At the age of 35, my husband had a heart attack. He is not over weight. He has a relatively active lifestyle. He does not like eating red meat. He does not drink. He does not smoke.
About 4 years back at a routine free health check offered at his work place, we had found out that his cholesterol levels were high. We knew that high cholesterol runs in his family, so for about a year after that we were very careful about following a low cholesterol diet.
And then as our family started to grow and the work pressure increased and yada yada yada, we let things slip by. During the next 3 years, due to some reason or the other, he missed the free health check at his office. And we arrogantly thought that we are too young to go schedule an annual health check with a doctor on our own (we didn’t even have a doctor!). What we did not realize in our arrogance was that, unknown to us cholesterol levels in his blood kept creeping up and plaque kept clogging up his arteries.
And then one day, I received a call from him. From the hospital. “You won’t believe what happened to me today”, he said in a weak effort to ease me into the news that he may be having a heart attack. You would think I’d have broken out in cold sweat, or that blood had rushed out of my face, or something, when he finally got around to telling me that he was in a hospital with a possible heart attack. But none of that happened. I just went back to my cube, attended a couple of meetings like I was supposed to and went on to pick up our kid from the day care. We picked up dinner on the way and we went to the hospital. The news just didn’t sink in. It had to be a big mistake. He was just 36, for crying out loud. And strong as a bull! The doctors were just being cautious and holding him at the hospital overnight because of his family history. They would run him through a stress test the next day and send him back home.
There was no stress test the next day since later blood tests showed elevated enzyme levels. Which meant it was a lot more likely that he was actually having a heart attack and his heart would not be able to withstand a stress test! Instead, an investigative procedure was scheduled. During the procedure, the cardiologist found out that one of his arteries was 99% clogged and another one was 40% clogged. The cardiologist ended up putting 4 stents to open up the one that was 99% clogged. Instead of going back home as I had expected, my husband developed an internal bleeding in his stomach a few hours after the procedure and we ended up spending the next week or so in the hospital, 3 of it in the ICU.
After coming back home, we still had one more scare before putting the worst of it behind us. It was exactly a week after we had got back. Sudenly, there were strong symptoms of another heart attack — this time more acute than the first time. We rushed to the emergency room. After a lot of head scratching, the doctors finally concluded that it was the inflammation of the pericardium from the procedure for putting in the stent.
It has been several months now, and I still sometimes can’t believe it happened to us! My husband is healthy now, and back to functioning as normal, which makes it harder to believe any of it ever happened. He has an old world “tough guy” personality and does not like making a big deal about it or talk about it. But, I need to remember that I cannot let my guard down. Ever again. We need to eat healthier. We need to be more active. We need to do what it takes to keep that cholesterol out of his arteries.
This website is my effort to get over the denial, to learn some of the facts about cholesterol and heart disease, and to help increase awareness about the need for maintaining normal cholesterol levels.