I was out shoveling snow for a couple of hours this morning.  Our driveway is two cars wide, 100 feet long and there was about eight inches of overnight accumulation.  When I began shoveling and cleaning off the cars the temperature was seven degrees but it felt like minus ten as a result of a stiff wind.  

Nonetheless, I feel quite well after my shoveling workout, especially now that I've had a hot shower, lunch and a bottle of beer.  Did I mention that I'll be 61 years old in ten days?  

It had also snowed overnight on this date 25 years ago.  Unfortunately, I was unable to go out and shovel on that particular morning because a couple of nurses were in the process of attaching me to a monitoring device in the ICU.  They were pretty sure that I had suffered a heart attack at home the previous evening -- a fact that I had denied, attributing my sickness, instead, to a 24-hour bug and over-exerted chest muscles.

I would have stayed at work that day and perhaps gotten sicker or died had a business associate not convinced me to call my doctor an hour or so before being placed in the ICU.

"Don't get depressed or stressed-out over this heart attack that you've survived," my cardiologist told me as I lay in yet another hospital bed post-cardiac catheterization two weeks after my week's stay at the first hospital.  "You've got one-and-a-half artery disease -- pretty common," he continued.

I looked puzzled and was rolling my eyes in disgust so Dr. Edwards kept right on talking.

"That means one completely blocked artery -- with damage, of course, to the surrounding muscle tissue -- and another one that's about 50% blocked.  Fortunately for you the main heart artery still looks pretty good, so I won't recommend bypass surgery at this time.  But it's always an option if things get worse."

"Wow, lucky me," I answered sarcastically.

"Hey Ed,  if you can hold out for couple of years -- quit smoking, lose weight, lower your cholesterol, start an exercise program, avoid losing your temper -- they'll have balloon surgery perfected by then."

"Balloon surgery?" I asked.  "What the heck is that?"

"They've been experimenting with catheters like the one we just used to inject the contrast material for the x-ray movies we made of your heart damage," Doctor Edwards replied.  "But instead of a dye injector at the end of the catheter it will carry a tiny balloon that can be inflated to expand a severely blocked artery."

Fast forward 25 years.  I never had surgery of any kind -- not even one of those balloon procedures that became so commonplace right on my doctor's predicted schedule.  Most probably, this was the result of doing nearly everything the doctors had suggested in 1985.

I lost 55 pounds in the first year after the heart attack and have managed to keep it off by changing the content of my diet (I still have a very large appetite and consume quite a bit of food) and adding more exercise to the mix.  I quit smoking.  I even went vegetarian a year later in an effort to lower my cholesterol after the recommended lean meats, poultry and fish failed to do the trick. 

As you may have noticed, my fight-or-flight reflex is still a bit of a problem.  I am the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, however, compared to the way I was before the heart attack.  Actually, the instinct to fight rather than flee may have enhanced my disease-fighting ability.  Depression and non-activism are not at all helpful to heart disease.

In any case, God answered my prayers and has given me the power to live with, if not overcome, heart disease.  I sincerely hope that my writing today will give others the encouragement they need to overcome or try to prevent their own health problems. 

If you're wondering how even a compliant, health-conscious "heart patient" can shovel snow (chest pain and symptom free) in the coldest weather, there is a real explanation.  It's called collateral circulation which, in short, is the body's ability to create alternate routes for the flow of blood through the heart to compensate for blocked vessels.  CC is a natural form of bypass surgery that is thought to be the result, in large part, of aerobic exercise that both strengthens heart muscle and requires it to find ways to deal with the exercise-increased blood flow.

My own collateral circulation was confirmed a few years ago when I was brought in for a 20-years-later cardiac catheterization.  My current cardiologist was unhappy with the results of a thallium stress test he had ordered around the time that he took me on as a new patient.  We now know that the test result appeared abnormal because of the large number of alternate routes my blood now takes to nourish and oxygenate the healthy parts of my heart.

A day at the Cath Lab confirmed that 20+ years of "clean living" can, in fact, reverse some of the more serious effects and symptoms of heart disease.  While the cardio-surgeon was fully prepared to insert expandable stents into any number of blocked arteries, he was gleeful in his report that he had never seen "a road map of collateral circulation" quite like the one he had documented during my procedure. 

Of course, most of his subjects are much older than 35 when they have their heart attacks.  Even compliant heart patients rarely get a follow-up cardiac catheterization 20 years or more years after cleaning up their acts.  Sadly, the majority of heart disease patients are less than compliant.

Can you imagine how healthy your heart could be if you cleaned up your act before you have a heart attack?  We're in the midst of snowstorm season and I'm ready, willing and able to shovel.  Are you?

     click on the heart

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