M is for Mortality

I ran a marathon a few weeks before my thirtieth birthday.  At that time I ran 10 miles a day and fifteen on weekends. Then I cut back to five a day.  Until I was past 60 I ran five miles five days a week. In my late forties, I would run five miles on the day of a tennis match to get the nerves out.  And then play tennis.

In the year I turned 50 I won five consecutive tennis tournaments on five consecutive weekends and 6 tournaments out of 7.  On most of those weekends I played two back to back matches on a Saturday, and then two back to back matches on a Sunday.  I have been able to go, up until very recently, 90 minutes consecutively on the elliptical at a decent clip.

Whenever I have had my annual physical, the numbers all come back so glowing that the doctors have been, or have pretended to be, surprised at the kind of shape I have been in.  The only medicine I've ever had to take is for blood pressure which I started after I was eligible to receive full social security benefits.

So it was surprising when a few months ago, call it February, maybe March or even April, I started to feel tension on the elliptical machine after only 10 minutes. I'd have to stop, get some water, and start again.  It got so bad that I had to reduce the resistance on the machine.  When I had my annual physical I reported this and the doc felt I should have an EKG. As usual, no problem. Then a stress test, some ambivalent results that suggested I should take another one with a sonogram.  The second stress test made the cardiologist say, hmm, let's do an angiogram.  There looks like a blockage that will require a stent.

This was not great news. It was in some ways good news because I had been scheduled for a hip replacement and, if there was even a little bit of blockage, clearing that would have been a good idea before I went under.

I started thinking about mortality. The doc described the mortality rates as minimal for the procedure, but 2 out of 1000 is still something.

They did the test and while they were poking around and I was feeling fine on the bed as they, an army it seemed like, were looking at a screen I tried to glance at the screen myself.  I felt pretty good so I figured they would come by and say, "guess what, there's not much in there, we can clean this up with a minor procedure."

Did not happen. Head doc comes up to my head and says, "It does not make sense to put a stent in. You are completely blocked in one artery, and nearly completely blocked in another, and 75 % blocked in a third.  We'll need to schedule you for a bypass in a week or so."

They wheel me out. I see a procession of doctors and nurses.  I schedule the bypass for 8/5.  I meet the surgeon. A nurse draws blood and then, to test for some infection, sticks a cue tip up my nostrils in an attempt, it appears, to see if it will come out of my eyeball. Then she comes back forty minutes later to tell me that she used the wrong type of cue tip and has to do it again. The surgeon seems nice. I looked him up and he gets rave reviews.

It seemed surreal, and still does. 

All day Wednesday through today the following Thursday, I think that this is not real. I feel pretty good.  I have lost some weight by design and now weigh what I did ten years ago.  I have not gone back on the elliptical, but gee before I had the angiogram I had been able to go for 45 minutes, having to stop every 9 minutes or so. I'd go for 9, then another 9, then another 9, and then do 18 minutes without a problem. Apparently one's body builds its own routes when everything is stopped up, so I guess I had built my own routes. Otherwise this blog would require some very fancy software to be distributed from my perch in the sky--putting new meaning, I suppose, to content being stored in the cloud.

I have been told by animate objects (as opposed to the internet) that this is a routine procedure and most people do fine. The doctors also said that I am in very good shape and am a prime candidate for doing well. My pulse rate, from all the exercise, is around 50 and often less.

But still, they told me the procedure. They crack open my chest. They stop your heart. They create a detour for your arteries.  And you feel good as new,. Except for the cracked chest. And the fact that you cant resume stressful activities for 12 weeks.

Sobering for someone who thought he would live forever.

I find that I am irascible.  Could be the new medicine. Could be the anticipation of being cracked open with something probably like an axe. On Sunday we had a spat. It comes with the territory of sharing space.  (I was right of course) I became very tense. For about two hours I sat stiff and felt angry.  (Did not help that the Red Sox played lousy that evening--vu den)  Cant be good for someone who is blocked up to stew. I'm making light of it, but I really did tense up. Nothing went shooting down my arm, but I knew this was not good. Not good to feel this way, and not a good sign that something minor could--I hope because of the blockage--make me so upset.  I'm usually a sweet fellow.  Not a mollusk by any means but, I've been told, fun to be around. Not lately.

They said this buildup has happened over several years and I try to think about manifestations.  I read on the internet (good to scan the internet if you want to, repeatedly, get punched in the stomach) that one manifestation of clogged arteries is high blood pressure. Well, it is possible then that the blood pressure meds giveth and taketh away. Yes, they reduced my blood pressure, but they masked the reason for the elevation.

The good news is that this is 2019 and not 1965 or 1945.