my situation was caused by my cancer treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma thirty-six years ago, resulting in a double bypass for a “widow maker” blockage in April of 2008, I was forty-two years old. And that brings me to the next part of this post.
Yesterday was Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day. It was over three years ago, that I had my third heart surgery, to replace my damaged aortic valve via TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement), which as you can guess, the repair was done through my leg to my heart. While this is now a fairly common procedure with a much faster recovery time than going the old open heart, ten years ago, because of my Hodgkin’s treatment history, I would not have been an option for this.
This is a replica, actual size, of my current aortic valve. And the really cool part about this, if this needs to be replace, it is large enough, to allow a smaller one to be “dropped” inside of my current valve. Fascinating, nerdy, amazing.
Heart awareness is just that, making sure that you are aware of when things do not feel right, or you see or hear someone not feeling right. I can count, now using both hands, how many times I have picked out friends and fellow long term survivors, who ended up having a similar “widow maker” condition as me, demanding that they go to the emergency room right away, as time could make a difference. As my cardiologist told me with my original situation, “it was not a question if you were going to die, but when. And that fact that it took you four months of having symptoms to do anything about it, you are the luckiest SOB on this planet.”
I get it, no one wants to go to the Emergency Room and feel embarrassed. But the truth is, better to be told that you are okay by the doctors, or to be at the right place at the right time, getting the necessary medical treatment STAT (that’s medical lingo for NOW!).
My daughters almost lost me in 2008, they are more than aware of that. And I have lived each day after that for them. They have friends that have lost their fathers, two due to heart disease. The last thing I would ever want is for them to experience that heartache and loss themselves. And I have gotten to experience so much more in these last sixteen-plus years, and hopefully more to come.
Paul's Heart 