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February 08, 2005

Quadruple Bypass

In 1991 at the age of 49, I had a heart attack and an angiogram that showed "1" blocked artery and it was opened with balloon angioplasty. At that time I smoked 2 1/2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I weighed 108 pounds when I was admitted to the hospital with the heart attack. I stayed in the hospital 5 days. Mostly because the doctor could not do the angiogram until the 4th day and then I went home the next day. The doctor told me that my biggest problem was smoking and if I would just give up cigarettes I shouldn't have any more problems as I only had one blocked artery and the others were fine.

I have not smoked since I left the hospital in 1991. I gained 40 pounds the first year after I quit smoking. I weighed more than I ever had in my life including two pregnancies. I took mevacor (statin drug) and an aspirin everyday. Also a multi-vitamin, b-complex, omega 3 and coq10. I went back to work two weeks after I left the hospital and had no other heart problems until 2002.

I retired in 1997 and we sold our home and bought a 5th wheel travel trailer and new truck. We planned to travel until we got too old to drive. We continued to have annual physicals and my mevacor was changed to lipitor in 1999. We were liviing our dream and couldn't have been happier.

In April 2002, I was scheduled to have day surgery to correct sagging upper eyelids. It was a very minor procedure. I had an ekg the day before the surgery and the plastic surgeon said the ekg was abnormal and showed ischemia. He could not do the surgery until I saw a cardiologist. My primary physician referred me to a cardiologist and he saw me and ordered a stress test. I could not get the stress test until June so I just decided to wait and we went to New Mexico for the summer. While in New Mexico, we hiked in the mountains 3 or 4 times a week at 7,000 ft altitude and would hike 3 to 5 miles each day. I also walked in and out of Carlsbad Caverns that summer. In September, I scheduled the stress test. The test showed restricted blood flow to the lower part of my heart. The cardiologist said I needed an angiogram. I was angry over the results of the stress test, the cancellation of the eye surgery and just went into melt down. I got so stressed it made me sick. I was in the hospital with stomach pains that I thought might also be chest pains. The cardiologist scheduled the angiogram and told me that I was in excellent condition and he thought maybe I had another blocked artery and he would put in a stent and I would be home the next day. I agreed to the angiogram. That test showed extensive blockage in 6 arteries. The worst was 95% and the best one was 50%. The cardiologist said he could not believe it. I did not have any symptoms and if a blood clot were to develop in any of those arteries I would have a massive heart attack and probably not survive it. The surgeon came to my room and said pretty much the same thing and explained in detail how he would do the surgery and what I could expect. With that much blockage both doctors were sure I would feel much better once I had good blood flow again.

I had a quadruple bypass on October 2, 2002. I stayed in the hospital 3 more days and went home with oxygen as my oxygen level was too low. Two weeks later I started cardiac rehab. I was uncomfortable most of the time and very unhappy that I needed the surgery after I had thought I had done all the right things to prevent it. At 6 weeks I was released from cardiac rehab and told that I had done excellent. Awesome is the way they described my progress. The cardiologist also said he was amazed. I did get my weight down to around 130 pounds from about 145 and really did feel better about that. I got back in clothes that I liked to wear and started exercising more.

In December, we again started on our travels and I was feeling pretty good most of the time. In January I started having chest pains that were severe and constant. The cardiologist said it was Dressler's syndrome and gave me pain medication for it. The pains lasted until February of 2005 and then fortunately just quit. I have no idea why it started or what caused it to go away. When I saw the cardiologist all my tests seemed to be great. He told me he was amazed. I did ask about the feeling better stuff with this improved blood flow and he just looked at me. He said you do feel good don't you and I explained that I still had pain often and didn't feel any different than I had before the surgery. I certainly did not feel better as everyone thought that I would. After the first year, I just decided that it was as good as it gets and just try to live with it. I did wonder at times if I made the right decision to have the surgery as I now had a numbness over my left breast where the mammary gland was used for one of the bypasses and my left leg where a vein was removed still swelled and ached and felt numb. All of this was explained to me as normal for the type of surgery I had and might never go away. So to me I was actually in worse shape after the surgery than before but I was the only one that thought so.

This October, 2004, I got a sore throat and went to my regular doctor. He gave me predisone for 6 days. I took 6 tablets the first day, then 5 the next day, etc. On the third day, I had really bad chest pains and thought I might be having a heart attack as the pain was so intense and happened suddenly. It was not a heart attack but the predisone probably caused my heart to cramp. The pain came and went about 3 times and then did not come back. I went to the hospital and the next day I had a thallium stress test. The test showed restricted blood flow to the lower part of my heart. The doctor wanted to do an angiogram and said he would probably have to put in a stent. Now I had already been down that road so I have for now refused the angiogram as I am terrified that I will be told again that I have extensive blockage and need bypass surgery. For me, that would mean living the rest of my life wondering if each day will be my last. I would never have bypass surgery again. It messed up my mind, my emotions and didn't seem to help my physical condition any. I am a worrier and if I knew I had more blockage I would be eaten up with stress again. It is best for me to just go on and hope that's not the case.

I would maybe believe it might be minor if I hadn't been told the exact same thing before the bypass surgery. My husband and the doctors say its common to have one of the bypasses close up and I should have the angiogram. They don't seem to understand that saying that to me 2 years ago and changing my life drastically is not something I can forget and just say oh, this time it will be different. I think once again the doctors will be very surprised and then tell me I need this surgery again. I would not live over the trauma of it. Today I will not even have the minor eye surgery because I have to be put to sleep and I am very afraid of that.

I do take my medications everyday, eat low fat food, exercise regularly and actually feel better than most of my friends and family say they feel so I am lucky in that regard. Mentally I worry all the time about my health and wish I had never gone to any doctor. For me, life would have been better had I never known I had blocked arteries and had never had bypass surgery. I know we are all different and in my case they should have let nature takes it course. Even if that meant that I had a massive heart attack and did not survive. Two years of that not happening but now I have some blockage again is almost too devastating for me to live with each day. Some days I just wish it would all end and I would never, ever have to think about it again. I would like to just let it go and I did that pretty well after the first year but looking back my not worrying for a year was a very short time.

Posted by hdiaries at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)