Date: Fri 02-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-heart-attack-Brand

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Heart Attack

By Bob Brand

Late on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 12, I had a heart attack. While

sitting at the computer, a feeling of indigestion and upper chest pressure

came over me. Initially, I thought that a sandwich eaten several hours

previously did not agree with my digestive system. I got up, took some

anti-acid liquid but the feeling did not subside. I reclined but could not

shake the feeling. Fortunately my wife was home. When she witnessed almost a

complete loss of facial color and the perspiration, she called 911.

Within five minutes after the call, Kevin, an EMT from the Newtown Ambulance

Association arrived. He immediately checked my blood pressure. Fortunately for

me, he lives in the neighborhood. Within minutes, the ambulance arrived.

Strapped in a chair, I was moved to the ambulance and transported to Danbury

Hospital. John Reed Jr., a medical technician, had been sent ahead from

Danbury Hospital and radioed my symptoms to the emergency unit. Breathing

oxygen, I was given a small, saccharine-sized nitroglycerin tablet. It

dissolved quickly under my tongue. I chewed on baby aspirin. The "nitro"

kicked in quickly and the pain eased almost immediately.

This question is always asked: On a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the worst

pain you ever had, how do you rate the pain experience? I said 8. It seems

that 8 is a popular number in these situations. I told the technicians that I

was feeling fine and they could take me home, even though I still was

experiencing pain in my neck area and lower jaw. They suspected that I was

joking. In addition to a blood sample being taken, my blood pressure was

monitored several times during the 20 minute trip to Danbury.

Arrival At The Hospital

Once in the emergency room, a blood sample was rushed to the lab. The body

produces chemicals (enzymes) that indicate that a heart attack has occurred.

By now, the "nitro" was dripping into a vein and I was inhaling oxygen. I was

feeling better by the minute. While inconclusive, the lab results indicated

that something had happened. I was admitted. To the number of doctors and

nurses present, my story seemed all too familiar.

Contrary to popular myth, hospital food is now surprisingly tasty. My

cardiologist, Robert Jarrett, scheduled an angiogram to be performed by Dr

Larry Fisher. A small tube is inserted into the artery in the arm and

carefully snaked to the heart area. Once in place, X-ray absorbing dye is

injected. Live pictures of the heart are captured on videotape. Blockage of

arteries feeding the heart becomes visible. Lasting about an hour, this test

is practically painless.

On Friday afternoon Dr Jarrett stopped in for a visit. Since he normally makes

medical rounds before 8 am, I knew that he had something more to convey. The

results from the angiogram indicated three blockages in two of the three

arteries feeding blood to the heart, the most serious being a 95 percent

constriction in one artery. Had all three arteries contained blockages, a

heart by-pass would be required. However, my condition could be treated by

balloon angioplast. (A catheter is inserted through an artery starting in the

leg and when the blockage area is found, a balloon is expanded, forcing the

cholesterol buildup into the artery wall.) He scheduled the procedure at Yale

New Haven Hospital for 9:30 am on Saturday morning.

Angioplast operations are performed in just a few areas in Connecticut -

Bridgeport Hospital and Yale New Haven. The good news was that it appears that

I had suffered only a very "minor" heart attack and loss of heart tissue (the

result of loss of oxygen to the heart muscle) appeared to be in the area of

one or two percent.

Off To Yale

At 8 am, a crew from Danbury Ambulance Service started me on the hour long

trip to New Haven. Shortly after 9 am, right after admission, I was talking to

Dr Alan Berger, part of the angioplast team. While over 500,000 angioplasts

are performed each year, he said that after reviewing the videotape, my

situation was "not a slam dunk." Using a sketch pad, he drew a crude diagram

of my situation. Correction of the primary blockage (95 percent closed) area

was more or less routine. However, the other two constrictions were located

where an artery forks. When the balloon expands on one constriction, it will

cut off blood to the tributary artery. (This is not the medical terminology he

used, but you get the idea.) He said that an emergency had arisen and that the

operation would probably be delayed until Sunday.

I was curious to know how the technology can position the balloon into just

the right spot. He said that the tip of catheter has a rounded hook. As they

enter the spaghetti network of arteries, the catheter comes to a branch, they

then carefully rotate the curved point so that it goes down the desired path

as seen using live X-rays. Don't try this at home or try to find a "how to" on

the Net. [LOL]! It takes years to perfect this technique.

To be Continued...

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.clinical-cardiology.org/briefs/9802briefs/cc21-0081.shtml

http://www.heartinfo.org/qalib/qanda/zhinqa21068.htm

http://www.medfacts.com/crdiodoc/medlib.htm

http://www.medfacts.com/crdiodoc/angioplast.htm

(This is the 122th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, Heart Attack -- Part II is the subject on tap. Stay tuned.

Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet

Info for Real People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can

be found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)